Forum on Terrorism
Laurie Parsons
October 16, 2001.
Click Here for Link to Press Release
Good evening and thank-you for inviting me to speak tonight.
I feel the need to preface my comments by expressing my sadness and horror at the events of September 11th and I feel this need because a dichotomy has been struck: you are either with the United States or you are with the terrorists. Since I'm not with either, I don't want my position to be understood as a callous disregard for the atrocities that were committed. Here in Canada, violence against women is not state-sanctioned, but is often overlooked or ignored. We see this in the minimal resources available to anti-violence organizations. And we see this in the statistics on violence against women. There does not appear to be a decrease. According to Statistics Canada 1/3 of Canadian women reported being physically or sexually assaulted by their partner, and half of those women required medical attention for their injuries. And some Canadian women are murdered by their male partners.
But despite this reality, part of what seems to be fuelling our justification for the war in Afghanistan is a moral superiority. This moral superiority is evident in the way we compare rights for women in Canada with rights for women in Afghanistan. It cannot be argued that Canadian women don't enjoy rights and privileges denied to women in Afghanistan. But we shouldn't forget that many women in Canada live with extreme brutality in the privacy of their own homes. And we should also not forget that Canadian women have fought long and hard for the rights that have been gained in Canada. These rights were not handed over on a silver platter because those with the power to make change were feeling benevolent. Yes, let's do be appalled by the conditions for women in Afghanistan, but let's not be smug and complacent about the progress we've made here. There is still much to be done.
Canadian women have been attempting to draw attention to the conditions for women in Afghanistan for many years, but only now - now when it is to the benefit of politicians to exploit the images of Afghani women - are we all paying attention to these deplorable conditions. And it's a very sad irony that in one breath, women in Afghanistan are described as the 'poor victims of the Taliban regime', and in the very next breath, they are described as 'collateral damage'. Apparently we care so deeply about Afghani women that we fly right over to drop some bombs on them.
So what are the women of Afghanistan saying - those whose images are being exploiting to justify war? In a statement released on September 14th by The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) a representative said:
"Now that the Taliban and Osama are the prime suspects by the US officials after the criminal attacks, will the US subject Afghanistan to a military attack and kill thousands of deprived, poor and innocent people of Afghanistan as its victims? Does the US think that through such attacks it will be able to wipe out the root-cause of terrorism, or will it spread terrorism to an even to a larger scale? From our point of view a vast and indiscriminate military attack on a country that has been facing permanent disasters for more than two decades will not be a matter of pride. We don't think such an attack would be the expression of the will of the American people. While we once again announce our solidarity and deep sorrow with the people of the US, we also believe that attacking Afghanistan and killing its most ruined and destitute people will not in any way decrease the grief of the American people. We sincerely hope that the great American people could differentiate between the people of Afghanistan and a handful of fundamentalist terrorists. Our hearts go out to the people of the US." (1)
And, on October 7th a RAWA representative said this: "We are terrified that the western coalition will put the Northern Alliance into power, These are the people who ruled Afghanistan once before, and they are just as much terrorists as Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. Just like the Taliban, their first target was women. They committed such crimes as rape, kidnap and forced marriage. We don't want the Taliban to be toppled by forced. NO MORE WAR! Only the Afghan people will be the victims. The way for peace is for the allies to stop those who are funding the fundamentalists." (2)
So, what are some Canadian and American women saying about this war? When a BBC reporter asked why Americans don't understand the animosity toward them, Bonnie Greire, an American Playwright and Broadcaster, said that it was because Americans don't know much about the world around them or their impact on it. Only 7-10% of Americans have passports, and their news is about them, and comes in the form of entertainment. (3)
And American writer, Barbara Kingsolver, said:
