One of the top stories this weekend has been the horrible murder of ten aid workers in Afghanistan, including the 36-year-old British doctor Karen Woo, who was due to marry later this month.
There are photos of Dr Woo in pretty much every Sunday newspaper and hers is indeed a heartbreaking story. But I do hope she won’t be used by the desperate pro-war brigade to make the case for staying and fighting “to the death” with the dastardly Taliban.
Don’t get me wrong: I despise the medieval and barbaric misogynists of the Taliban, but let’s not pretend that the brutal, corrupt warlords on our side, on Nato and Hamid Karzai’s side, are any better. Ever heard of General Dostum? Nor should we be under any illusion that we’re “winning” this pointless and bloody war against insurgents, terrorists and gangsters. And let’s not forget either that, whether we like it or not, there can be no end to the conflict without talking to the Taliban. Even the US and UK governments now grudgingly accept this.
On a related note, the Independent on Sunday has a rather interesting article from Andrew Johnson on the row over this recent Time magazine cover, which shows the noseless face of an 18-year-old Afghan woman, mutilated by her husband on the orders of a Taliban commander. Johnson writes:
The image is a shocking example of the abuse of women’s rights and the medieval attitude to punishment in Afghanistan. It also, however, threw up a storm of controversy.
This was partly because of the headline with the picture: “What happens if we leave Afghanistan”. The headline pointedly had no question mark, and opponents of the war saw it as naked “emotional blackmail” in support of a conflict that continues to claim many American, as well as British, lives. It was also criticised by bloggers as “war porn”.
“That is exactly what will happen,” said Manizha Naderi, an Afghan American whose group runs the shelter where Aisha stayed. “People need to see this and know what the cost will be of abandoning this country.”
Critics — of whom there were many on the internet — pointed out that the mutilation had taken place despite the presence of Nato forces and argued that women’s rights were being used cynically as a justification for the war. Columnist Tom Scocca, on the Slate website, described the picture as “gut-wrenching” but added that “a correct and accurate caption would be ‘What is still happening, even though we are in Afghanistan’ “.
Such was the row that Richard Stengel, Time‘s managing editor, was forced to write an article defending the image. “Aisha posed for the picture and says she wants the world to see the effect a Taliban resurgence would have on the women of Afghanistan. She knows that she will become a symbol of the price Afghan women have had to pay for the repressive ideology of the Taliban.”
Aisha herself — her surname has been withheld to protect her — was more circumspect. “I don’t know if it will help other women. I just want to get my nose back,” she was quoted as saying in the New York Times.
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