Let’s go back to origins. According to Gerda Lerner, author of the authoritative History of Patriarchy, the issue is a social one before becoming gendered. In ancient Babylon   concealing one’s head and shoulders was a sign of  respectability, it indicated high social status. Slaves, dancers, prostitutes were expressly forbidden to cover the heads, their hair  a metaphor for the public region, indicating sexual availability. In Ancient Egypt, they went even further: slaves, like animals, were naked, whereas the privileged were entitled to clothing.

Whose privilege is the next question ? By covering up the female body, one indicates male ownership. In the patriarchal societies which produced such customs, it means that any female belonged either to her father or her husband and therefore the covering indicated that someone had exclusive rights on the contents of the human package. Even looking was forbidden and the next step was the construction of a secluded space which doubled the function of the veiling. This how in the Middle-East, Assyrian and Babylonian potentates built massive harems filled with sexual slaves given the pompous name of concubines, which meant that any children they produced belonged to their father. These traditions were far stronger than in the Arab world of North Africa, as the customary top-till toe covering instituted by the Ottoman empire shows, and help explain where the Iranian type of veiling really comes from. Jews obliged married women to cover their heads- again as a sign of marital property, whereas their daughters could show off their crowning glory, an aid to attracting potential husbands, one presumes, notwithstanding that they probably had little to say in terms of choice, same as every other girl in the area.  Early Christians went further, Tertullian (c160-222), author of the definitive De Virginibus Velandis (Concerning the veil of virgins)  a stern theologian from Carthage in present day Tunisia, claimed that all women should be covered, as an eternal punishment for Original Sin which purportedly exiled Adam and Eve from monotheistic Paradise “ Women, you should always be in mourning, covered in rags and spend your time repenting in order to buy back the sin of having confounded mankind”. The covering he recommends is also a permanent marker of social inferiority, as women are not allowed any rights whatever or any kind of  participation in Christian religious ritual.

By the time Islam came along, there was a hefty patriarchal tradition which equated the covering of women to a total lack of independence or right to autonomy. naturally, Mohammed could not go totally against the dominant discourse. Nevertheless, as we know, he managed to introduce a partial right to inheritance (where there was none before), a theoretical right to accept or refuse a spouse and some kind of personal dowry (when this was unheard of). In Afghanistan today, customary law which supersedes any kind of other legislation, continues to base itself on such pre-Islamic practices which the prophet tried so hard to change. Alas, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, he failed to this day.

Head coverings ended up being ubiquitous in the Mediteranean world: Christian and Greek Orthodox women knotted black scarves round their chins, Spanish women bore alluring mantillas,  and besides Western women always went around wearing hats, till after World War Two.

Now about the all-envelopping Afghan burka with the net coving the eyes. It seems that this particular costume may have originated in the Ottoman Empire and somehow found its way into Northern India as a marker for the  (Muslim) Pathan upper classes. Once again this indicated social privilige, statutory inferiority and usually male wealth as women were naturally incapacitated by such restricted clothing. The same goes for the wearers of the abaya in the present-day Gulf States. Female idleness was the supreme indication that men were rich enough to keep them;   their main obligation was and remains reproductive (of males, that is) and sexual entertainment, preferably left to lesser wives and/or concubines. In the olden days as now, this supposed idleness was naturally something very few women could in fact enjoy: it is just that their work did not take place in public space, but on a domestic, therefore private scale. Pierre Bourdieu in his ground-breaking study of Kabyls has done much work about what constitutes male and female occupations and ways of occupying space. Practicially everything he has written applies to present day rural Afghanistan. Any kind of socially ennobling work- using metal tools, tasks carried out standing, sowing, trading etc was deemed male privilege whereas work implying a crouching position, or marketable skills from food preparation to  carpet weaving was and is carried out in the domestic space, then sold by the menfolk. This is not considered ‘work’ by men, since it is not carried out in a publicly visible manner. Whereas men will proudly show their faces, enact their sense of honour in a proactive aggressive way, women, on the contrary hide in veiled anonymity, their role being to passively sustain family respectability. Which is why they need to circulate in the all-covering burka. In the case of extreme poverty (in the Afghan refugee camps or in Kabul today), this is naturally a pretence, because the idleness it symbolizes and therefore the male financial success it is meant to advertise is non-existent. But the illusion remains and that suffices: family honour is safe.

