1) Rape has been legalized in Afghanistan. Here is a link with a subjective overview of the law: http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=3613
- How should the US respond taking into account:
- The US may not have the capacity to confront all the atrocities that happen around the world, so how can the country choose?
- The US may or may not be in a position in which it can be diplomatically effective.
- Has the lack of official recognition of countries had the desired impact in the past?
- What are the options?
2) Is our target of Afghanistan a wise one considering Russia's experience and our own naivete in Vietnam?
3) Topic of your choice
Good questions, Nora.
ReplyDeleteOne doubts the protective value of statutory prohibitions to rape. Does a rapist in any nation check the local statutes before he acts? Not likely. The tragedy here is in the preexisting cultural values Afghanistan has codified, rather than any loss of protection for the women who had none prior to the enactment of the law.
How then can the U.S. alter the culture? Military action certainly has an impact on the culture, but it is a blunt instrument virtually guaranteed to activate the law of unintended consequences. Diplomacy, on the other hand, would seem intrinsically too soft-edged to excise any deeply rooted offensive element in a culture. In any event, both the military and the diplomats operate on a nation-to-nation level, and are thus unlikely to effectively address an essentially person-to-person level problem.
The only answer here lies in equillibrating power between the genders in Afghanistan. The first question is whether there are enough men in the society who would be willing to share power with women, and enough women who would accept it if it were available. Then, the matter of how to bring these people together as an effective force for action in their society would arise, and it would be a very difficult one in a society that rigidly segregates male and female.
There may be two pinpoints of light in the blackness of the outlook here. They would be in the realms of education and religion. It might be possible to influence moderate educators to see the protection and intellectual development of the girls in their schools as reflecting on their honor as men. The girls and their parents would probably need to be convinced at the outset that education would make them better wives and mothers. Clearly, this is starting from a male-centered point of view, but one must plant one's seeds in the soil on which one stands. Should these rather small changes take hold, it would then be a matter of letting a growing cadre of literate women and men accustomed to interacting with them fulminate. It might take generations, but eventually, these men and women of Afghanistan will take hold of the society and reshape it as they see fit.
In the area of religion, it might be simpler to effect change. Knowing that true Islam values kindness and generosity, it could only be very helpful to have well educated clerics truly understanding the religion they preach. Perhaps it would be advisable in the short term to support scholarship among the religious leadership outside of the country. Ultimately it would be a marvelous development if a respected Muslim university were to be established in Afghanistan, educating the native population and drawing the enlighted elements of the Muslim world into the country.
The unavoidable conclusion here might be that we should get Madison Avenue on the problem, then throw a lot of money at it. Why not, though? What might happen if as much talent and money went into changing ideas about the role of women in Afghanistan as goes into influencing beer brand preferences during a single Super Bowl broadcast? Could be pretty amazing.