Hypocrisy!

A thousand years after the advent of Islam, France was holding a discourse to assess whether a woman was a human being. During the reign of King Henry VIII, it was declared that as she was impure, it was unlawful for a woman to read the Bible. On the death of their husbands, Hindu women were condemned to perform self-immolation.

In Europe and North America, more than sixty thousand women were executed or burnt at the stake on the mere suspicion of practicing witchcraft. Until the 19th century, women did not have the right to own property or obtain a divorce. European literature portrayed women as mere chattel. In “Taming of the Shrew”, she was meant to be reformed by man. Hamlet, addressing his mother Gertude, said, “Frailty, thy name is woman”; a line epitomizing the prevalent mindset.

When established, British universities such as Oxford, Wales and Cambridge, allowed male admissions only. France granted voting rights to women 155 years after its independence and till 1964, women needed their husbands’ permission to open a bank account or get a passport. Today, a woman choosing to wear a hijab in France may face a prison sentence of up to two years.

However, since the Taliban took over Kabul, the one thing that is tormenting the sanctimonious West and Modi, is their ignoble cling on women’s rights. This is despite the fact that none of the Taliban leaders boast a Modi, Macron or Trump, the ultimate alpha males, within their ranks.

Trump was propelled to office by what Micheal Kimmel, world-renowned sociologist on gender studies, describes as “the US’s angry white men”. White House Advisor, Sebastian Gorka, heralded Trump’s presidency as a “return of the alpha males”. Trump’s inaugural address site was packed with half a million women protesters the very next day.

Shirley Chisholm, author and the first Afro-American Congresswoman, was spot on saying the emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins as soon as the doctor says, “it’s a girl”. The fact is epitomized when Trump tells American-born Democratic congresswomen of colour to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came”.

Apart from calling Hillary Clinton a bigot, Trump referred to certain women publicly as “lowlife, fat pigs, slobs and horse-face”. He had far worse things to say throughout his presidency. Facing allegations of rape and assault, the POTUS gloated publicly that “he felt entitled by his celebrity status to grab women by their genitals”; an epitome of unparalleled hypocrisy of the alpha males regarding sanctity of women rights!

Timothy Weeks, an Australian professor at the American University in Kabul, spent three and a half years in Taliban captivity. He converted to Islam and was released in exchange of Anas Haqqani. He traveled to Doha to attend the first session of the Afghan peace talks on the invitation of the Taliban; Anas Haqqani was at the airport to receive him.

Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle, a Canadian couple, were Taliban captives for five years. They converted to Islam as did Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist. Western politicians and media dub it as the Stockholm Syndrome. (This is a condition in which hostages develop a psychological bond with their captors during captivity).

Why don’t released Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib or Pul Charkhi inmates fall prey to the same syndrome?

It was Yvonne Ridley who told the world about the plight of Aafia Siddiqui, the only woman prisoner at Bagram and incarcerated with male inmates. In 2010, Dr Aafia was sentenced to 86 years in prison. The preposterous charges: a frail woman snatching a gun and trying to murder two American soldiers in Afghanistan!

Rape during wars or occupations has been used as a weapon despite its international designation as a war crime. History records these gruesome acts on mass scale, such as when the Allied Forces took over Berlin and the 90s’ Balkan (Bosnia) war.

On a bitterly cold night of February 23, 1991, 300 soldiers of India’s 4th Rajputana Rifles cordoned off the Kunan and Poshpora villages in Kupwara district of Occupied Kashmir. Reeking of alcohol they entered houses; the gory aftermath of that single night saw the despicable rape of 150 girls and women.

This state-sponsored atrocity is documented in international reports and in a book penned by five Kashmiri women titled, “Do You Remember Kunan Poshpora?” It narrates heart-wrenching facts of how minor girls, the physically impaired and even pregnant women were not spared. Mothers and daughters, grandmothers and their granddaughters were molested in the same room. One of the victims was told by her rapist, “We have orders to rape you”.

The West with its unparalleled hypocrisy remained mute and callously unmoved about this atrocity. However, it raises a cacophony with its dichotomous chest beating for the Afghan women; the same women who were murdered and maimed along with their children, fathers, brothers and husbands during attacks, bombings and drone strikes during the devastating twenty year war.

Even in the last days, as the US forces fled Kabul, they bequeathed an Afghan home with 10 dead bodies, including seven children, from a drone strike. This strike, which President Biden said had taken out ISIS members, is now heartlessly termed a case of mistaken identity. A US 4-star general has even apologized that it happened.

What could be a greater crime; a greater act of infamy perpetrated time and again on innocent people?

All nations that gained freedom from tyrannical subjugation did so by rising against the occupiers; Afghanistan did the same. When Nelson Mandela and his ANC was banned in 1960, Mandela became head of Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), ANC’s military wing. Convicted of treason, he was sent to prison, and remained incarcerated for 27 years remaining, till 2008, on the US terror watch list.

The same Nelson Mandela became a Nobel Peace laureate in 1993; he was sworn in as the President of South Africa a year later. Mandela “the terrorist” is revered globally as a symbol of resistance to subjugation and as an icon of peace and freedom. The West’s hypocrisy remains unparalleled. The fact remains that the Afghans fought and won their freedom; Occupied Kashmir shall one day achieve the same. It is ordained since the dawn of time; tyranny shall never endure.