What about the present day veiling in France which the French law now forbids. What is being debated here is not the scarf, but the niqab , the opaque black veil which entirely covers female faces. Some French intellectuals have sprung up, as is their wont, to violently criticize this. As I wrote in a recent post on this site, in answer to an article which concluded with a remark about what would happened to a veiled tourist arriving in Paris: “What would happen to any Western female traveller arriving in Teheran, Mecca or Kabul bare-headed wearing a sleeveless tee-shirt? We all know the answer to that one.
In the meantime, what has largely been forgotten is that this total veil is part of a package deal. It is generally worn in families of Muslims of Salafist/Wahabi persuasion, which includes many French converts. This a truly Fundamentalist creed which believes in the most literal reading of Islam:any form of bid’ah, innovation is totally forbidden. The Taliban were ardent defenders of this creed. Wahabbism implies that the notion of the state is unacceptable, let alone democracy, civil and human rights prescribed by most of the world’s constitutions. For these Fundamentalists, religion (the Islamic religion that is, not any other) has to be the guiding principle of any and every kind of government which excludes adherence to any laws put forward by a secular government that considers religion to be a private matter. The French sociologist Oliver Roy has written interesting texts about this now globalized form of Islam that bans the notion of any frontier and aims to unite the Umma under its radical banner.

This issue is at the centre of the most important debate going on within Muslim-majority countries today. Whilst self-righteous minds upbraid France for its purported racism against Muslims, they would do well to consider what is going in other countries where Muslims are dominant. Since 2008, the famed Al-Azhar university, specialized in the study of Sunnite Islam in Egypt, has forbidden the niqab on its premises, even the version where a slit has been accommodated for the eyes. Three other universities in the country forbid their female students to turn up to exams dressed in this way.  Since July 18th, the same law applies in Syria: female students, thus shrouded are not allowed access to university and 1200 teachers have been fired from their posts in June. Syrian feminists welcomed the ban. Ghiyat Barakat, the Syrian Education Minister claims that is not part of Syrian culture. Indeed he knows exactly what threat the spreading of this costume means to democratic institutions, something the Tunisian government has also been worried about.

These countries are fighting Political islam on home ground, because they know full well the issues that lie behind what is much more than a mere sartorial debate. France in its clumsy way is conscious of it too, remembering the civil war in the former colony Algeria (1992-2002) when the Islamic Salvation Front sought to control the country by extreme repressive means. Many victims have sought refuge in France. The rise of radical islam in French suburbs is a serious cause for concern for democrats and such groups  as the famous ‘Ni Putes ni Soumises’ (which translates as ‘neither sluts nor submissive), founded and run by feminist Algerian and Tunisian women.

In brief, it is essential to look at the whole veil issue in terms of history and sociology and meditate on its medium to long-term consequences

This piece will also appear on my friend Farooq’s excellent website www.viewpointonline .net

In the meantime, the show goes on usual! Taliban or no Taliban. In the village of Gardan-i-Top in the Ghor province, two little girls, Khadija Rasoul aged 13 and Basgol Sakhi 14 had been forced to marry old men in an exchange deal; because they were beaten, they tried to run off, disguised as boys. Presumably lost and not knowing how to move about in public space, they were caught by the police and sent back to their village, to their husbands, never mind that the Constitution outlaws both such early marriages and domestic violence.. There the local authorities decided to punish them by having them lashed in public. Here is the video which some locals proudly filmed. Watch this tiny little figure huddled under shawls being beaten by a brute whose turban slips off in his exertions. She tries so hard not to cry, not to collapse to keep the dignity which the thugs around have lost forever. Her face is being covered, not because anyone feels guilty about the tears but because a woman’s face should not be seen in public. Burqas are expensive items, doubtless these little girls were not deemed to deserve one- or would fallen over them, because, as you will see they are tiny, as are all the malnourished kids (especially girls) in this country. All this is the name of patriarchal privilege, sanctioned by a Fundamentalist reading of Islam.. This is a snippet of daily life in rural Afghanistan. And that caricature of a Peace Jirga will only continue to legitimate this kind of abject behaviour. With the blessing of the US and NATO sponsors of this farce.

http://video.nytimes.com/video/2010/05/30/world/asia/1247467951940/afghan-girls-flogged-for-running-away.html

This video wis being circulated Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

A grim summary, alas….

