The Understanding of Honor In Afghanistan
Khadija Ibrahimi
May 5, 2009
In Afghanistan, honor is critical, and the consequence of dishonor can be death
as those without honor are deemed worthless. The famous Afghan Pashto warrior
poet Khushal Khan Khattak once wrote: "Life's no life when honor's left".
However, looking at Afghanistan and the actions of many of its men, one has to
wonder if Afghans really understand honor.
There are Afghan fathers today in Afghanistan that either have or would have
no problems with murdering their own daughters for daring to fall in love and
marry the man of their own choice. It's considered shameful in the eyes of these
men for their daughters to be able to choose which man's child she will have,
and who she will live the rest of her life with. Falling in love must not
happen, because these men view it as a crime and an attack on the family's
honor. These same men of course consider themselves devout Muslims. Islam did
give women the right to choose their own husbands 1400 plus years ago, and
unfortunately, these men fail to connect the dots and don't see or rather choose
not to see that their actions are against Islam.
There are also men in Afghanistan that either have or would be willing to
throw acid on a girl's face, poison, or kill girls for daring to go to school and learn. After
all, these girls are only doing what Prophet Mohammad asked them to do over 1400
plus years ago. These Afghan men view the desire of these girls to educate
themselves as something to be ashamed of and dishonorable. Again, these same men
will tell you that they are loyal followers of Islam.
For quite some time now, and for some strange reason, a man's honor in
Afghanistan is determined by how well he oppresses and controls the women around
him. For a woman in the family to have her own mind is equivalent to bringing
shame to the family, and thus she must be killed in order to save or protect
this honor.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, and a large portion
of its economy is based on opium production and illegal drugs. It cannot feed
and sustain itself without the assistance of foreigners which are mostly non
Muslims. Many men in Afghanistan will proudly tell you that it is the man's
responsibility to work and the woman must stay home, and that it is shameful if
they went against this.
I wonder why these same men can still view themselves as honorable men when
they are not able to feed the women in their lives and instead foreigners, many
of them non Muslims, do it for them. In fact, they themselves extend their own
hands to foreign men. Women going to
school, and working to earn a living is considered shameful, yet having women
beg for food seems to be fine with these men. Perhaps, it's fine if their women
have to beg foreigners for food as long as they are covered from head to toe
when doing so. This is what happened when the
Taliban captured Kabul in 1996, they dismissed all the female teachers and
instead of working for a living, they had to beg strangers and foreigners
for food.
Afghanistan is backwards, corrupt and as a nation, it is almost a failure.
Considering the men have been in charge of the country and have made all of the
bad decisions, the failure falls squarely on their shoulders and they bear the
shame and dishonor. They would be willing to beat or even murder a woman for
daring to have naked ankles, and yet excuse themselves of this shameful failure.
The fact is that Afghan men have dishonored the entire nation.
Honor has an unusual definition in Afghanistan. Perhaps one day, an Afghan
man's honor will be judged by how well he serves his family and his country,
instead of how well he oppresses the women in his life.
Khadija Ibrahimi is a graduate student studying political science. She
can be reached at
khadija_ibrahimi@yahoo.com
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