BILL TAMMEUS Afghan women remain at risk

For five brutal years, Afghanistan's fanatic Taliban rulers made life miserable for most citizens of the country, but especially for women.
The Taliban's version of Islam, on which they relied to justify their actions, was radical, twisted and misogynist. Not long after American and allied troops invaded Afghanistan in late 2001 to evict the Taliban -- as well as the Al-Qaida terrorists who had made Afghanistan home -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said this: "The recovery of Afghanistan must entail the restoration of the rights of Afghan women. Indeed, it will not be possible without them. The rights of women in Afghanistan will not be negotiable."
But 2 1/2 years later, there is persuasive evidence that the lives of women in Afghanistan are little improved. The harsh Taliban restrictions that silenced Muslim women, forced them to stay mostly out of sight and treated them like chattel are creeping back in much of the country. It's a shameful development.
So far, the country's new constitution, which promises that "the citizens of Afghanistan -- whether man or woman -- have equal rights and duties before the law," seems to be having little effect in liberating women, although the number of girls going to school now is significantly higher than under the Taliban.
A few examples of how bad things are: Just recently, the southeastern province of Nangahar banned women from performing on TV and radio, declaring female entertainers to be un-Islamic. Afghan officials and human rights workers say women often are beaten and deprived of rights in other ways. In some western provinces, life for women is so unbearable that dozens -- perhaps hundreds -- have committed suicide by setting themselves on fire.
Ismael Khan, the warlord who rules the western city of Herat, has brought back many repressive rules, including forbidding women from working or from being seen with men who are not close relatives.
Ahmad Bassir, Herat correspondent for Radio Free Afghanistan, reports that women there see no difference between their lives now and under the Taliban.
Kabul
Most human rights progress, says Amnesty International, is limited to the capital of Kabul. When that monitoring group sent representatives to Afghanistan recently, it said that "violations of the rights of women and girls, including physical abuse, underage marriage [and] exchange of girls to settle feuds were widely reported."
The warlords and others who oversee this appalling oppression often cite Islamic law, or Sharia, as their authority. But does Islam really countenance barbaric treatment of women? Scholars and Islamic experts say no. Islam, in fact, was an enormously liberating force for women when the prophet Mohammed began challenging the religious and cultural beliefs and practices of the Arabian peninsula in the 7th century.
Fatma Al-Sayegh, who teaches history at the United Arab Emirates University, was in Kansas City recently to speak to a conference about women and Islam. "Although women's rights are protected by Islam," she said, "few Muslim countries stick to the Islamic principles and teachings. Women of Afghanistan, for instance, stand as an example of the horrible treatment and injustice which can befall women."
This discrimination against women, she said, is an outgrowth of cultural and social practices, not of Islamic teachings.
"In spite of the sweeping process of modernization and westernization in almost every Muslim country," she said, "women still face discrimination and limited opportunities."
Similarly, Zieba Shorish-Shamley, an anthropologist who is co-founder and executive director of the Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan, says Islam gives men and women equal rights "in theory." But, she says, the theory "differs vastly from Islam in practice. It is not the Islamic ideologies that determine the position of women in Islamic societies, she says; rather, it is a society's pre-Islamic patriarchal ideologies, "combined with the lack of education and ignorance," which lead to the oppression of women.
Clearly this is not a problem the United States alone can solve in Afghanistan. But unless the U.S. pays more attention to the redevelopment of Afghanistan, there will be little hope that Muslim women there and elsewhere will be treated with the equality called for in original Islamic teaching.
XBill Tammeus is a columnist for The Kansas City Star. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune.