Monday, July 06, 2009

Exactly what are we supporting in Afghanistan

It remains the great concern about the war on terror in Afghanistan, that the government the Australian military is supporting is as arbitrary and theocratic as the Taliban. The only difference is that they don't sponsor international terrorism.

Paul Sheehan has highlighted this in a story in the SMH today, but he incorrectly calls it an issue of "feminism". The equal treatment of women in a democratic sense is really pre-feminist. Feminism is far more about recognising and combatting the systematic discrimination against women in a society that has notional equality; highlighting how the patriarchy keep women "in their place" without formal laws.

The Afghanistan case also covers issues other than the treatment of women. It is still consistently discriminating against Christians.

I do not understand quite why Australian troops are still deployed to defend such a regime.

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