Restoring Honour? Afghan Women and the Return of the Taliban
Hello, back blogging again after losing my whole blog content. Luckily I had saved my texts, but it will take some time to put them back again. Sorry, trying to be more focused in the future.
Today I am speechless and saddened, Horrified! First I thought I should not take up this subject, because it could eventually do more harm than good for the task I have taken on. But things do not ever change if we do not address them!
So let’s analyze this. We should not be too quick putting everything on the Religion, tragedies like these are hard to overcome and they happen quite often in some areas.Sad enough, the word Taliban means “Students of Religion”! Old habits die hard and thousands of years old traditions are taken for religious practices. We can witness that everywhere and especially in the developing world.In Africa for instance Witchcraft (Voodoo, Vodou) is practiced along the main religions Christianity and Islam, and they do not see any contradiction in it. In the Middle-East there are Honour killings (fortunately not everywhere) denying women their God given rights for dignity. The right of choosing her own husband and eventually to get divorced is set in the Quran. According the Quran she can reject a suitor by saying “no” or if shy by staying silent (meaning she accepts) and a divorce is possible even for the only reason that she does not like her husband.
From old customs we have to remember also the pharaonic practice of circumcision of girls. It is justified in Africa by Islam, although the African Christians are practicing it equally. There is NO mentioning of it in the Quran or even in the Hadiths. I suppose that it came to the Arabian peninsula much later with pilgrims (many of them stayed there for good) from Africa where it is known since times of the Pharaos. Please read my topics on the right for “What the Quran has to say.. ”, “Hadiths”, ”Women and Islam” about them.
“If you see an evil, correct it with your hand; if you cannot correct it with your hand, correct it with your tongue (words); if you cannot do it either, feel that it is wrong in your heart.” (Prof. Mohammad)
World Press Photo of the Year 2010: South African photographer Jodi Bieber wins premier award.
Bibi Aisha
I quote from the article hoping worldpressphoto.org does not mind:
“The portrait of Bibi Aisha was also awarded First prize in the category Portraits Singles in this year’s contest. It was shot for Time and was featured on the cover of the 9 August issue of the magazine.
Her winning picture shows Bibi Aisha, 18, who was disfigured as retribution for fleeing her husband’s house in Oruzgan province, in the center of Afghanistan. At the age of 12, Aisha and her younger sister had been given to the family of a Taliban fighter under a Pashtun tribal custom for settling disputes. When she reached puberty she was married to him, but she later returned to her parents’ home, complaining of violent treatment by her in-laws.
Men arrived there one night demanding that she be handed over to be punished for running away. Aisha was taken to a mountain clearing, where she was held down, and had first her ears sliced off, and then her nose. In local culture, a man who has been shamed by his wife is said to have lost his nose, and such treatment is considered punishment in kind. Aisha was abandoned, but later rescued and taken to a shelter in Kabul run by the aid organization Women for Afghan Women, where she was given treatment and psychological help. After time in the refuge, she was taken to America, where she received counseling and reconstructive surgery.”
Another article:
“Promised to a Taliban fighter by her father when Bibi Aisha was 12 to satisfy an obligation, she was married at 14 and had been used as a servant and forced to sleep in an outbuilding with her in-laws’ animals. When she fled their abuse, neighbors turned her in. She was jailed briefly, and her father retrieved her and returned her to his in-laws, after being assured they would treat her better. Instead, her husband walked her into a mountain clearing and held her down while his brother chopped off her nose and ears as other Talib watched. Then they left her to die in the mountains where they’d disfigured her. “I passed out,” she said in an interview with CNN’s Atia Abawi. “In the middle of the night it felt like there was cold water in my nose.”
It was her own blood, so much of it, she told Abawi. “I couldn’t even see…”
Somehow Aisha managed to feel her way to her grandfather’s home, where she was hidden and then spirited away to a medical center run by the U.S. military, who eventually transferred her to a privately-run women’s shelter…”
In another article the photographer Jodi Bieber tells how she felt this woman was beautiful and did not want to portray her as a victim but show her dignity.She was right and is an exceptional good photographer.
Bibi Aisha was very fortunate to get proper medical care after her attackers left her there to die. Hundreds, perharbs thousands of other girls are not so lucky.
After reconstructive surgery now 18 year old Bibi is smiling again
