Here is a petition I just received. Please notice the parallel drawn in
the first paragraph of the text.
----- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 12:31:29 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Petition (fwd)
The Taliban's War on Women:
>>>
Please sign at the bottom to support, and include your town. Then
copy and e-mail to as many people as possible. If you receive this list
with more than 50 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Even if you decide not to sign, please be
considerate and do not kill the petition. Thank you. It is best to
copy rather than forward the petition. Melissa Buckheit, Brandeis
University
>>>
>>>TEXT:
>>>
>>>The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The
situation is getting so bad that one person in an editorial of the times
compared the treatment of women there to the treatment of Jews in
pre-Holocaust Poland. Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have
had to wear burqua and have been beaten and stoned in public for not
having the proper attire, even if this means simply not having the mesh
covering in front of their eyes. One woman was beaten to DEATH by an
angry mob of fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her arm while she
was driving. Another was stoned to death for trying to leave the country
with a man that was not a relative. Women are not allowed to work or even
go out in public without a male relative; professional women such as
professors, translators, doctors, lawyers,artists and writers have been
forced from their jobs and stuffed into their homes, so that depression
is becoming so widespread that it has reached emergency levels.There is
no way in such an extreme Islamic society to know the suicide rate with
certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate among
women, who cannot find proper medication and treatment for severe
depression and would rather take their lives than live in such
conditions, has increased significantly. Homes where a woman is present
must have their windows painted so that she can never be seen by
outsiders. They must wear silent shoes so that they are never heard.
Women live in fear of their lives for the slightest misbehavior. Because
they cannot work, those without male relatives or husbands are either
starving to death or begging on the street, even if they hold Ph.D.'s.
There are almost no medical facilities available for women, and relief
workers, in protest, have mostly left the country,
taking medicine and psychologists and other things necessary to treat the
sky-rocketing level of depression among women. At one of the rare
hospitals for women, a reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying
motionless on top of beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to speak,
eat, or do anything, but slowly wasting away. Others have gone mad and
were seen crouched in corners, perpetually rocking or crying, most of
them in fear. One doctor is considering, when what little medication that
is left finally runs out, leaving these women in front of the president's
residence as a form of peaceful protest. It is at the point where the
term 'human rights violations' has become an understatement. Husbands
have the power of life and death over their women relatives, especially
their wives, but an angry mob has just as much right to stone or beat a
woman, often to death, for exposing an inch of flesh or offending them in
the slightest way.
David Cornwell has told me that we in the United States should not
judge the Afghan people for such treatment because it is a "cultural
thing," but this is not even true. Women enjoyed relative freedom, to
work, dress generally as they wanted, and drive and appear in public
alone until only 1996 -- the rapidity of this transition is the main
reason for the depression and suicide; women who were once educators or
doctors or simply used to basic human freedoms are now severely
restricted and treated as sub-human in the name of right-wing
fundamentalist Islam.
It is not their tradition or 'culture', but is alien to them, and it is
extreme even for those cultures where fundamentalism is the rule.
Besides, if we could excuse everything on cultural grounds, then we
should not be appalled that the Carthaginians sacrificed their infant
children, that little girls are circumcised in parts of Africa, that
blacks in the deep south in the 1930s were lynched, prohibited from
voting, and forced to submit to unjust Jim Crow laws. Everyone has a
right to a tolerable human existence, even if they are women in a
Muslim country in a part of the world that Americans do not understand.
If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name of human rights
for the sake of ethnic Albanians, Americans can certainly express
peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder, and injustice committed
against women by the Taliban.
>>>
>>>STATEMENT:
>>>In signing this, we agree that the current treatment of women in
>>>Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support and
action by the people of the United States and the U.S.Government and that
the current situation overseas will not be tolerated. Women's Rights is
not a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1998 to be
treated as sub-human and so much as property. Equality and human decency
is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or the United
States.
>>>> >>> >>1) Leslie London, Cape Town, South Africa
>>>> >>> >>2) Tim Holtz, Boston, MA
>>>> >>> >>3) Joyce Millen, Cambridge, MA
>>>> >>> >>4) Diane Millen, Falls Church, Va.
>>>> >>> >>5) Bill Millen, Falls Church, Va.
