Phyllis
Chesler, Ph.D, is an Emerita Professor of Psychology
and Women’s Studies at City University of New
York. She is a best-selling author, a legendary feminist
leader. This article first appeared in her newsletter:
https://phyllis-chesler.com
Really? A letter?
I
am specifically referring to the recent massive earthquake
in which the mainly male teams of rescuers refused to
physically “touch” crying, bleeding, broken,
and dying, women, who were buried in rubble; therefore,
they only rescued men. The Taliban does not allow men
to physically “touch” women to whom they
are not related by blood or by marriage. (Except for
Afghan female political prisoners whom they easily rape,
torture, and murder).
According
to the Taliban, only women can rescue female earthquake
victims and there are far fewer women who are part
of experienced and physically able teams of rescuers.
Remember: the Taliban, (supported by Qatar, the same
country that supports Hamas), does not allow girls
to attend schools beyond the sixth grade, mandates
them to wear hijab or full-on burqas in public, forbids
them to travel even short distances without a male
escort, to engage in sports, or practice weight-lifting,
self-defense, or emergency medicine. The Taliban’s
view of woman is endemic to Afghanistan and to tribal
Islamic culture.
Thus,
what momentarily “shocks” us in the West
is simply the way things are–and have always been–in
many Muslim countries. Forced child marriage, forced
veiling, polygamy, domestic violence, honor killing,
purdah, (sequestration), child sex slavery, homosexual
child sex slavery, daughter-beating, daughter-in-law
beating, and wife-beating–are all normalized.
The status of women is unbelievably and heartbreakingly
low.
I
tell some stories of my time in Kabul when I was held
captive. You may find them in my book, An American
Bride in Kabul. In 1961, I once visited a maternity
hospital and as my former Afghan husband and I were
having tea with the medical director, an angry and distraught
man broke in on us. He was yelling his head off. It
seems that this man was from a distant province and
after his wife had been in labor for more than two days,
he had paid “good money” to bring her to
the hospital in Kabul; that trip had taken almost another
another two days. And now, his wife–and their
unborn child–were both dead. He wanted compensation
from the hospital because now he had to pay money for
a new wife–and also had to pay for his dead wife’s
funeral.
How
will a mere letter abolish such views? And this particular
event took place long before the Taliban rose to power.
A
letter will not change the Taliban or the Afghan tribal
culture that has always, always enabled some form of
woman-hatred and woman-torture. More important: These
same letter writing people have spent years condemning
America for having tried to change, help, improve, “Westernize”
this very culture. (“Westernization,” including
offering anti-polio vaccines, is experienced over there
as being converted to Christianity. I kid you not.
I
admit: America also funded the defeat of Soviet Russia
and the inevitable rise of the Taliban. The Russians
did try to improve the lot of the poor and of women
in terms of education. Then a new enemy arose.
For
20 years, perhaps misguidedly, perhaps with impossibly
noble intentions, America and our European allies, searched
for Bin Laden (who, all the time had been sheltered
in Abbotobad, nearby nuclear Pakistan). While there,
American and European military forces and humanitarian
aid workers of all kinds, changed course. They opened
schools for girls and women. Afghan women became doctors,
lawyers, judges, businesswomen, political leaders, artists,
broadcasters, etc. Women also opened shelters for battered
women and for survivors of rape. One heroic Marine tried
to rescue a chained boy sex-slave, who was held by a
Taliban leader. No good deed goes unpunished and our
Marine was, in due course, punished.
This
was supposed to teach us that we cannot interfere with
the local customs. Our view of “human rights”
is foreign to Afghanistan.
Instead of honoring these Western forces, the usual
suspects–the letters writers–condemned the
West as evil blunderers, some of whom were indeed “on
the take.” (Yes, of course, there were war profiteers
among the saints; there always are).
Guess
what? Such barbarians is precisely what Israel is fighting
right now. The elite at the Venice Film Festival cheered
for such barbarians. (And by the way, the story of Hind
al Rajab, the most sacred of martyrs, may turn out to
be far more complicated than an example of Israeli evil.
The matter is still being investigated). Such Taliban-style
barbarians are currently engaged in a demographic Jihad
in Europe and may soon turn Europe into Afghanistan,
Pakistan, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Gaza.
There
definitely are Muslims who can and have assimilated
into the West–and who came here precisely in order
to do so. Some are religious, many are not. Together
with Mandy Sanghera, a Sikh in London, I co-led a grassroots
team which was privileged to have rescued nearly 400
women from Afghanistan in 2021. Many of them are, all
things considered, doing very well in America. Mandy
was awarded an Order of the British Empire for her work
in such areas.
When will the West wake up to the fact that not all
people, and not all cultures are the same? That certain
cultures will never change their views of women–or
of much else.
That the attempt to “help” them to do so
has never succeeded. That it is not dishonorable to
withdraw from a campaign to do something that is impossible.
If I had the power, I would airlift only the women out
of Afghanistan–but most of them would never leave
their sons, husbands, and fathers behind. Worse: Most
of them would also bring their internalization of woman-hatred
and their fear and disapproval of the West right along
with them.
also by Phyllis Chesler
Trouble
Is My Name
Meditation
by the Sea
Jihadists Are Not Mentally IllNew
New York's Public Bathrooms
Perils of Non-Violent Islam
Orgasm
Meditation Movement
Gender
Gangsterism
O
Malala
High
Fashion & Boyish Bodies
Tar:
Film Review
Female
Refugees and Male Baggage
Self-Defense
Against Rape
I
Am Frightened for us Women
Remember
the Taliban
The
Writing Life
Transgender
Bending
Femicide:
A Form of Honour Killing
Secular
Islam on the Rise
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