I received an anonymous email the other day asking whether or
not I could answer a critique posted online of my recent
article on the strides women were making in Afghanistan after
years upon years of oppression. I’ve always been willing to engage
anyone who approaches me reasonably, and even most people who
approach me unreasonably, so I clicked on through.
I must admit, however, I was quite taken aback by what I found.
I was prepared for an attack on my character, abilities,
intelligence, etc. What I was not prepared for was a vicious attack
on long-suffering Afghani women.
To wit, here is how the writer begins his response to my
recitation of Red Cross reports on treatment of women under the
Taliban:
“I think this writer overreacted to the situation. Afghani women
may have been subject to some heavy-handed treatment on a few
occasions but overall, the women were not complaining. So, what was
the problem?”
What’s the problem? There’s a big problem, son. The treatment of
women under the Taliban’s reign — “rape, torture, murder, forced
prostitution, or the public scarring, beatings and humiliation, all
done with impunity,” as I wrote last month — are all universally
accepted assessments by every civilized government in the
world.
But the critic is not endowed with enough empathy or class to
stick to base charges in the general. Instead, he feels compelled
to attack the individual, including the following story I culled
from an Amnesty International — hardly shills for the American war
machine — report:
“They shot my father right in front of me,” a 15-year-old
Kabul girl told Amnesty investigators in 1994. “He was a
shop-keeper. It was nine o’clock at night. They came to our house
and told him they had orders to kill him because he allowed me to
go to school. The Mujahideen had already stopped me from going to
school, but that was not enough.
They then came and killed my father. I cannot describe what
they did to me after killing my father…”
In the face of this horror story, the best analysis my critic
can come up with is essentially a version of, “She was asking for
it.”
“Perhaps, there is another side to this story,” he writes.
“Important details are often left out by advocates of one political
view or another. How did the 15 year old *know* it was 9 PM? Did
she have a wristwatch on? Unlikely, for an Afghani woman. The story
lacks some, um, authority.”
Yes, maybe there is another side, although it’s a stretch to
call Amnesty International an “advocate” for the American side. I
guess we’ll never know since no one asked her father’s killers or
her rapists about their motivations. I made the mistake of thinking
the murder and rape of civilians was generally wrong.
Sadly, this travesty doesn’t end there. He addresses a second
example I used in an even more crassly:
One night about five months ago [June 1994], armed guards
came to our house [in Farah]. There were six to seven of them. They
forced us to go to a corner of the room while they got hold of my
husband. They kept beating him violently, saying he had been
teaching girls at the village school. We all shouted for mercy but
they did not stop. They then stood him in front of me and my four
small children. One of them aimed a Kalashnikov at his heart and
shot him dead. The guard then said he was going to stay in the
house and marry me.
“Hmm, I thought the preferred method of policing was shooting
(as in the previous example),” he writes. “Now, supposedly, it’s
beating, THEN shooting. Inconsistent. And the women doesn’t
actually say she *DID NOT MARRY* the guard. If she did, she may not
testify against him, under Islamic law.”
The die is cast. If it makes the Taliban look bad and, just
possibly, the U.S. look good, then blame the victims. They are
clearly expendable when someone’s carefully nurtured anti-American
viewpoint is at risk.
“Afghanistan *was* a sovereign state,” he writes. “They didn’t
ask for any ‘help.’ They didn’t ask to be invaded.”
Well, that’s debatable considering the Taliban were harboring
the terrorist masterminds responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Nevertheless, statements like this are immaterial to the argument I
made, which was, there’s a chance that after two decades of war and
fundamentalist rule, life is getting better in Afghanistan for
women. I believe that to be true, but others can accept or reject
that, but it is not reasonable to do so by being dismissive of the
torture, rape, murder, and suffering of Afghani women or taking the
side of theocratic fascists.
Like all pure partisans, my critic refuses to believe even the
strongest evidence that may weaken his position, but will embrace
the flimsiest piece that bolsters it. In this case, even eye
witness testimony of Taliban atrocities leave him demanding, “Where
is the PROOF?” But his own proof — i.e., “Some women have said
that it is *WORSE THAN BEFORE” — does not quote an actual source
or person.
“Mr. Macomber might try, instead of spewing distortions and
caterwauling, try to report on the GOOD things in Afghanistan
culture and society,” he writes. “He seems quite the pessimist.
Yet, he doesn’t do the obvious: criticize the USA for its
substantial part in the degradation of the culture in Afghanistan
with respect to women. Macomber completely misses that part. That
is hardly an accident.”
The entire point of my article, actually, was that good things
are happening in Afghanistan and lamenting that nobody was
interested in reporting on them. If it’s pessimism to mourn the
past suffering of those who suffered at the hands of a brutal,
patriarchal terrorist government, then I suppose I am a
pessimist.
“Macomber may mean well but he is just a bit too inexperienced
to provide any insights,” he concludes.
Or maybe I’m just not interested in defending the theocratic
fascists who ran one of the most oppressive regimes in the history
of the world? If that’s a lack of insight I’m curious what an
enlightened position would be…I mean aside from brushing off the
rape and murder of young girls by radical fundamentalists. I wonder
what the author thought of Hitler’s Brownshirts? Were they just
misunderstood as well?
I will say this: Whether you were for or against the war with
Afghanistan, there is literally no civilized reason to defend the
Taliban government.