This was organized with Libération daily and made it to the front page of their site in May

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/06012009-carol-mann-la-malediction-des-femmes-en-afghanistan

Femmes dans la guerre (1914-1945) : Survivre au féminin devant et durant deux conflits mondiaux

The next one will be about Women at War in Afghanistan

I  have been following the exchanges on various lists and I am writing to you about Afghanistan,. First, I need to introduce myself for you to see where I’m coming  from. I am a scholar and activist based in Paris, specialized in the issue of Afghan women in war. Although affiliated with SOAS, I work independently, lecturing in Paris mainly- I  initiated the study of gender and armed conflict here, starting a seminar with Jane Freedman at the Sorbonne a couple of years ago and am organizing the first academic study-day on Afghanistan in Paris this coming April.

But I really do have an in-depth knowledge about Afghanistan as I have been running a modest NGO www. femaid.org for  the last ten years, working in refugee camps in Pakistan first and for the last few years inside Afghanistan, especially in deeply rural areas. This in fact prompted me to get my PhD on the subject
If you look at my blog carolmann.net, you will see the latest articles I have published in the French , Canadian and British etc. press

I have to say that I worked with the main Afghan grassroots women’s movements  right from the start, both for my research and on aid schemes and we indeed managed to collaborate on very worthwhile projects, orphanages, literacy courses, midwife training etc to which I am particularly attached to. But today, despite my love and admiration which go out to them, some of their attitudes worry me.

Without wanting to launch myself into a full critique, I just want to say that the situation is not about US military or no US military. That would be far too simple and also irrelevant. I travelled to Afghanistan, as I do every year in  October and November last year, especially in the Western provinces where we started the first women and children’s centre (funded by yours truly selling handicrafts etc). I was hoping to research local opposition to US troops.
I must say that I did not find anyone to tell me that they were fully opposed to the US presence- I was aghast, because I was really expecting to find the opposite. This concurs with other findings, as you know. You’ll see the result in my paper next month’s Monde Diplomatique. The troops are seen as a buffer between people and the pro-Taliban powers which they really find threatening, especially women. And I have to say, whether one likes it or not, the for whatever reason and however inadequate, the US-led reconstruction teams (PRT and the like) have considerably improved some of the infrastructures: you find water and electricity in places where there never was any before and the local population know that.  More achievements of this kind are needed and visibility given to them. This does not mean that all is perfect, far from it: disasters abound, especially in the field of maternal and infantile mortality but this cannot be exclusively blamed on foreign presence and/or inaptitude. For all its considerable faults, NATO did not invent patriarchy.

In rural Afghanistan, the present government  (in the form of its governors and local representatives)is more often than not seen as the real enemy, especially in its endless compromises with the most reactionary forces – warlords, Taliban alike: there are no real  ideological differences between them and they are all united in their will to safeguard patriarchal privilege by repressing women. And endemic corruption in this feudal set-up is endemic, but is really about nepotism and exchanges of favours which characterize the whole region’s politics (and still some of ours).

That is the crux of the matter. We are dealing with a pre-modern state in that there in no state, no nation (but strong tribalism), no sense of entitlement to an individual destiny. Hence the uselessness of the present constitution and what looks like Human Rights banter. Brutal customary law reigns, based on pre-Islamic tenets and getting stronger in reaction to what is perceived as a threat to their proponents. So what way out? There is not single route and solutions are apt to change, obviously.
For start, I think it is essential to help create a real opposition political party- not an extended NGO with a complaints bureau, but a structure with ideological content that systematically addresses economical and social problems with possible solutions (from electricity to maternal mortality). And in a family based traditional society, you cannot separate women from men in the name of what Leila Ahmed called ‘colonial feminism’, which is precisely what aid does today and the British Raj did yesteryear.

