Women’s situation in two hotspots

Washington-based economists working in institutions such the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank began to talk about a new phenomenon in international economics. They called it ‘globalisation’. In interpreting this phenomenon, they were joined by development thinkers in the city’s think tanks and journalists who wrote for their country’s main newspapers. What they saw was coming closer of different parts of the world, not physically but in the way they reacted with one another.

In a well-received book, The World is Flat, journalist Thomas Friedman who writes a column for The New York Times argued that the globe when viewed at some distance beyond national borders was not a sphere but a flat plane. Located on a sphere, you cannot observe much beyond the horizon since the view dips into the space. There are no limits of observation in a flat plane. Friedman developed his thesis by analysing what was happening in India where information technology had developed fast and the country was able to react quickly with the places beyond its borders. Equipped with the knowledge gained by studying in some of the world-class institutions of science and technology, the Indian youth left their country and went to the places in North America and Britain where there was a serious shortage of skills needed by the new economy.

In this new world, what happened in one place interacted with what was happening in other places. Not only ideas, finance, and people crossed international borders, crises also moved. In the article today, I will look at some of what I call global hotspots and how they might affect in the places in which they developed but also in distant geographic space they could influence places. I will briefly look at some recent developments in Iran and Afghanistan relating to the treatment of women.

Women’s situation in different parts of the world depends on where they reside. Cultural mores, society preferences and increasingly the interpreted role of religion determine how society treats their women. There is no question that women live differently than was the case a century or two ago. The right to vote was gained less than a hundred years ago and was the result of sustained pressures exerted by women and the organisations that represented them. Even though they were given the right to vote, their representation in the legislatures for the countries in which they live remains low.

Religion is an important factor in the lives of Muslim women but the way Islam is interpreted with reference to women differs from place to place. The treatment of women by the state is most backward in the recently liberated Afghanistan where the new Taliban rulers have placed women under all sorts of restrictions that affect their education, employment, and the right to move around without being watched by male relatives. The Taliban claim to follow the way Islam is observed in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the religion. Crown Prince Muhammad Bin Salman, MBS, the Kingdom’s effective ruler, has made some moves to free the lives of Saudi women but the change is slow in coming. I will focus on the situation of women in Iran and Afghanistan – two immediate neighbours of Pakistan.

The death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini brought thousands of Iranian women out in the streets, defying the authorities’ call for them to go back to their homes. It was reported that Amini was brutally murdered by the “morality police on showing too much hair”. Karim Sadjadpour, a scholar of Iranian origin who is a senior fellow at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, wrote an emotional piece that was published by The Washington Post.

“It’s premature to assess whether these protests will meaningfully change Iran’s politics, or whether they are simply another crack in the edifice of a rotting regime,” he wrote. “Yet one conclusion can already be drawn: Amini’s death, and Iranian response to it, should permanently alter how the outside world interacts with Iranian officials. And that shift in awareness should also include a fundamental reassessment of its own policy by the Biden administration.”

The wearing of hijab has become an important component of the way the Iranian regime interprets the meaning of Islam. The emphasis on covering the female body is part of the Islamisation of society and governance but also the way the Iranian ruling class would like to consolidate their hold. What has happened in Iran is not very different from what we see occurring in Afghanistan, another Pakistani neighbour. To go back to the analysis offered by Sadjadpour: “While Tehran on occasion has bowed down to external pressure, throughout its 43-year history the Islamic republic’s reaction to internal crises has been to double down on repression.

But there are growing fractures in the foundation, at a time when the country is braced for a potential leadership crisis because of 83-year old Khamenei’s uncertain health. While the Islamic Republic’s security forces may be in control for the moment, there are far more signs of regime frailty in Iran today than there were in Egypt and Tunisia in December 2010, weeks before their governments were overthrown.”

Turning now to Afghanistan. The Taliban attitude towards women became apparent on May 7, 2022, when the government they now headed issued an order pertaining to women. Muslim women must cover from head to toe in public. “This is not a restriction on women but an order of the Quran,” said Akif Muhajir, a spokesman for the Ministry of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. Women who appear in public in violation of the guidelines will first be issued warnings. Those who continue to defy the rules will have their male relatives appear before the ministry. It was not specified what kind of punishment would be awarded the male relatives.

Violence against women – in particular against those who were attending educational institutions –continued months after the Taliban had established their rule over the country. On September 30, 2022 it appears that the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan and Pakistan known as Islamic State-Khorasan, or IS-K, struck an educational centre attended by girls. Early reports indicated that 19 people, mostly young women, were killed and 27 injured. No group claimed responsibility for the attack carried out by two suicide bombers who shot their way into the centre. Targeted was Kaaj Educational Center, a private organisation that offers tutoring to 600 girls.

In a new protocol issued by the Taliban government, the classroom had been divided into separate sections for girls and boys. The blast targeted the girls section. In recent months some Taliban officials have called girls to return to school indicating a rift the leadership has sought to play down between ideologues and pragmatists among the Taliban. For some girls, the move to close schools and recent string of attacks on educational centres such as Kaaj have emboldened them to continue their studies however they can – whether applying for visas to study abroad, forming informal study groups among their peers, or taking courses at education centres such as Kaaj.

What happens to women in these countries would impact Pakistan and the country’s relations with two important neighbours.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 17^th, 2022.

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