Iraq and Afghanistan

Kristof is on a campaign in the Times to bring the attention of the world to the serious oppression of women in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. This is a serious problem, although my judgment and experience suggests that it is hardly confined to the Muslim world. (I found some of the most oppressed seeming women in Nepal.) However, the fact that Afghanistan has not turned quickly into an arena of freedom for women should surprise no one. King Amanullah tried to improve their lot in the twenties and he was ejected. Movement in this direction started again during the democratic opening in the 1960s. It was revived by the communists both before and after Soviet intervention. It is my suggestion that democratizing Afghanistan at this point has to be done without putting on the agenda a major change in the position of women. The position of women is already much better in Iran and across the border in the Soviet successor states. Many Afghans are aware of how women live in these countries and in the West. The more contact there is of East and West in Afghanistan, the more the position of women will improve.

Women tend to be relatively free in the Islamic world after or during the time of authoritarian, modernizing, westernizing leadership. It was Ataturk in Turkey and Reza Shah in Iran that made critical improvements in the position of women. In Iraq, women under the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein achieved a degree of freedom rare in Arab countries. We can still see the remnants of modernized class in which this occurred in the better off parts of Baghdad and in the emigré community. But if and when true democracy is restored in Iraq, we will see the position of women decline once again — at least for a while. The task of western-sponsored democratization should be to lay the groundwork for popular rule, establish the principles of free media and free discussion. We should also help privately in the organization of women's groups, and should, of course, support female education at all ages. But we will defeat our purpose if we push too hard, if we seem intent on invalidating local customs, replacing their way of life with ours. Democracy should be seen as laying the basis for freedom, not an initial guarantor of freedom and equality for all. (Much the same should be our approach to economic reform. Democracy is a means by which a people can decide on what economic policies and forms they wish to have. It is not a precut formula that necessarily demands a particular economic system.)