Taliban Law

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Wasn't it only a few years ago a law in Britain was changed so it was possible to rape your wife? Previously the "I do" spoken at the marriage was considered an eternal yes to sex.

 

[sarcasm] Oh come on AMaster. It's only legal if she hasn't had sex with you in that last four days. [/sarcasm] (The article you linked to omits this point. I read a story on MSNBC that the law states a husband has a right to demand sex from his wife if she has not had sex with him during the previous four days. If she has, she can say no.)

EDIT: Found the article.

 

I see practical issues here.

If the husband demands sex from his wife - based on the assertion that she didn't have sex with him the last four days - as the plaintiff he is forced to prove his case. Considering the prudery of Islamic fundamentalists I presume they are not suggesting witnesses in the bedroom, they aren't into kinky stuff, so this will be purely he-said-she-said.

Under Sharia law, his testimony outweighs that of two woman. For some good reason I presume. There are always good reasons for such rules. It is, as I read just today, for the reason that in ancient Rome a woman named California or so behaved so badly in court (i.e. showed her backside in court) that woman were not allowed to be attorneys for nearly two millennia, in Germany until the 1920s. That must have been a spectacle to behold to have so long lasting an effect.

The other aspect is how the verdict is being implemented. Considering the prudery of Islamic fundamentalists I gather that they are also not for coercing her to have sex, perhaps under supervision. Hardly, of course, and snark aside, the obvious implicit effect the law is to exculpate spousal rape.

Obviously, marital rape is likely to be part of an abusive relationship. In December 1993, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women. This establishes marital rape as a human rights violation. This is not fully recognized by all UN member states.

Common law, in force in North America and the British Commonwealth, long held the very concept of marital rape as an impossibility, as vividly illustrated by Sir Matthew Hale, in his 1736 classic legal treatise, Historia Placitorum Coronae: "…hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract." The marital rape exemption was only abolished in England and Wales in 1991. Many United States rape statutes used to preclude spousal prosecution, including estranged or even legally separated couples. In 1975, South Dakota removed this exception. By 1993, this was the case throughout the United States. The most 'progressive' Middle Eastern country, Turkey, criminalized marital rape in 2005, sort of. Marital rape is not a crime in India, where, with the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act of 2005 woman were merely given a civil remedy.

We are well advised to keep in mind that, however boorish the Taliban and their laws are, that concern over spousal rape is a relatively recent development. A good one, indeed, but we oughtn't take things for granted that aren't.

h/t to Wiki

 

In other words, we shouldn't expect them to become exactly like us overnight? As much as I hate the Taliban and am firmly opposed to rape in all forms, I believe that Ragusa has a point. This issue is still sticky for our society as well, and we can't expect them to instantly change thousands of years of tradition. We western societies took quite a while to get to our position. It's worth remembering. We should be more helpful* instead of sanctimonious (I know that many on the boards will say that sounds funny coming from me!)

*helpful means doing whatever we can to convince them to stop institutionalized rape -- I by no means condone such repulsive behaviour.

 

Exactly.

As for being helpful, I am pessimistic about the persuasive and cultural 'leverage' we 'enlightened people(s)' have over the largely illiterate peasants who populate the Afghan mountains. It takes time to build. It takes time to build trust. It takes a lot of time to change the old ways. We might not stay long enough to develop such leverage, in fact, I consider it a wildly unrealistic prospect.

The Taliban's education in the Madrassas distinguishes them from many in the country. In the basic ibtedai madrassas only the Koran is memorized and taught. For many Afghans this is as good an education as they can hope to get. Afghanistan has one of the highest illiteracy rates in the world. The people are dirt poor. The terrain is forbidding. People don't travel far. Oh yes, the country is unstable. Put together this does not create a climate that supports either sophistication, reflection or intellectual diversity.

 

And one that to this day is very difficult to prosecute, especially if they are not legally separated. Just to clarify this point somewhat, I know it is very much possible for a husband to rape his wife, but I think it is very hard in many cases to prove that a husband raped his wife in a court of law. If he does not physically abuse her in some other way, it is very unlikely that it could be proven the sex was nonconsensual.

 

I think you mean nonconsensual. There was a landmark case about thirty years ago when a man beat his wife to death in front of police that finally got people to think of a married woman as a person and not a possession. Previously, a man could do whatever he wanted (short of killing her) and not face any charges.

 

It seems the Taliban are still stuck in 15th century thinking - women are possessions, there is only one religion and all other religions are wrong (and having any other belief is grounds for death), all positions of authority are to be held by men.