So I think we should help opponents to the military presence and the present regime to formulate real policies and a workable real opposition strategy. We need them to see what benefits they can cull from the presence of aid in their country (and it is indeed massive). On our side, we should aim for less military but more constructive aid based on the country’s needs, not attempts to create another colonial satellite of Imperialism.
The future as far as I am concerned lies in the hands of the young generation, especially young women, that has lived abroad, Pakistan, Iran (YES, Iran) and those who are benefitting from higher education through study in the West and the USA (YES the wicked West which also happens to have a vocal and inspirational opposition). These young women and men could thus build a coherent future and begin to lay the basis of a modern state. More scholarships, please. better teachers throughout the country, please- as the most educated get the well paid jobs with the NGOs and the semi-litterate teachers accept to be paid a pittance. The basis for independent thought needs to be prepared through real education, which includes (as yet inexistent) health education.  And, we the thinking women of the West can at least help them think this through and bring them the tools of constructive criticism to aid them t formulate their own solutions.

I would be happy to discuss this further with you and all those interested.

Yours

Carol Mann

Three women had been incluuded: Palwasha Hassan was announced as nominee for Minister of Women’s Affairs (MoWA,  Suraya Dalil, as   Minister  of  Public Health and Amina Afzalirk  for Social Affairs/Martyred and Disabled. The first two were rejected. Through our friends at the AWAL list, we were able to have information about the questions the MPs asked Palwasha Hassan. The fears they reflect are highly relevant of the appalling situation women are experiencing today in Afghanistan…

Hijab is something necessary for women in Islam. What is your view and what strategy will MoWA have re:hijab/
2.  What is your level of knowledge about Islamic teaching.
3.  MoWA has always had a symbolic role..it is just a name, it doesn’t have real function. How can you change it into an effective ministry.
4.  MP female – First woman head of Women Dept. during Rabbani asked.. We read in your bio that you worked a lot for shelters and as we know, shelters are not a good place for girls. They are very bad for girls in Afghan society. Her family will not accept her again to come back. Can you respond to this.
Palwasha answered: shelters were done for girls on the streets being abused. Establish of this kind of place to save women is not against Islam.  I believe Allah will compensate me for this.
5.  There is a relation between poverty and violence. How will you reduce poverty. And  what is your strategy for women’s empowerment. How will you find money for women’s empowerment? (A woman)
6.  Mullah asked.  Women’s rights and gender issues are going in Afghanistan two ways = Western style and Islamic style. Our laws in Afghanistan are pro-women. How will you make sure that there is balance between the two…not too much freedom of women but still have rights under law.
7.  What is your program/strategy for creating women’s defense movement? Women’s Movement.  To work for promotion of women’s rights?
8.  What is your policy to bring women into budgets. What is your policy to provide for women Islamic Education in rural areas.
9. Do you bring, for a good change – do you see the need to change head of DoWAs to other provinces.
10. Most seminars/workshops happen in Cities. How can you make them happen in provinces.
11.  What do you know about philosophy of gender in society and economy?And do you agree that gender in the west is based on unlimited choice for women.
12.  Hijab and Mahram – Female?  Do you have a red line/limitation for women that they cannot cross. For example, go without Hijab, without Mahram…cannot travel.
13. Do you allow men to work in MoWa
14.  Hijab question again.
15.  Commercial announcement on TV – Females are misused. How do you stop that?

I turned this into an article published by the Canadian feminist site Sisyphe: I entitled it ‘Les Talibans déjà au pouvoir à Kaboul’, alas….

http://sisyphe.org/spip.php?article3502

Human Right Watch report: We Have the Promises of the World” Women’s Rights in Afghanistan

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/86805/section/1

Here is the article I wrote that has just come out in the French daily Libération

http://www.liberation.fr/monde/0101613405-femmes-afghanes-un-echec-partage

This is an a brief article I wrote about the subject which just appeared in the Japan Times

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100104a1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20japantimes%20%28The%20Japan%20Times:%20All%20Stories%29

The Japan Times

January4th 2010

Usual anguish for Afghan women

By CAROL MANN
FARAH, Afghanistan — When the problems riddling Afghan society are listed — violence, insecurity, corruption, religious fundamentalism — one dominating factor is usually left out: the influence of customary law.

In Afghanistan, there are three principal legal references: constitutional law, the Quran and the system of customary law known as Farhang, the most dominant and strictest version of what is called Pashtunwali (the way of the Pashtuns).

