War and Women in the
Simin Royanian
[If you forward a copy, please refer to the original. Please cite widely.]
Peace to the worldPeace to my country, my lovePeace to your dreams
Peace to your children (1)
These are the words of a lullaby that Iraqi women
sing to their children. Like all mothers around the world, they dream of peace.
The
With the First World War and increasingly afterwards, the majority of the victims of war have been civilians, especially women, who are less mobile than men since they are the caretakers of children and the old. With the arrival of the soldiers and unraveling of the community ties, women are raped and forced into sexual slavery by their own armies and the armies of the conquerors. From the Old Testament where "women are raped in Zion; virgins in the towns of Judah" (2), to General Hooker's women in the American Civil War(3), to the Japanese's sexual enslavement of Chinese, Korean and Japanese peasant girls known as Comfort Women (4), the rape of women as a weapon of war has been a reality in this world. With rape and prostitution, war extends its destruction of everything to the body and integrity of women. (5)
The repercussions of war for women continue long after the end of any war. Women become victims of the aftermath of war due to the destruction of the infrastructure of family and community, increase in poverty, prostitution and other ills. In addition, during any war, the democratic civil movements such as women's movements are controlled and subjected to the patriotic demand, "The defense of the fatherland".
In this increasingly militarized system of global
capital, the issue of women's rights must be considered in the framework of
war. Women's rights are human rights, and human rights deteriorate with
the atrocities of war. But, there is a tendency to treat women and their rights
as a special case. This marginalization becomes more evident when
the topic is the rights of women in the
In 2002, after the devastating
What is more disturbing is that activists in the
peace and justice movement often bring up the issue of women's rights in the
context of debates on US imperialist wars in the Middle East. They ask
"But, is it not true that women in those
countries have no rights?" The answer is "no". There is no
country in the world where women have equal rights with men. In the
While the women in
One of the most important aspects of human rights is
self determination for the individual, as well as for any society. The women in
the
In the case of
This is the reason that to the well-meaning friends who ask, "But, what should we do?" My answer is "What do you mean, we?", since it is extremely important for Americans to separate themselves from their imperialist war mongering government. Then I say, "First, do no harm". And if you want to do something, do everything possible to stop the harm that your government is doing in the Middle East, the harm whose most oppressed victims are the women.
The Left Americans need to respect the people of the rest of the world. The tendency to become concerned about a people when they are on the agenda of the White House and State Department is very problematic. Firstly, it stems from cultural imperialism. The other people in the world are not on a mission to save the Americans. It is curious that the Americans consider the saving of others their mission. They do behave as saviors, not as friends who have answered a call for help. The one shining counterexample is when the American people were successful to make their government join the rest of humanity and boycott the apartheid government in South Africa. That was a case where the ANC had set the agenda and asked the people of the world to boycott the government.
Too often, however, American activists treat the people of the Global South as children and set agendas for them. One example is when the respected and radical Kate Millet went to Iran, right after the revolution, to save the Iranian women, and then insulted the culture in her book (7). Why would the Iranian women, who, despite years of imprisonment and torture under the shah, had participated in the Iranian revolution, which had defeated the US, need Ms. Millet as a savior?
This is not to deny international solidarity, but to call on our American sisters and brothers who work so hard for peace and justice, to think hard, remember the history of atrocities of their government against the people, and step carefully. Many women of color and their organizations, for years, have complained of cultural imperialism in the feminist movement in the US. This issue is more critical today because the American government and its neo-con ideologues are using the cry of women's rights in their propaganda for war and are co-opting some of the feminist organizations as well.
Another problem is that too often Bush and the neo-cons set the framework of debate and the peace activists follow. I don't believe the people in the peace and justice movement should be involved in the discussion of how to be a better occupier, or about an exit strategy. We need to completely subvert the prevailing paradigm, not only the paradigm that is ruling the country, but also the paradigm that is ruling our peace and justice movement.
An example of Bush setting the framework for debate appears in the discussion of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Many in the movement use the analogy that the White House uses. Mr. Bush talks about an "axis of evil" in which he groups Iran and North Korea together. Since that speech, Iran and Korea are grouped together in many leaflets and writings by the organizations and people on the Left. (8) This is an example where the movement promotes Bush's propaganda. Before the use of this analogy by Bush, there was nothing to link Korea and Iran. Iran is in the Middle East, and Korea is not. Their governmental systems, people's ancestry, language, religion, are all different. This linking is done in discussions of nuclear proliferation despite the fact that Iran is a member of the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is building an energy plant while Korea has announced its withdrawal from the NPT and has announced that it is developing nuclear weapons.
So if we want to defend the rights of women anywhere in the world, including the USA, we have to work for peace, and against war, and against the military, and that has to be the first order of things, and absolutely the first order for the people of the occupying country. Nothing else matters if you don't have a life, and your children die, and your home is bombed, and your brothers are tortured by the occupiers. The only thing that matters to the masses of women is an end to the carnage, an end to war and occupation. So that without fear of the foreign soldiers they can emerge from their homes, smell the fresh air and begin their lives again.
To conclude, support for women's rights is inseparable from respect for their self determination, and unconditional opposition to all Imperialist wars.
A different version of this article was delivered in a workshop at the 2005 annual Visions in Feminism Conference.
1- http://www.valley-entertainment.com/Artists/Lullabies_from_the_Axis_of_Evil/
2- Lamentations 5:11, from the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), quoted in http://www.religioustolerance.org/war_rape.htm
3- http://www.civilwarfamilyhistory.com/new_page_116.htm
4- http://taiwan.yam.org.tw/womenweb/conf_women/index_e.html
5- For a detailed study of wartime violence against women in recent history, see Women, War And Peace, UNiFEM 2002
6- Ann Scott
Tyson;
7- Kate
Millet, Going to
8- The
leadership of United for Peace and Justice lumped together the working groups
on