Really, its not so different to how "we" (Europeans and those of european descent) were a few centuries ago. Its still deplorable, and I would say quite simply wrong. I mean, I know a lot of people like to say, well what do we know, let them determine their own laws, but I would say to treat women like that is universally absolutely wrong.

 

@ Proteus: I agree, but it is hard to see how you can make a difference. Making them change their laws by force is hard enough, but here we are talking about traditions that have been in society for a long time. I'd say NGOs and international organizations may be the most effective way, but it takes a long time and there are no guarantees of success.

 

Proteus, I totally understand the point you were trying to make and I agree with you. I'd just like to point out that thinking your religion is right, and all others are wrong, is certainly not something that was only prevalent 500 or so years ago. At least in the US, that feeling is held by a great many people today.

 

@Aldeth

Thats true, but at least its only shared by a minority of people. If I went back 500 years and proclaimed that I was an atheist, I would be hanged. Today, in the wrong circles, I'd be called a heathen, sinner and idiot.

 

You do not need to go back 500 years Proteus, only 30 or 40 to find women as possessions in most of the world.

 

...More Tali "justice."

They just pick people up? Secret courts? Torture? I don't know where they would get an idea like that....

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/04/17/1897753.aspx

 

The clinton regime, were else chandos.

 

That may be true, but at least westen religions are tolerant of other religions. We don't kill people for converting.

 

Yes we stopped that some time ago. In Germany the stop is marked by the Peace of Westphalia of 1648. Before that we did kill for stuff like that, aplenty, and with gusto. It took us losing a third of the German population of the time to lose our taste for this sort of paste time. It is a fair presumption that the cure for comparable Muslim paste times would come at a comparable price.

Well, Westphalia marked an end of the killing, but it certainly didn't put an end to mutual resentment. Here in Germany the protestant Prussians had serious disputes with the Catholics during Bismarck's rule in the 'Kulturkampf' period. My school has a second school yard that originally was to be used by protestants. In the US WASP bias against catholic immigrants is of course unheard of, and why kill them if 'Irish need not apply' does the job just as well?

Beyond the Koran itself, and the offence of apostasy under the Sharia, the Taliban in their Madrassas use texts on philosophy, rhetoric and iirc even medicine that are from the 12th and 13th century. At that time, we in Europe did burn people at the stake for apostasy and converting to the dreaded protestantism, or for subscribing to other heresies In that sense the Taliban reflect a generic arch conservative and deeply reactionary orthodoxy, that just happens to be Muslim. Their Sunni Muslim orthodoxy is very much in line with the apparent general view in Sunni Islam that since the Middle Ages nobody ever said something new about the Koran, that is to say, that the gate of itijad - reinterpretation - has closed the Koran and the Sharia that is derived from it to any reinterpretation in face of new insights or events.

Interestingly enough that only applies to Sunnis, the Shia have a different view. There reinterpretations do take place. In that sense, the Shiites are the better allies for the West. One more reason to make peace with Iran.

 

"Not killing" and "tolerant" are two different things. While the "not killing" part is good (although not 100% factual -- people do still get killed for religious beliefs in the US, just very rarely) I would say we are a long way from being "tolerant." Unless you are implying some religious people are willing to do anything just short of killing if you differ in relifious belief -- then I'd believe you.

 

Yeah. There was a somewhat terrifying article in this month's Harper's, entitled "Jesus Killed Mohammed", that touched on those sort of issues. In the military. Because apparently some evangelical types think the American military is, or should be, a missionary organization.

The article's title? Came from what a Special Forces interpreter scrawled on the side of a Bradley. In Arabic. Before he got on top of it and started shouting, through a megaphone, insults to the Prophet. Also in Arabic. While driving through an Iraqi city at night. And shooting it up.

 

Of course we expect "our side" to always be the more enlightened. I remember talking with a couple of guys from Lebanon a while back who came into the store. When they told me they had just arrived from the ME, I assumed they were Muslims. They informed me that they were Christians and that was why they left. They said it sucks being a Christian in the ME at the moment, even though in Lebanon there is a fairly large Christian community.

They explained that as long as you stayed within your given community you were OK, but if you traveled out of it, you could be in trouble. They even tried living in Israel and said it was just as bad, since they were not Jewish, and being Arabic, even though Christians, no one trusted them. People are divided by faith in the ME. They said that's why they came here...and they were "glad to be here."

 

As some suspected all along, the Taliban were not really that interested in religious reform, as they are in a return to strict, autocratic political "reform," with themsleves as the "autocrats" in charge.

People generally take liberty for granted, until someone comes along and tries to take it away; then it's time for a fight. It's the same everywhere and religion has very little to do with it. The Tali are no exception as far as autocratic despots go in that regard.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30666117//