Iraqi women find election a cruel joke

[True_Blue]

I am an Iraqi woman, and I am boycotting the elections. Women who do vote will be voting for an enslaved future. Surely, say those who support these elections, after decades of tyranny, here at last is a form of democracy, imperfect, but democracy nevertheless?

In reality, these elections are, for Iraq's women, little more than a cruel joke. Amid the suicide attacks, kidnappings and U.S.-led military assaults since Saddam Hussein's fall, the little-reported phenomenon is the sharp increase in the persecution of Iraqi women. Women are the new victims of Islamic groups intent on restoring a medieval barbarity and of a political establishment that cares little for women's empowerment.

Having for years enjoyed greater rights than other Middle East women, women in Iraq are losing even their basic freedoms -- the right to choose their clothes, the right to love or marry whom they want. Of course women suffered under Saddam. I fled his cruel regime. I personally witnessed much brutality but the subjugation of women was never a Baath Party goal. What we are seeing is deeply worrying: a reviled occupation and an openly reactionary Islamic armed insurrection taking Iraq into a new dark age.

Every day, leaflets are distributed across the country warning women against going out unveiled, wearing makeup or mixing with men. Many female university students have given up their studies to protect themselves against the Islamists.
more....
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/209809_iraqiwomanvote.html

[yardwork]

1. Just terrific. Good job, busholini

[buddysmellgood]

2. but...but...Freedom is on the march. I don't understand. How can this be?

[Straight Shooter]

3. I was just thinking about the situation of Iraqi women, earlier today

It strikes me as very, very sad and terribly unjust. bush refused to read the writing on the wall, and once again he escapes retribution, as the price is paid by others.

A crime against humanity, it truly is a crime. There were better ways to deal with Saddam, to remove him from power, than to replace him with something just as insidious in its own way.

edit, spelling, I'm angry

[Colorado Blue]

4. THIS IS SO UPSETTING. Damn. They were

making progress too.

I can't BELIEVE Bushco didn't see this coming. And all that propoganda about Saving Women From The Taliban.

[WillieWoohah]

5. Maybe this will be used as a reason to overrule democracy

There will be arguments from some quarters that it's necessary to give Iraqis "limited" democracy to protect essential human rights etc from a populist/religious fundamentalist government. It's kind of persuasive too, after reading this article I'd be in a moral dilemma trying to decide whether to agree with that.

[fortyfeetunder]

6. I dreaded this would be the outcome

The Bush Administration wants Iraqi government to emulate the USA:

1) Leaders have the inside line to a god
2) Women are second class citizens
3) There are limits to freedom.

[Enquiringkitty]

7. Bush can't see past his daddy's nose. He makes things worse.

One thing people have to know is that Saddam didn't like the Taliban; they wanted power and he wouldn't share any of it with anyone. Yes there was communications ... them asking for deals and him saying "NO!". He was insane but women had the opportunity to go to college and live a single life if they wished. When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan, female doctors and engineers could no longer work and had to wear that Klan outfit ... or is that clown????? It looks like they will have voted in the Shiites and they are hard core so the plight of women will be pretty bad as far as dress, education, freedom to wed and this last vote will be, indeed, their LAST vote. Iran is like that. The Shiites will want a theocracy (sp) just as Iran has. By the way, You do know that Iran is the next place our troops will go .... don't you? All Bush saw was an opportunity to get Saddam for "daddy", he didn't think of the outcome or that they might just vote in a real enemy; one who really thinks that we are unclean infidels. This would be something the Taliban has been dreaming of.

[seventythree]

18. agree that this will be women's last vote

-- there have been several articles in publications on this in the last few days, most notably the NYT. They tried to roll back the rights of woman, secured through Saddam's secular state, during the interim government in the area of family law, but Brenner vetoed it. The only difference between the new Iraq and Iran will be that the clerics won't be the politicians, but the politicians will answer to the clerics -- sharia law will rule, and women will be enslaved. They are even killing barbers, for God's sake, for cutting men's beards, right now. It's the Taliban all over again. Al-Sadr was smarter than we gave him credit; he has beaten us at our own game -- democracy. And we could care less what happens to the women, or the Christians over there for that matter (5 churches have been hit). When Rummy was asked about the return to sharia law on Meet the Press, he said -- oh, well, that's their culture.

[whathappened]

8. no way

can we take jesus out of the people's mind who believe so , and we cannot change the one's who are unbelievers , and the the people in the middle east are firm in there convictions to there god , jr. has'nt a clue how to run there live's and just do'nt seem to understand how to run his own

[Blue Gardener]

9. The American Taliban would love this for American women as well

Keep quiet
Obey your husband
Don't dress in "suggestive" clothing
Men are superior

Scary isn't it?

[yardwork]

15. Suggestive clothing is required under the burkas!

Not surprisingly, the subjugation of women in repressive societies usually accompanies sexual abuse and objectification of women and children.

While the sickos require that women cover themselves head to foot in public, they're expected to wear Frederick's of Hollywood underclothing for their husbands.

And let's not even get into female mutilation of genitals, done to ensure that every sexual encounter is a bloody and excruciatingly painful experience for the women, thus ensuring that women won't have any sexual choice or freedom.

[IndianaGreen]

10. The same complaint can be heard from women in Afghanistan

Their "liberation" has not freed them from religious oppression, the difference now is that it comes from the Karzai regime rather than the Taliban.

The only time women were liberated in Afghanistan was under the Marxist government, the one that the US toppled with the help of Osama bin Laden and his friends. Thank you America for fucking women again!

[baron j]

11. perhaps the republicans should've worn purple burqa's, to go

with their purple ink-stained fingers?

