Some thanks are in order.
First and foremost, thanks to Walter for letting me do this. It’s been a treat to get to post here for the past two weeks. If I have any regrets, it’s that I didn’t get more posts done. These regrets are, of course, senseless. As Christopher Hitchens once put it, there is no “wanting to write.” You either do or you don’t—everything else is besides the point.
And to be honest, it’s not like I haven’t been writing—I have the stubs of two posts on Afghanistan in progress. It’s just that they aren’t ready for airing quite yet. And that’s the thing about Via Meadia. On most any other blog, I would have been tempted to link to an article or a post somewhere out there on the Internet, sketch out a response in one or two paragraphs, and move on. But that’s not what I’m looking for when I come here as a reader, and I suspect it’s not what you all are looking for either. Walter sets an incredibly high standard, and it’s been very challenging and rewarding coming up with stuff which, though far from Mead-like, I wouldn’t cringe at while re-reading.
Thankfully, these scribbles of mine are not stillborn. I’ll be regularly writing at The American Interest‘s editorial blog, Cont’d. from now on, so you’ll be able to read them there when I’ve finished polishing them. Which leads me to the second set of thanks: to you, the readers of Via Meadia. I’ve benefitted very much from your thoughtful comments and helpful links. Usually blogs suffer from a cripplingly low signal-to-noise ratio in the comments, but such is not the case here (thus far). I hope to continue the conversation with you at the new location. Here’s a link to the RSS feed if you feel like subscribing.
I’ll leave you with a pregnant passage from Rory Stewart’s excellent book on walking across Afghanistan, The Places In Between
“Why did you become a Mujahid?” I asked Seyyed Umar.
“Because the Russian government stopped my women from wearing head scarves and confiscated my donkeys.”
“And why did you fight the Taliban?”
“Because they forced my women to wear burquas, not head scarves, and stole my donkeys.”
Yes, there is no end to stories about jackasses in Afghanistan.
Damir, I guess I’m a little less awed than you by “ancient lands” where men rule who insist in the 21st century to treat women little different than donkeys.
Somewhat related, if I have any criticism of this blog, and the AI in general, it’s that you seem to have a hard time to find women to write here. I’m not dogmatic about this, but just a few weeks ago, I was really struck to browse here and find not a single recent piece written by a women. I see that this has since slightly improved.
But back to the issue of women’s right: Not that long ago, a beautiful girl who had her nose cut off by the Taleban was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Are you sure you are entirely comfortable to suggest, as you seem to do in this post, that we should respect Afghanistan’s (and the wider region’s) treatment of women?
Also, I couldn’t help feeling when I read WRMs recent posts on Pakistan where he listed the many theories of what went wrong that perhaps, if he had met with some of the many victims of acid attacks, he might have also contemplated the idea that there is something very fundamentally wrong with societies where women are essentially regarded as the property of men.
Google “Pakistan acid attacks”, and maybe read up a bit on the gruesome fate of so many of the women in the region before you write another post that shruggs off these issues.
Petra, I hope you’ll swing by Cont’d. later this week, as I hope to expand on some of the objections you raise. In short, though, it’s not about respecting rural Afghanis’ bestial treatment of women. It’s about recognizing that we’re not going to change their society within acceptable time and cost horizons, and that suggesting otherwise, as Time does with their cover, is irresponsible.
Thanks for your provocative posts Mr. Marusic and for the reference to AI’s Cont’d blog which I didn’t know about. I cruised over there and the posts look quite interesting; unfortunately they also look quite sporadic. But I am sure that many WRM readers will look forward to reading you in that location.
We’ll be picking up the pace over there, WigWag, but we’ll still strive to keep up the longer essay approach and keep the link-and-run postings to an absolute minimum.
” It’s about recognizing that we’re not going to change their society within acceptable time and cost horizons, and that suggesting otherwise, as Time does with their cover, is irresponsible.”
Perhaps we should actually debate the “acceptability” of said time and cost horizons, rather than asserting that such debate is “irresponsible.” Just a thought.
alwaysfiredup, I’m coming at this from the standpoint that this has all cost quite enough already, with the gains, such as they are, still quite tenuous.
I don’t mean to be predictably callous. Human rights issues are important, and as PetraMB posted above, there is something terribly amiss with societies where women are treated as property. That said, we shouldn’t confuse the abhorrent symptom with the disease and therefore conclude that by improving women’s lot in rural Afghanistan we’re somehow curing broader societal ills. More likely, it’d be akin to suppressing the fever to a nasty internal infection you’re otherwise ignoring: quit the aspirin course and watch the fever come roaring back.
I’ll be returning to these points in a future post.
Thank you Damir, for your posts, your interest in us commenters, and for quoting Rory Stewart.
The key to helping women is education. Rural Afghanistan may seem medieval to us, but at least they do not sell young girls into sex slavery.
Yes, I agree that link-and-run posting is a scourge, but seems to be keeping a few people employed.
I predict someday the war against those cultures who hate/eat/abuse dogs (canines) will overwhelm the U.S., but at least the French will finally fight
see you at Cont’d.
So airlift a couple of crates of head scarves and some good donkeys to them and bring the troops home already. Let them sort it out, it’s their business.