Originally an ancient honor code, Farhang ensures the dominance of the oldest male of any household, followed by married sons, unmarried sons and grandsons, then wives (with the youngest at the bottom). Collective decisions are taken by patriarchs in councils called jirgas, where all have to be in agreement.

This agreement includes including collaborating or not with the Taliban, cooperating with the Coalition forces, accepting or refusing poppy eradication in a village. Everything else is left to patriarchal discretion. Here, no one will intervene except to reinforce the application of the patriarch’s rights — say, in stoning a supposedly wayward girl, or turning a blind eye “honor killings” of women.

Every act of an Afghan male’s life is integrated in a form of reciprocity, in which nothing is free. Melmastia, the basic tenet of hospitality means “I will give you shelter if you ask me to, even if you are a fugitive murderer; but, in exchange, you fight my battles.”

This sense of customary obligation is why so many of President Hamid Karzai’s cronies remain in place and Taliban leaders remain safe.

Women are excluded from collective decision-making, as they are mere objects. Girls are literally sold upon marriage (the father is paid money for his daughter’s labor and reproductive capacity) and join their husband’s household. The younger the girl, the higher the price. Marriage, especially in the provinces, is routinely consummated on pre-pubescent bodies.

Yet women are precious in their own way. A family’s principal “cultural capital” is its honor, which is ensured by denying women any opportunity to highlight male failings and therefore tarnish clan respectability. As a result, women must be strictly secluded and made invisible when in public, for they are personally responsible for the desire that they could ignite in schools, hospitals, parks, or markets. The all-covering burqa ensures sufficient anonymity to permit women a certain amount of freedom in public space.

Every female simultaneously carries her father’s and her husband’s honor, and will stoically submit to all forms of violence committed in its name. This may mean dying in childbirth rather than risking the “dishonor” of giving birth in a public place, a hospital, in front of strangers.

Going to court is practically unheard of, as it would mean renouncing family practices. From the male point of view, resorting to outside police or judicial intervention would signify an inability to fight one’s own battles — an admission of defeat and a symbolic castration.

This helps explain the intense corruption present in Afghan courts, where “honor” can be redeemed by bribing a judge to have a rapist or murderer released. As violence is strictly a private matter, relinquishing justice to state institutions could be an unacceptable humiliation.

Customary law is not rigid in that it is made to fit round the demands of global economy. It has become more rigorous in its applications due to the influence of militant Islam, which seeks to use religious texts to legitimize escalating brutality, especially against women. However, Farhang and privatized violence are precisely what Mohammad sought to ban through Quranic law, which went beyond the personal domain and instituted a code that gave some rights to women.

For example, while the Quran allows for a measure of female inheritance, tribal custom does not authorize it, which explains the popularity of tribal councils to resolve inheritance problems and cheat women out of their rights. Similarly, whereas the Quran requires four eyewitnesses as proof of adultery, mere suspicion of some unregulated, potentially sexual conduct by a woman warrants stoning under customary law.

Yet an awareness of alternatives is seeping in through the media, even in remote provinces. Iranian films and the much loved Indian TV serials, not to mention the occasional American film, influence peoples’ expectations. Add to that the experience of having lived abroad as refugees in Pakistan and Iran. Girls know that there are options to an unacceptable way of life: Women are increasingly demanding more from life than what custom ordains. This is especially true for those who have lived in Iran, a totally Muslim environment that allows women the freedom to study and work as well as access to adequate health care and family planning.

Once back in rural Afghanistan, forced into brutal marriages, many desperate women — especially returnees from Iran — resort to self-immolation. Violence and murder of women are on the increase, perpetrated by men who feel that these alternatives pose a threat to their authority.

The West imagines that religion is the central issue in Afghanistan. But the heart of the matter is the preservation of ancient patriarchal rights that go back to Biblical times, reformatted to fit the demands of globalized capitalism.

Governments and international aid organizations have failed to take into consideration the role of Farhang, perhaps because the power of unwritten law remains largely inconceivable in the West. But Afghanistan cannot begin to solve its many problems until it criminalizes the privatized violence of this antiquated code.

Paris-based Carol Mann, a social anthropologist on issues concerning gender and war, runs FemAid, a nongovernment organization that works in rural Afghanistan. © 2009 Project Syndicate (www.project-syndicate.org)
The Japan Times: Monday, Jan. 4, 2010