[newyawker99]

14. Hi baron j!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Sequoia]

16. It really upset me when these 'mericans were raising their arm

to show their dopey finger. All I could think of was "Seig Heil" (sp), Can't they see what they're doing. As to the situation in Iraq, we are not really surprised because it was never about democracy or freedom for anyone, it's about modern genocide, with it's holier than thou dictator from the USA. Welcome baronJ!

[seventythree]

17. loved it

[Plaid Adder]

12. Opportunistic Misogyny Strikes Again

I have to say that as depressing as this is, it's not really surprising. The US made a big deal out of the fact that women have to be included in the slates of candidates for the new government. However, claiming that your regime will make life better indigenous women is a very common face-saving move on the part of a colonial power interested in looking more enlightened and libertacious than the despotism it's displacing--and it also very commonly leads to making things much worse for that country's women.

Why? Because by linking the occupation with the idea of equal rights for women, you have given the resistance movement a prime opportunity and an excellent motivation for making the subjection of women part of their agenda. It's a basic part of the occupation/resistance dynamic that from the resistance point of view, anything associated with the occupation is liable to become an evil that needs to be destroyed, whether or not it is a good thing in and of itself. Since militaristic resistance movements are usually male-dominated, and since most modern cultures are at least partially patriarchal, the suppression of women is liable to seem to them like a desirable result anyhow. So it becomes even more likely that the resistance movement will make the subjection of women--or, as they will inevitably portray it, the return of women to their 'traditional' roles, even if as this woman claims those roles haven't been traditional for a while now--one of their primary goals. Apart from anything else, it serves as a powerful recruiting tool, because thanks to the violence that the occupying power has unleashed against the indigenous women, the resistance can now adopt the occupation's tactic of claiming that they will be able to 'save' their country's women.

This is one of the more depressing aspects of an occupation situation: the way the resistance inevitably comes to mirror the occupying power, so that by the time the occupiers are dislodged, the new regime winds up perpetuating a lot of their crimes.

I wrote up a much longer version of how all this works regarding our invasion of Afghanistan a couple years ago:

http://www.plaidder.com/spivak.htm

I should point out that this pattern transcends religious identification and repeats itself even in non-Islamic, non-Arab cultures. Take Ireland, for instance. After, what, 800 odd years of being under English control in one way or another, as soon as they have a chance to make their own constitution in 1937, what happens? The Catholic Church is given a "special" place, divorce is made illegal, and Article 41 states that because the woman's service as wife and mother is essential to the state, she should not be 'obliged' to work outside the home.

The women always lose,

The Plaid Adder

[MadisonProgressive]

13. Sounds like the US already!

"The U.S. government appears happy to have Iraq governed by reactionary religious and ethnocentric elites."

[etherealtruth]

19. No surprise

This comes as no surprise to any thoughtful person. Most of us worried that the plight of women would become much worse after Iraq was "liberated" by the U.S.

Was Rumsfeld's response to apartheid, "it's their culture"? OK, that probably was his response, but that does not make it right. I remain enraged that no plans were made for ANYTHING post invasion and take over.

[AFSCME girl]

20. Hi etherealtruth!!

I almost forgot: WELCOME TO DU!!!!!! :bounce: :hi: :yourock:

[AFSCME girl]

21. You are absolutely right,

no plans were put forth for "post-invasion" Iraq, and now * is getting ready to take his "road show" into Iran!!!!:mad:

[etherealtruth]

22. Will we be greeted with flowers in the streets?

[AFSCME girl]

23. Hmmm...

I wonder.......:mad:

[Selatius]

24. This is a consequence of the war and the elections

It appears the Sunnis sat out the election, so the Shi'ites will gain a sizeable plurality if not an outright majority in the new assembly, much larger than if the Sunnis did participate.

This could mean several things. One of them is the ouster of Ayad Allawi, America's favorite pick, and it could also mean an Iraqi government telling the US to let go and get out.

On the other hand, you really have to wonder about whether clerics like Ali Al-Sistani want a full blown theocracy like Iran, or whether they want to adopt a secular form of government. The truth of the matter appears to be somewhere in between the two extremes. Al-Sistani and those he supports claim that they don't want to establish a regime like Iran's though. Only time will tell if they keep their word.

Also, you have to wonder about what Sunnis will say in all of this. Will they reject the government and revolt? Could it mean Iraq splintering in civil war?

The future is hard to predict.

[etherealtruth]

25. The fate of women (and children) is less difficult to predict...

if Islamic law is followed, even if it is only applied to family law. Women would lose most of their economic power and most social power.

[JoAnnSimon]

26. The Future of Women in the 'New" Iraq

This is a subject that has troubled me greatly. Yes, Saddam was a monster, but under his secular reign, women, particularly in Bagdhad and other major cities, weren't required to wear head scarves or burqua. They had free access to higher eductaion and the opportunity to hold down responsible and decent paying jobs.

Saddam and his regime inflicted terrible harm, but I don't see that that harm was directed against women. It was directed at Saddam's political adversaries, which were mostly men of other muslim sects within the country.

In no way am I attempting to redeem Saddam and his sons' deplorable regime, but because his government was SECULAR, not religiously Islamic, girls and women actually had an opportunity to attend school and university and better themselves.

These same women--since the U.S. invasion, and especially since the 'elections' that appear to be putting the Shiite (more religious) majority in control--are now cowering in their houses, afraid to appear on the streets. If they step outside of their houses, even if they are university educated professors, technology experts, medical doctors or nurses, etc., they are reviled by fundamentalist males who follow the Patriartic and fundamentalist visions of the Shia mullahs, who, since Saddam's downfall, suddenly feel more empowered.

Yes, Iraqi women were allowed to vote this time in an open election, but after the Shia (apparent winners of this election) take power, how long can women expect to have an open voice and representation in their country's future?

Just asking.