ISLAMIST SAVAGERY TOWARD WOMEN IN TIMBUKTU RECOUNTED: Malian women recount year of abuse - Africa - Al Jazeera English

   
LINK: Malian women recount year of abuse - Africa - Al Jazeera English

Why Do They Hate Us? - By Mona Eltahawy

In "Distant View of a Minaret," the late and much-neglected Egyptian writer Alifa Rifaat begins her short story with a woman so unmoved by sex with her husband that as he focuses solely on his pleasure, she notices a spider web she must sweep off the ceiling and has time to ruminate on her husband's repeated refusal to prolong intercourse until she too climaxes, "as though purposely to deprive her." Just as her husband denies her an orgasm, the call to prayer interrupts his, and the man leaves. After washing up, she loses herself in prayer -- so much more satisfying that she can't wait until the next prayer -- and looks out onto the street from her balcony. She interrupts her reverie to make coffee dutifully for her husband to drink after his nap. Taking it to their bedroom to pour it in front of him as he prefers, she notices he is dead. She instructs their son to go and get a doctor. "She returned to the living room and poured out the coffee for herself. She was surprised at how calm she was," Rifaat writes.

In a crisp three-and-a-half pages, Rifaat lays out a trifecta of sex, death, and religion, a bulldozer that crushes denial and defensiveness to get at the pulsating heart of misogyny in the Middle East. There is no sugarcoating it. They don't hate us because of our freedoms, as the tired, post-9/11 American cliché had it. We have no freedoms because they hate us, as this Arab woman so powerfully says.

Yes: They hate us. It must be said. 

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Why Do They Hate Us? - By Mona Eltahawy

Girl Power - Afghanistan: FIGHTING THE WORST MYSOGYNISTS ON THE PLANET

Girl Power - Afghanistan

In war-weary Afghanistan women are still sold to pay debts and brutalized by family members. This report exposes the full horror of their plight and introduces the brave women combating the injustice.

Even in Afghanistan amidst endless unfolding horrors, the case of a 15-year-old girl named Sahar Gul shocked and ashamed many Afghans as they saw images of her brutalised body. The teenager was imprisoned and tortured at the hands of her husband's family, because she refused to become a prostitute. She was cut, burned with cigarettes, beaten to a pulp and many of her fingernails were ripped out. She was barely alive when police found her. "It's not just Sahar, there could be many more we're not aware of." Even after the ultra-misogyny of the Taliban has retreated into isolated pockets, women in Afghanistan are desperately downtrodden. "I think when you are born a woman in Afghanistan you are taught every day to hate yourself. Women don't respect themselves." But across town, another teenager Noorjahan Akbar refused to look away. And, as an Australian TV producer working in Afghanistan points out, Noorjahan is not alone. "I see now a generation of amazing young women, determined to make a change." Through the eyes of Noorjahan this is a confronting but ultimately inspiring story of emerging female power in Afghanistan.

A Film By ABC Australia
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
March 2012

WHAT AFGHANS CAN LOOK FORWARD TO UNDER TALIBAN AGAIN: Morality police patrol Taliban strongholds

As the US-led NATO forces prepare for their 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, the hype around "peace talks" with the Taliban has overshadowed many questions that remain in the minds of the average Afghan.

Amid a sense of urgency for a solution to the decade-long war - for which, the south of the country has unevenly carried the brunt - the unaddressed issues could come back to derail any short-term deal.

The Taliban leaders participating in the Qatar process have been tight-lipped about everything, but the release of their high-profile prisoners out of the US detention centre Guantanamo Bay. What kind of a role do they envision for the Taliban in a future Afghan state? Are they willing to compromise on certain extremities that they were notorious for during their six-year rule?

In an exclusive interview with Mullah Dawran, a senior Taliban commander in northeastern Kunar province, we raised some of these issues. While he is only one voice in an increasingly fractured movement, his views are indicative of the morale and mentality of many who fight for the Taliban.

FOR THE FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE: Morality police patrol Taliban strongholds