LadyHibiscus
Posts: 27124
Joined: 8/15/2005
From: Island Of Misfit Toys
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I have been working too much to deal with serious discussions, but Aswad was kind enough to answer me here, so I am going to respond in kind.
quote:
ORIGINAL: Aswad
quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyHibiscus
what freedom am I devaluing?
My apologies for being unclear.
What I mean to convey is, that the validity of freedom is neither diminished by being unaware of available choices, nor by being from a culture that values different choices than we would ourselves make. I may have misread you, but you seem to imply that freedom is not in itself sufficient to choose, that it is necessary to "guide" these "less advanced" cultures to the "correct" choices. That, I feel, is both disrespectful of cultures that said women cleave to, and also shortchanges freedom itself.
As an analogy, I point out that the existence of Fox News leads to less informed and more biased choices being made by voters, and that this does not invalidate the legitimacy of the vote. Democracy is in a sense the ultimate analogy for such things, because the media shape our choices in a manner analogous to what culture does, yet we still hold democracy as a sort of apex of civilization as to government and as a sort of expression of freedom carried up to the political level. If we invalidate the choices of women given one against a background of cultural bias, then we also invalidate our own choices, and the foundation of our model of government (a major source of pride for many, going by the rhetoric which seems to catch on).
Again, as I said, I may have misinterpreted you, and if so, I apologize. Pretty much not what I meant, so I am glad you asked! People make choices that utterly appall me, but I wouldn't leap in to rescue them from themselves. What I do want to see, what I wish for, if you will, is a world where there really IS more than one option available for everyone--regardless of gender. I have no desire to turn the rest of the world into a copy of western civilisation, or make others fit some invented standard.
Else, I hope I've been clearer this time.
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I am indeed against IGM, but I offer that comparitively few are affected by it.
Comparatively few women are mutilated with sulfuric acid, too. There's like half a billion women around China that aren't, 150 million or so in the USA, and so forth. Yet I would hold that it is an utterly heinous and barbaric practice, and that until it ends, the countries that use it had best not raise their voices all too much as regards women being executed by lethal injection elsewhere. Not sure why the reference to capital punishment... there has never been capital punishment in the state I live in, it's just not something that occurs to me, ever. Every country has its own set of human rights violations, committed in the name of the greater good, do they not?
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It's a fine line, wanting to advocate for an oppressed group while not "destroying" their culture.
Why the quotation marks? Cultures are fluid things, and I cannot conflate change with destruction. Is it destructive to open basic education to all people? Yet access to world news, to being able to read and write, to be open to new ideas that are not the familiar ones means that the status quo will be examined, and perhaps the next generation will experience a difference in how they are raised.
If we provide input, their culture changes in its own way, in its own direction, at its own pace, like ours have done over the years. If we directly interfere, we're damaging and potentially destroying it instead. That advocacy seems founded in pity, not solidarity. These places have their own women's movements. Women risking everything to effect change from the inside, from the perspective of one raised in those cultures and seeking a specific change.
When people like MLK argued black rights in the USA, that was such a change, in such a way.
Other cultures have them too, at all times, and it's going to change things.
But what we see as a problem from the outside, is not necessarily what they see as a problem from the inside, and vice versa. To those Somali women working to abolish FGM, the relative importance of the different problems surrounding that practice may be different than how we would rank the issues. And the same ones may well think it works just great to have child marriages, and may want to hold on to those, while we're horrified at the notion. We can force them to do it our way, or we can respect them having their own way, and provide input and cultural exchange insofar as they care to receive the input.
That said, it's obviously tempting to force change. And if invading and reculturing is in our values, rather than freedom, respect and tolerance, then we can do just that. I'm no longer sure where I stand with regard to that. Anyway, I'm vaguely reminded of a quote whose origins I would love to have someone point out, as I've forgotten. Goes something like this: "When you spare my life out of mercy, it's because you act according to your values. When I subsequently destroy you, it's because I act according to my values."
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I don't approve of honor killings--which have happened in my own area, so it's not some faraway reality. I don't approve of twelve year old girls having children.
I tend to agree, though on the first point it is their notion of honor I disapprove of, not necessarily the act of killing from an intangible thing such as honor, per se. It's not unheard of here, either, though the rate is dropping, much of which is because the various ethnicities are starting to "clean house" themselves. Really? So they could dump petrol on a girl and set her afire for some other, more valid reason? Now, I know you didn't mean to imply that, did you? Language is a wondrous thing!!
Health,
al-Aswad.
Thanks for taking the time to respond, I appreciate your well thought out views! Now to catch up on the rest of th thread...
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[page 23 girl]
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