American Ideals and Afghanistan's Women

Education for us in the west is relatively uncontroversial; who can be against education? But the madrasas in Islamic countries are also imparting education. In Pakistan, this kind of education led to the rise of the Taliban (literally religious students), who were then exported to Afghanistan to perpetrate their horrors and repression there. Traditional education in these and other cultures has historically been used to keep women "in their place," to reinforce prejudice, to strengthen the hold of the ruling classes. So what kind of "education" are we speaking of here? Any promotion of a western-style or secular education would be perceived locally as exporting a "decadent" American culture or promotion of Western hegemony. The author says "Education about rights must come first." Very well, but the "rights" we are talking about here are NOT the fundamental rights that the US founding fathers held to be "self-evident," but the right of an Afghan husband to demand and receive sex from his wife four days a week, the right of a man to demand that a woman be stoned to death on suspicion of adultery, the right of an Egyptian professor to demand that his colleague be divorced from his wife because he is not a "good Muslim." Rights of women? Sorry, not in the dictionary. In fact, life in most Eastern societies is centered around duties, not rights. Individual rights are, rightly or wrongly, often perceived as a western import.
About Afghanistan
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost