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July 10, 2005
Rape as Legal Retribution
First, I must admit that this comment on an opinion piece has nothing to do with the author of the opinion piece. I do not know much about Salmon Rushdie, except that a price was put on his head for some of the books he's written that were critical of aspects of Islam. So, putting him aside, I urge everyone to read his article, "India and Pakistan's Code of Dishonor," in the NYT.
It is amazing to me that world leaders pretend to take women's rights seriously and then turn a blind eye to systemic rape. It is amazing to me that the world does not cry out against rape as a war crime and rape as a terrible "religious" right. I wish people who spend their energy trying to deny people rights in the US - like those who oppose gay marriage and a woman's right to choose how to use her own body - would stop their madness and focus on the fact that women are second-class citizens in a vast swath of the world; that in places like Pakistan and India, women can be punished for being raped.
[Pakistan] is the same government, led by President Pervez Musharraf, that confiscated Mukhtar Mai's passport because it feared she would go abroad and say things that would bring Pakistan into disrepute; and it is the same government that has allied with the West in the war on terrorism, but seems quite prepared to allow a war of sexual terror to be waged against its female citizens.Hyperlink to my post on the case added (obviously).
I hope one day, the United States government will uphold UN Security Council Resolution 1325 as resolutely as it uses other SCRs to prop up its illegal gulag in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And I hope one day people everywhere recognize women's equality, regardless of tribal and religious heritage.
Posted by cj at July 10, 2005 3:51 PM
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