Wednesday 30 April 2008

Killing women in Iraq

Zeina Zaatari wrote an article in the Guardian CiF addressing the problem of a surge in killing Iraqi women and it starts:

“Iraqi women's organisations and international observers point to an escalating war against women in Iraq, aided by widespread chaos and lawlessness under the US occupation”

Link to the article:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/zeina_zaatari/2008/04/caught_up_in_the_whirlwind.html

First I don’t think killing women in Iraq is due to chaos and lawlessness but due to typical Arab and religious misogyny facilitated by chaos due to the occupation. After the fall of Nazi Germany German people did not go around killing each other or killing women but let the law take its natural course. So suggesting that killing women in Iraq is a direct by-product of occupation is an utter nonsense and what we need to look at is stories of honour killings in Iraq and in the rest of Arab and Muslim world even during the secular and brutal regime of Saddam.

One of the CiF commentators by the name Freewoman suggested angrily that Iraqi women need to learn how to protect themselves by even carrying a gun and shoot any man who tries to harm or kill them. I thought that is really good idea but it needs to be expanded more to stop those religious and tribal misogynists from killing women for whatever reason. I think it is the duty of US and others international forces to form local women groups, arm them and train them to protect women in neighbourhood. This is a similar exercise to arming local Sunni misogynists to protect their communities from attacks by the other misogynists of the Shiite militias.

No comments:

Disclaimer

All data and information provided on this site is for informational purposes only. iraqalatar.blogspot.com makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information on this site and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use. All information is provided on an as-is basis.