Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN, Munir Akram, said that it is part of Pashtun culture that women should be kept at home. Assuming that is so, should such regressive cultural customs be respected or suppressed?
In this connection I may mention an incident. When some persons told General Napier, a British army officer in India, that it was their custom to burn widows (sati), he replied that it was his country’s custom to hang such persons as murderers.
While many social customs should be respected, many others, such as discrimination against Dalits in India must not be tolerated and should be forcibly suppressed.
When the great Turkish leader Mustafa Kemal (1881-1938) assumed power in Turkey he realised that one of the reasons for Turkey’s backwardness, for which it was kicked around by European powers (who called Turkey ‘The Sick Man of Europe’) was the widely prevalent custom of keeping women uneducated, veiled, and segregated. So he ordered all women to be compulsorily educated and desegregated.
In a speech in 1923 he said, “Women are the pillars of society and wellspring of the nation. They must bring up, and educate, strong new generations, but they can only do this if they themselves are enlightened. Turkish women must therefore be well educated, and capable of gaining respect in society.” He pointed out that without equality between men and women, national progress was impossible.
This is in sharp contrast to the policy of the Taliban, who are bigoted idiots, of keeping women uneducated, veiled, and at home.
For its progress, Afghanistan needs a King Amanullah (who was king of Afghanistan from 1919 to 1929), who tried to emancipate Afghan women.
People of Afghanistan and not foreigners should overthrow these feudal minded idiots, and set up a modern government like that created by Mustafa Kemal, or like that envisaged by King Amanullah. As the great Tamil poet Subramania Bharathi (1882-1921) wrote in his poem ‘Murasu’ :
“Kangal Irandinil ordrai kuththi/ Kaatchi Kedutthidalamo/ Pengal arivai valarthal, vaiyyam/Pedamai attridum kaaneer”
“Out of the two eyes, if you pierce and destroy one, are you not spoiling your own vision? In fact if you educate the women, the backwardness which grips this world will vanish automatically.”
Afghanistan is a country with huge natural resources. With correct policies and introduction of technology, as envisaged by its former King Amanullah, in about 20 years it could be transformed into a modern industrial state, with its people enjoying a high standard of living.
But this is impossible without granting equality to women, for that will be like a boxer fighting with one hand strapped behind his back. IQ tests in modern psychology have shown that the IQ of an average woman is the same as that of an average man.
In fact whenever women got opportunities they showed they could do as well as men in all spheres, e.g. Queen Elizabeth 1 of England and Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, who were great stateswomen, Madam Curie, who was the first person in the world to win two Nobel Prizes ( one in Physics and the other in Chemistry ), the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, Margaret Mitchell, etc who were great writers, Ada Lovelace, who was the world’s first computer programmer, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who was a great Judge, Amelia Earhart, who was a great pilot, and the Rani of Jhansi, who was a great warrior,.
Hence to deprive Afghan women of education and other opportunities means destroying half the country’s human potential. In fact it would be destroying much more than that, because if a woman is educated she will pass on her knowledge to her children, but if she is uneducated she will pass on her ignorance, stupidity, and superstitions to them.
The regressive and retrograde policies of the Taliban towards women must therefore be condemned by all right thinking people.
Note: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United Nations Munir Akram issued a clarification saying that his comments were referring to a “peculiar perspective” of a small minority that has resulted in the restrictions on women. He also said that the point made by him was that these “restrictions are not consistent with Islam and the Sharia – which provides all rights to women, including to work and education.” He stressed that Pakistan, consistent with its policy, has conveyed its opposition to the restrictions on women to the Afghan interim government.
