In the recent years, women’s rights activists in Afghanistan have faced backlash, threats, and even death for demanding their rights because many people—not just religious fanatics—label them and their work “Western.” Often the “backwardness” of developing nations is blamed for this misconception about women’s rights or civil liberties, but the world heard Mitt Romney at the third presidential debate when he preached about “our (American) principles” of “human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections…”
This discourse about the West owning freedom and bearing the yoke of giving it to others in charity, or through war, is not new and not limited to Romney. The white man’s burden can be dated back centuries, and many American presidents and presidential candidates have decided to speak on the responsibility of the progressed and developed Western countries—namely the United States—to “save” and “educate” the rest of the world on human rights, assuming that they have created and monopolize the concepts of humanism.
There is little weight to this frame of mind, but it is true that nations could learn from each other and create alliances and collaborations to grow and progress—the United Nations is sometimes an example of this. The problem with this mentality, though it is no longer called “the white man’s burden,” is that it assumes a one-way relation with other nations, particularly developing nations; it also ignores that the principles of human rights, freedom, liberty, and education are universal, and advocates for these values have always existed in every society, sometimes as a minority and others as a majority. The geographical and cultural West certainly does not deserve the honor of being called egalitarian and historically progressive by any means.
However, claims by Romney and the like in the past have caused many people in both developing and developed nations to believe that women’s rights, human rights, and freedom of speech in particular are Western values, and must be fought against or spread respectively. This assumption is partly rooted in the lack of historical awareness on the part of both Western policy makers and leaders, and also people from developing nations like Afghanistan about international egalitarian voices throughout history.
For example, in as early as the 11th century, Persian poetess Mahasti Ganjawi was writing about freedom from societal constraints that she, as a woman, suffered from. Though she was imprisoned for ninety days for her courageous poetry condemning religious obscurantism and fanaticism, she continued writing, among other things, passionate and erotic love poems or rebellious pieces about freedom from domesticity. She wrote:
You cannot stop us with the tip of an arrow
You cannot keep us in a melancholic cell
If one has chains in the hair for catching the heart of a lover
You cannot chain her inside the house
Mahasti is one example of hundreds of advocates for ideals we now call freedom of speech, women’s rights, liberation, and/or individualism.
In the 13th century Mawalana Jalaludin Balkhi, often referred to as Rumi in the West, wrote against treating women as inferior. In his greatest work, Masnawi (colloquially called the Persian Quran), he had several examples of powerful women whose wit and strength led men and women in righteous directions. He wrote in his collection of articles on how women must not be locked up in rooms, but allowed to make their mark in the society freely. Mawlana’s humanist, and even arguably feminist perspective, is one example of the many strong brave voices for equality and humanity in the past in the East.
In the 14th century, Persian poet and satirist, Ubaid Zakaani, was writing to critique religious hierarchies and the corruption of religious institutions. In his writings, on several occasions, using humor he also discusses women’s sexual needs and frustrations, a topic that would be considered taboo in his country if he lived now. A modern-day feminist would call his writings a witty call for sexual liberation.
Hundreds of books could be written about humanist and feminist advocacy in the “under-developed” and seemingly “backwards” East. They ought to be written to enlighten both imperialists like Mitt Romney and radicals like Mullah Mohammad Omar that women’s rights and freedom are not Western creations but ideals that human-kind around the world has been yearning for since the beginning of time.
Noorjahan Akbar is a student and women’s rights activist in Afghanistan. She is a correspondent for Safe World for Women International and writes for several Afghan newspapers and websites.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
Photo: Tim Brauhn (cc).
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Feminism in the East: A Centuries-Old Tradition
March 19, 2013
In the recent years, women’s rights activists in Afghanistan have faced backlash, threats, and even death for demanding their rights because many people—not just religious fanatics—label them and their work “Western.” Often the “backwardness” of developing nations is blamed for this misconception about women’s rights or civil liberties, but the world heard Mitt Romney at the third presidential debate when he preached about “our (American) principles” of “human rights, human dignity, free enterprise, freedom of expression, elections…”
This discourse about the West owning freedom and bearing the yoke of giving it to others in charity, or through war, is not new and not limited to Romney. The white man’s burden can be dated back centuries, and many American presidents and presidential candidates have decided to speak on the responsibility of the progressed and developed Western countries—namely the United States—to “save” and “educate” the rest of the world on human rights, assuming that they have created and monopolize the concepts of humanism.
There is little weight to this frame of mind, but it is true that nations could learn from each other and create alliances and collaborations to grow and progress—the United Nations is sometimes an example of this. The problem with this mentality, though it is no longer called “the white man’s burden,” is that it assumes a one-way relation with other nations, particularly developing nations; it also ignores that the principles of human rights, freedom, liberty, and education are universal, and advocates for these values have always existed in every society, sometimes as a minority and others as a majority. The geographical and cultural West certainly does not deserve the honor of being called egalitarian and historically progressive by any means.
However, claims by Romney and the like in the past have caused many people in both developing and developed nations to believe that women’s rights, human rights, and freedom of speech in particular are Western values, and must be fought against or spread respectively. This assumption is partly rooted in the lack of historical awareness on the part of both Western policy makers and leaders, and also people from developing nations like Afghanistan about international egalitarian voices throughout history.
For example, in as early as the 11th century, Persian poetess Mahasti Ganjawi was writing about freedom from societal constraints that she, as a woman, suffered from. Though she was imprisoned for ninety days for her courageous poetry condemning religious obscurantism and fanaticism, she continued writing, among other things, passionate and erotic love poems or rebellious pieces about freedom from domesticity. She wrote:
You cannot stop us with the tip of an arrow
You cannot keep us in a melancholic cell
If one has chains in the hair for catching the heart of a lover
You cannot chain her inside the house
Mahasti is one example of hundreds of advocates for ideals we now call freedom of speech, women’s rights, liberation, and/or individualism.
In the 13th century Mawalana Jalaludin Balkhi, often referred to as Rumi in the West, wrote against treating women as inferior. In his greatest work, Masnawi (colloquially called the Persian Quran), he had several examples of powerful women whose wit and strength led men and women in righteous directions. He wrote in his collection of articles on how women must not be locked up in rooms, but allowed to make their mark in the society freely. Mawlana’s humanist, and even arguably feminist perspective, is one example of the many strong brave voices for equality and humanity in the past in the East.
In the 14th century, Persian poet and satirist, Ubaid Zakaani, was writing to critique religious hierarchies and the corruption of religious institutions. In his writings, on several occasions, using humor he also discusses women’s sexual needs and frustrations, a topic that would be considered taboo in his country if he lived now. A modern-day feminist would call his writings a witty call for sexual liberation.
Hundreds of books could be written about humanist and feminist advocacy in the “under-developed” and seemingly “backwards” East. They ought to be written to enlighten both imperialists like Mitt Romney and radicals like Mullah Mohammad Omar that women’s rights and freedom are not Western creations but ideals that human-kind around the world has been yearning for since the beginning of time.
Noorjahan Akbar is a student and women’s rights activist in Afghanistan. She is a correspondent for Safe World for Women International and writes for several Afghan newspapers and websites.
This article was originally published in the Diplomatic Courier's March/April 2013 print edition.
Photo: Tim Brauhn (cc).
