Re: Re: The Taliban's War on Women
Caspar Davis,[EMAIL PROTECTED],Internet writes: ...there certainly comes a point where further knowledge merely numbs or depresses. Too true, unfortunately, and the condition of women in fundamentalist countries is a case in point. I gather that support for the petition was so great that the ISP receiving all the copies was flooded and closed down the account. Anyway, don't feel guilty about passing the word along--obviously, we all did, to the point where it became unproductive. Regards, Judyth
Re: The Taliban's War on Women
This document has been circulating for more than a month, comes back
regularly on every newsgroup I know, and should not be answered to, because
the organiser's e-mail adress has been removed, due to being inundated with
thousand upon thousands of answers. It's dangerous to ask people to mail
something to 50 others and then mail everything back to you. Just imagine
what is 50 to the 4th power only, by the first 50 people who send this
through you ideally get 2500 responding mails. Even if only 10% of the list
is reaching the next 50 you come at 62500 by the next stage. If only 10% of
those mails on the next step is 39.062.500. Even with only 1% of people
doing what is asked you still get... 390.625 responses. In the fourth
stage, assuming only 1% of the third stage continues (!) you come to an
absolutely impossible amount of returning mail, but by that time the
receiving mailbox (which belonged to a private person was already flooded
and had to be closed down).
You can try sending an e-mail to it.
Jan Matthieu
Flemish Green Party
--
Van: Mehtap Cakan [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Aan: Caspar Davis [EMAIL PROTECTED]
CC: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Onderwerp: Re: The Taliban's War on Women
Datum: zondag 31 januari 1999 2:01
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote:
Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so:
-Forwarded Message-
Subject: Please sign and pass on.
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]
Re: The Taliban's War on Women
Yes, chain letters don't get you anywhere, they just clog up our best source of information. It is however, nice to see so many care. I think someone literate should re-write this letter to be sent to those in government, so that pressure can be expressed against all military/economical links with any states that violate any homan rights. Eva [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: The Taliban's War on Women
On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote: Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so: -Forwarded Message- Subject: Please sign and pass on. 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 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 todeath 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 1930's 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. *
Re: The Taliban's War on Women
I am advised on sound authority that when you send my original forward of this name, with 50 signatures, to the recommended address, you get in return a message saying that the address is no good. I apologize for not checking this out prior to forwarding, and do not recommend forwarding the message in the form I sent it to anyone, but the information it contains may still be true and interesting to those who are not yet overwhelmed by the degradation of the human race. It is always a difficult call whether or not to pass on messages of such sadness and horror. Up to a point, knowledge assists awareness, but there certainly comes a point where further knowledge merely numbs or depresses. In any event, the exigencies of life will lead me to post less in the future, and I intend especially to pass on fewer downers. apologies and greetings to all, Csapar
Re: The Taliban's War on Women
Don't do anything with this... The account at Brandeis where the petition goes has now been closed for a couple of weeks and the account holder has gone to ground. Rule of thumb: Anything that says "copy and forward to as many people as possible" should be shovelled into the bit bucket asap... M M On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Caspar Davis wrote: Please sign and pass on if you feel comfortable doing so: -Forwarded Message- Subject: Please sign and pass on. 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 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 todeath 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 1930's 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
