Canadians received the deeply sad news today, April 14, 2009, that another Canadian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan, Trooper Karine Blais, 21, the second Canadian woman to die in combat since the Afghan mission began. Trooper Blais was with the 2nd Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment Battle based at Canadian Forces Base Valcartier, near Quebec City. She was killed Monday when the armoured vehicle she was travelling in rolled over an improvised explosive device in the Shah Wali Khot district, about 40 kilometres northwest of Kandahar City, a district that is known as a centre of Taliban activity.
I will be on one of the overpasses, along the Highway of Heroes, when Trooper Blais is repatriated to Canada. I cannot imagine the shock and pain her family will be in, when they only weeks ago said goodbye to her as she headed off to Afghanistan.I also cannot stop thinking about the loved ones of Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights, who was murdered at the age of 52 on Easter Sunday by four men on two motorcycles who shot her as Ms Achakzai was getting out of her car in front of her home, though in Ms Achakzai’s situation, assassination is a more apt word. The Taliban, via spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, has claimed responsibility for her murder. Add Qari Yousef Ahmedi to the troglodyte list as well.
Sitara Achakzai was an Afghani woman whose family escaped her homeland in 1990 during Taliban rule to live in Germany. She returned to Afghanistan in 2004 to fight for women's rights…now that is bravery. Ms Achakzai became a member of Kandahar's provincial council, encouraged women to become employed and to fight for their rights. She bravely made herself visible in the struggle for women's rights in Kandahar. In 2008 she organized a peace demonstration of 1,500 women at one of the Kandahar’s largest mosques on International Women's Day. In a 2009 attempt to celebrate the same day, the women were banned from entering the building and instead held a meeting at appropriately the city's human rights commission. The bravery of all Afghan women leaves me without words quite often; the bravery of women like Sitara Achakzai forces me to find some, in order to celebrate their heroic acts.That brings me to the third person I cannot stop thinking about today and definitely not a brave hero, but the troglodyte that is Mohammad Asif Mohseni.
Mohammad Asif Mohseni is a top Shiite cleric in Afghanistan and of the main drafters of a new Afghan family law that critics feel legalizes marital rape. As explained in the words of Mr. Mohseni:"If she [the wife] is not sick, and if she does not have another problem, it is the right of a man to ask for sex and she should make herself ready for it."
"It is not possible for all women to pay the same amount of money as men…For all the expenses, can’t we at least give the right to a husband to demand [emphasis mine] sex from his wife after four nights?"
So much for the Afghan Constitution saying that men and women have equal rights and duties before the law.
I admit to being confused by so called Islamic proprieties. This is an Islamic cleric saying men should be able to demand sex from women and yet they profess that the purity of their girls and women is so important. Without choice Mr. Mohseni, there can be no consent. According to your new family law, a woman cannot say no, therefore she has no choice. If she has no choice, then she is not consenting. If she cannot consent, then it is called rape. Even prostitutes get to offer their bodies for a fee. By negating the need for sexual consent in your marriages Mr. Mohseni, you are treating your wives as less valuable than whores.
Why is it essential “for the woman to submit to the man’s sexual desire” Mr. Mohseni? Someone? Anyone?
If you are truly concerned abut the sex lives of your men Mr. Mohseni, then maybe you should focus on two things:
1. Teaching your men how to be good husbands, so their wives will want to have sex with them. Problem solved.
2. Teaching you men that having sex with young boys on Man Love Thursday’s is child sexual abuse and a heinous crime against God’s laws.
Prime Minister Harper, we can help Afghan women with Mr. Mohseni’s concern that they cannot earn the same amount of money as their men. Canada, can and should be building several factories in Afghanistan to process poppies into morphine and like medicines. These factories could even have all female employees, so there will be no mixing of the sexes. You want to change Afghanistan, empower a woman and educate a girl. If I had the funds, I would build the factories myself.
I know many Canadians will be saying we should pull out of Afghanistan because of things like this. Yes, Canada cannot sacrifice the lives of young women like Trooper Karine Blais so that Afghan men can rape their wives.
If we were to choose to leave right now, we would be consciously leaving Afghan women and girls to the Taliban and a President who apparently sees nothing wrong in passing legislation that allows Shia men to rape their wives.
We must hold the Afghanistan government accountable for its commitments to women, children and human rights with whatever power we have, before any conscious choice to abandon those women and children to possible re-Talibanization and treatment deemed less valuable than the country's chickens.
I believe in dialogue. I believe in civility and respect. I believe that for the most part, whatever kind of world we want to live in is the type of world we must demonstrate. But I am not naïve. I know that there are individuals and groups of people who throughout history are so dangerous, that talking to them is a waste of humanity's efforts. They need to either be locked up indefinitely or killed to protect a larger swath of humanity. And unless someone can explain to me, because right now I do not get it, how including misogynistic nihilists like the Taliban, who assasinate women for their gender and disfigure young girls with acid, in peace talks will ever bring peace to Afghanistan or dignity to its women and children, then as far as I am concerned, the Taliban need to be locked up or killed, just like the Nazis.
Sage Spencer
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Addendum: (less than 24 hours later)
It was reported in the press today that Gul Pecha, 19, of the Khash Rod district of Afghanistan, refused to marry the man to which her family had promised her and instead attempted to elope with Abdul Aziz, 21. They were caught by villagers, returned to the mosque, quickly convicted of immoral acts and murdered by firing squad in front of the mosque for all to view. According to Taliban spokesperson, Qari Yopusug Ahmadi, "But it was a very bad thing for these people to escape from their homes without permission and it is right that they should be punished according to sharia law."[emphasis mine]
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Portions of the new contentious Afghan family law:
Article 132
• The couple should not commit acts that create hatred and bitterness in their relationship, The wife is bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires.
• The husband, except when traveling or ill, is bound to have intercourse with his wife every night in four nights. The wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.
Article 133
• If the wife was a working woman before marriage, and the marriage document does not condition her to stop working, the husband cannot stop her from work, unless her work affects the interest of the family or the position of either wife or husband in a negative way.
• Husband can stop the wife from any unnecessary, unIslamic act.
• Wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband, unless due to any serious pressure or difficulty and to address that.
Article 177
• The husband is bound to provide maintenance to his wife.
• The wife does not have the right to the provision of maintenance by the husband unless she agrees to have intercourse with him and he gets an opportunity for doing so.
• Obedience, readiness for intercourse and not leaving the house without the permission of the husband are the duties of the wife, violation of every one of them will mean disobedience to the husband.
Next Blogum: May 2009
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