"Our nation was established with a fight for independence, so our iconography grew out of war. Our national anthem celebrates it; our language of patriotism is inseparable from a battle cry. Our every military campaign is still launched with phrases about men dying for the freedoms we hold dear, even when this is impossible to square with reality. In the Persian Gulf War we rushed to the aid of Kuwait, a monarchy in which women enjoyed approximately the same rights as a 19th century American slave. The values we fought for and won there are best understood, I think, by oil companies. Meanwhile, a country of civilians was devastated, and remains destroyed. Stating these realities does not violate the principles of liberty, equality, and freedom of speech; it exercises them, and by exercise we grow stronger." (4)
And Canadian Writer Naomi Klein said:
"The United States is a country that believed itself not just at peace but war -proof, a self-perception that would come as quite a surprise to most Iraqis, Palestinians and Colombians. Like an amnesiac, the US has awakened in the middle of a war, only to find out it has been going on for years. Did the United States deserve to be attacked? Of course not. But there's a different question that must be asked: Did US foreign policy create the conditions in which such twisted logic could flourish, a war not so much on US imperialism but on perceived US imperviousness? The US relies on the deep conviction that no one would dare mess with the US. - the one remaining superpower - on its own soil. This conviction allowed Americans to remain blithely unaffected by - even uninterested in - international conflicts in which they are key protagonists. Americans don't get daily coverage on CNN of the ongoing bombings in Iraq, nor are they treated to human-interest stories on the devastating effects of the economic sanctions on that country's children. The United States is expert in the art of sanitizing and dehumanizing acts of war committed elsewhere. The era of the video-game war in which the US is at the controls has produced a blinding rage in many parts of the world, a rage at the persistent asymmetry of suffering. This is the context in which twisted revenge-seekers make no other demand than that US citizens share their pain." (5)
We are told that we have gone to war to protect the principles of democracy and freedom. But most of us know that the privileges of democratic participation and freedom in the form of human rights aren't evenly distributed. Just ask Sunera Thobani how she is feeling about free speech in Canada right now. Clearly there was nothing in Thobani's speech - a speech for a conference on Women's Resistance to Oppression - that hadn't been said before by many men and women that suffered no consequences. Overnight Thobani became a traitor, a crazy professor, an ingrate who should move back to her country of origin if she doesn't like it here. She became a woman who was accused of a hate crime for pointing out the obvious. And it should be noted that the application of 'hate crime' legislation in this context is the absolute antithesis of the intent of such legislation. So Why? Why has Sunera Thobani been under such attack? It can only be because she is an immigrant woman of colour.
I think that Judy Rebick, describes it best. She said:
"Thobani has always enraged the chattering classes for her refusal to play the submissive role they expect from immigrant women of colour. There she stood, railing against the US - in defiance of the agreed-upon rules of debate set by the ruling elite - wearing the traditional clothes of her people. I know people of Arabic or South Asian descent who feel the same way she does, but they are afraid to express themselves. Now we know why." (6)
And what about Robert Fulford, a very powerful Canadian writer and editor? Did I understand him to say that he believes that there is a causal link between the anti-oppression movement and the terrorist attacks on September 11th? (7)
Are we creating a new reality in which those in the anti-oppression movement should be silenced and immigrants must show only their appreciation to 'real Canadians' for letting them into this country? Is free speech becoming free only if you are the right person saying the right thing? Perhaps one of many important lessons to take from the example of women in Afghanistan is that women's rights, and indeed human rights, can quickly erode and disappear. Afghanistan wasn't always an extremely oppressive place for women to live. The rhetoric of war tells us that our freedom and democracy are under threat from terrorists. But in reality, only we threaten our freedom and democracy.
Thank-you.
Sources Vancouver Rape Relief and Women's Shelter Website - September 14, 2001.
(2) RAWA Interview with Michelle Landsberg, Toronto Star - October 7, 2001.
(3) Bonnie Greire, BBC Interview - CBC Newsworld - October 12, 2001.
(4) Barbara Kingsolver, San Francisco Chronicle - September 25, 2001.
(5) Naomi Klein, The Globe and Mail - September 14, 2001.
(6) Judy Rebick, rabble.ca - October 2001.
(7) Robert Fulford, Vancouver Sun - October 12, 2001.
