If the oppression of women is what Allah demands, then that conception of Allah deserves nothing but contempt.
Let me elaborate here.
That Afghanistan is a nation of starving people barely makes the news anymore.
The suffering was horrible two years ago, and appeared to worsen last year. They are now deep into their cold, cold winter months with a large percentage of the population down to absolute zero in resources.
On top of being ruled by the Taliban, a group generally despised across the world as a backward, ignorant, dangerously militant, female-degrading movement, several years of drought have left most in desperate shape, as in no food, no water, no fuel, no medications, and little if any shelter.
A giant humanitarian crisis
We are indeed looking at a giant humanitarian crisis beyond anything the world has seen in recent history that was not caused by some sort of natural disaster, such as the earthquakes in Turkey.
Millions have died or are being badly affected by near starvation. And now, of course, now women’s worst nightmares have come to fruition: They can no longer be educated or work outside their homes.
Humanitarian aid has kept Afghanistan alive
So, the Taliban got what they wanted: complete control over this country, one that has long relied anyway on humanitarian aid just to survive. Note one PBS report from a couple of years ago,
Under the now-collapsed, Western-backed government led by President Ashraf Ghani, 43% of Afghanistan’s GDP came from foreign aid, according to the World Bank. About 75% of public spending was funded by foreign aid grants. Ninety percent of Afghans lived on an income of less than $2 a day, and an estimated 18.4 million people — nearly half the country’s population — were in need of humanitarian aid.
Look at those numbers again. 43% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) came from foreign aid. 75% of public spending was funded by other countries. And this was before the takeover.
The Taliban, who know little if anything about how actually to run a nation in the 21st century, rule with the arrogant surety that they can make it work by imposing their 14th-century plans for justice and removing basic human rights from every female under their control–often by unfeeling violence.
They show no willingness to cooperate on the world stage and will not budge if it means re-evaluating their “values” that validate keeping women behind closed doors, forever uneducated, and only to be used for breeding purposes and sexual outlets. Routine rape has become the order of the day.
This is the absolute worst of what can happen when the unenlightened religious world takes absolute political power. And especially when that religious world assigns, without equivocation, one-half of the world’s population to distinct second-class, essentially non-human, status.
A not-politically correct rant
Reader alert: what follows is a completely not a politically-correct rant.
I am right on the verge of saying, “They are getting what they deserve.”
Except the people who are suffering the most, women and children, do not deserve to starve to death.
Under Taliban leadership, that nation is going to be so decimated of women of childbearing age and healthy children that their population will never recover. Well, it might if the oh-so-holy Taliban invade nearby nations and kidnap their girl children to turn them into pregnancy factories to rebuild the population. Boka Haram, anyone?
The oppression of women is endemic in the Muslim-ruled world
Now, there are millions and millions of Muslims in the world, many with significant financial and political assets. There are also several extremely rich nations that are ruled by Islamic law, Saudi Arabia, for example. That country holds so much wealth that they can pay signing bonuses for golfers up to $200,000,000 EACH to play their new golf league. And that’s just to sign.
Why are they not lining up with food, supplies, medications, and help in setting up a functional government? Why are they not relieving the suffering that the excesses that their own religious system creates?
Could it be because it is indeed primarily the women who will suffer and deep inside, they don’t give a rat’s ass?
Could it be that Islamic women throughout the world are so damned oppressed themselves that they can’t do what more emancipated women have done for centuries: form their own relief societies, go boldly into these areas and do what women do best: relieve suffering, care for the sick, feed the hungry, bind up the wounds, fight for justice for the oppressed?
I’ve had it up to here with powerful men, who hold no regard for the fact that without women they are NOTHING, ZIP, ZERO, but happily pour out this kind of anguish and death on their mothers, children, nieces, granddaughters, etc. all in the name of “religious truth.”
The worst part about all this? When women gain education, massive amounts of talent and energy free up to address these kinds of needless suffering.
I want answers here. I want some accounting for a religion that sets itself up as the final and best word from Allah (the Arabic word for God) and does zero for the suffering under their rule.
Any follower of the Islamic faith who proudly declares his/her religion as superior to Christianity and Judaism has much to answer for here.
Yeah, not exactly politically correct words. Furthermore, I’ll be the first to admit that Christianity has a ton of issues of its own with its record of female denigration. But, now at least, most of us can get an education, speak out, and be active participants in the world.
Afghan women have nothing. And every bit of their zero status can be laid at the door of religious thinking that gives all power to the male.
And so I say again, if the oppression of women is what Allah demands, then that conception of Allah deserves nothing but contempt.
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