>>>> >>> >>6) Milt Eisner, McLean VA
>>>> >>> >>7) Harriet Solomon, Springfield, VA
>>>> >>> >>8) Arlene Silikovitz, West Orange, NJ
>>>> >>> >>9) Susanna Levin, New Rochelle, NY
>>>> >>> >>10) Rabbi Gary Greene, Framingham, MA
>>>> >>> >>11) Danny Siegel, Rockville, MD
>>>> >>> >>12) Rabbi Neal Gold, Highland Park, NJ
>>>> >>> >>13) Aimee Sousa, Highland Park, NJ
>>>> >>> >>14) James Sousa, Highland Park, NJ
>>>> >>> >>15) Peter Tatiner, Highland Park, NJ
>>>> >>> >>16) Roberta Elins, New York, NY
>>>> >>> >>17) Margaux Baran, Ne wYork, NY
>>>> >>> >>18) Stephanie Donohue, New York, NY
>>>> >>> >>19) Debbie Russ, NYC
>>>> >>> >>20) Ariel Yan, NYC
>>>> >>> >>21) Erin Burns, NYC
>>>> >>> >>22) Shannon Slanker, New York, NY
>>>> >>> >>23) Debbie R. Nadolney, New York, NY
>>>> >>> >>24) Arlene Stein, Eugene, OR
>>>> >>> >>25) tova stabin, eugene, OR
>>>> >>> >>26) Rita Falbel, New York, NY
>>>> >>> >>27) Marcia Kerwit, Oakland, CA
>>>> >>> >>28) Linda Berry, Fairfax, CA
>>>> >>> >>29) Patricia Royer, Ben Lomond, CA
>>>> >>> >>30) Zoe Sodja, Brookdale, CA
>>>> >>> >>31) Jennifer Pitino, Santa Cruz CA
>>>> >>> >>32) Jenny Q. Sandrof, Santa Cruz, CA
>>>> >>> >>33) Caroline McNeely, Santa Cruz, CA
>>>> >>> >>34) Rachel M. Chatham, Santa Cruz, CA
>>>> >>> >>35) Shoshanah McKnight, Santa Cruz, CA
>>>> >>> >>36) Joan Johnson, Monterey, CA
>>>> >>> >>37) Susan Johnson, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>38) Stephanie Reeves, Nashville, TN
>>>> >>> >>39) DRKaufman, Nashville, TN
>>>> >>> >>40) Ruthy Slann
>>>> >>> >>41) Robert E. Jamison, Cateechee, SC
>>>> >>> >>42)Nurgun Erdol, Boca Raton, FL
>>>> >>> >>43) Bulent Sankur, Istanbul, Turkey
>>>> >>> >>44) Dr. K. R. Swaminathan, New Jersey, USA
>>>> >>> >>45) V B RUPANI, THE PLANET EARTH
>>>> >>> >>46) Yukari Scalvini, Japan
>>>> >>> >>47) Roberto Trasarti-Battistoni, Munich, Germany
>>>> >>> >>48) Tom Vinaimont, Leuven, Belgium
>>>> >>> >>49) Isabel Roeykens, Tervuren, Belgium
>>>> >>> >>50) Wendy Van de Sompele, Tervuren, Belgium
>>>> >>> >>51) Heidi Martikkala, Tampere, Finland
>>>> >>> >>52) Frida Haralds, Reykjav=EDk, Iceland
>>>> >>> >>53) Chantal Asjes, Borger, the Netherlands
>>>> >>> >>54) Pardita Mehta, Bombay, India.
>>>> >>> >>55) Claudia Mayer, Porto Alegre, Brasil
>>>> >>> >>56) Irene Svrac, Valleiry, France
>>>> >>> >>57) Nicolas Maitrot, Nogent sur Marne, France
>>>> >>> >>58) Laura Kampmeyer, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>59) Samuel Kang, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>60) Tasame Savathasuk, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>61) Adam Seiden, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>62) Erica Swift, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>63) Toby Oshiro, Los Angeles, CA
>>>> >>> >>64) Cindee Shinn, Honolulu, HI
>>>> >>> >>65) Garrette Silverman, Honolulu, HI
>>>> >>> >>66)lauren kelley, honolulu, hi
67) Jill Walker, Overland Park, KS
68) Chris Anderson Overland Park, Ks.
69) Gretchen Noonan, Lawrence, Kansas
