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Ahmed Rashid's Failure in Cross Cultural
Communication
His American Audiences Were Shocked at His Report
on the Taliban,
Women
and
Burqas
RASHID DROPPED HIS BURQA BOMBSHELL ON
AUDIENCES FOR WHOM SEMI-NUDITY
IS THE NORM
[This is another excerpt from
Dr. Kaukab Siddique's
forthcoming book
RETURN TO
PAKISTAN.
A librarian in Karachi showed
interest in helping to get it
published in Pakistan after the first excerpt was
posted. The author is still
looking for publishers in the
U.S.,
U.K and
Canada.]
For me, Ahmed Rashid, as epitomized in his
book Taliban, represents the
hegemonistic linkage between the Pakistani and
American
media
elites and
power structures. With his study of the Taliban
as oppressors of women, Rashid
provided the moral high ground the American
elites need to "sell" their war to
the American people. For Rashid, the Taliban were
people who forced women into a
position worse than that of the Jews under
Hitler. They were, for him,
religious bigots, who denied women basic human
rights such as medical and health
facilities, education and even fresh air. They
wanted to make women stay cooped
up in homes which were no less than their
prisons. They imposed the burqa on
women (which now is known all over the western
world as the instrument of
repression, owing to the power of western
media).
Ahmed Rashid tried to denigrate the concept
of Jihad by attempting to
connect the repression of women with it. He
wrote:
"In the madrassa milieu, control over women
and their virtual exclusion
was a powerful symbol of manhood and a
reaffirmation of the students'
commitment to
jihad.
Denying a role for women
gave the Taliban a kind of false
legitimacy amongst these elements." (Page 111)
Rashid's main point is summed up
thus:
"So the oppression of women became a benchmark
for the Taliban's Islamic
radicalism, their aim to 'cleanse' society and to
keep the morale of their troops
high." (Ibid.)
Rashid was entirely off the mark but my
purpose here is to discuss why
the American people were deceived by his
propaganda. For an understanding of the
tragic deception which Rashid successfully
introduced into the American
understanding of the Taliban, let us first look
at the American way of life.
I have lived in America for 33 years. I can
say with assurance that
most Americans do not mind semi-nudity. During
the summer months, the beaches are
covered with men, women, and children who are
very scantily dressed. The
acceptance of partial and even complete nudity is
not something strange or
abnormal for Americans. The process begins at a
young age for both sexes. In
dormitory showers and in locker rooms, especially
after sports events, semi or
complete nudity is not seen as something strange.
Men take off all their clothes in
front of other men for purposes of change of
clothes or for showers. The same
applies to women stripping in front of other
women. Quite normal and decent
people do this form of undressing.
In urinals, people have little privacy from
others while relieving
themselves. Only defecation takes place behind
closed doors. In public, women and
men dress in shorts and sleeveless shirts. Women
who want to attract
attention have to go to extreme forms of undress
if they want to become famous, such
as in the case of Madonna, because regular
semi-nudity is seen as mundane and
unremarkable.
I remember in 1974 an Islamic leader from
Pakistan visited me and stayed
overnight. The next day, he looked out the window
and saw our neighbor, a
woman wearing short shorts and a tiny top. She
was bending down, tending to her
flower beds. My visitor could not help wondering
aloud if she was a
prostitute. I had to explain to him that she was
a housewife and a mother and such dress
is quite common, especially in the summer. [This
was in a conservative town
in Canada.]
Thus there is huge cultural divide between
America and Pakistan. As for
Afghanistan, it is a land which requires
considerable cultural acumen for a
writer to make it understandable and available to
Americans in any sensible
way. Most Afghans would go into shock to know
that there are "girlie" magazines
in America where women not only willingly get
themselves photographed in the
nude but contort themselves into poses which
would reveal the details of their
private parts. Such magazines sell several
million copies every month in the
U.S.. Many American women, who are used to
wearing bikinis and tiny shorts on
the beaches, do not see any reason why they
should not make money by taking off
the little they wear while in a relaxed mood.
Recently a popular woman artist, La Toya, was
on the Larry King Show,
which is seen on
CNN
from coast to coast in
America and overseas. King asked her
about her having taken off all her clothes for a
photograph which appeared in
a pulpy "for men" magazine. She was quite happy
about her photo. Then King
mused about what her husband's response was to
her nude photo being splashed in a
widely read publication. She explained that
during one of their visits to
Israel,
she had asked her husband about it and he
was quite enthusiastic and
encouraged her all the way. It would not be an
exaggeration to say that in
America, even male jealousy is no longer an
obstacle in the way of a wife taking off
her clothes for all to see.
Within that CONTEXT, Ahmed Rashid dropped
his bombshell of Afghan women
being forced to wear the "HEAD to TOE" burqa. His
book had the desired
effect. Americans went into culture shock. For
them, the Taliban became the epitome
of evil, cold blooded devils who had actually
imprisoned half the population
of Afghanistan.
The Taliban had no idea what Rashid was up
to. They accepted his visits
and allowed him to visit areas under their
control. He never quoted even one
Islamic woman in his book. Instead he quotes
women who were obviously from the
tiny westernized class of Afghanis (and only the
ones from Kabul) who provided
him his quotes. One woman Nasiba Gul, whom he
describes as dressed in "a long
skirt and high heels," told him: "The Taliban
just want to trample women into
the dust. No woman, not even the poorest or most
conservative wants the
Taliban to rule Afghanistan." (Page 110)
The problem with the thesis Rashid wanted to
develop is that the Taliban
leader Mullah Omar started his struggle to clean
up Afghanistan when the
father of a girl who had been raped by a
warlord's people appealed to him for help.
Omar could not bear the thought of a crime
against a woman. Under the
Taliban, there were no rapes from 1996 to 2001.
The degradation of women which had
become widespread during the civil war ended when
the Taliban forces seized
power.
So what is the real story about the
segregation of women, especially in
Kabul, and what is the role of the burqa in
Afghanistan? If we understand
what happened in Afghanistan, we can also
understand the role of Ahmed Rashid and
the tiny secularized ruling class of Pakistan.
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2003-06-14 Sat 08:33ct