What Century are we Living in?
This has been a particularly light week in the office. My boss is on vacation, and I'm doing some independent projects. But with the lack of company here, I'm taking frequent breaks. Lucky for me, I have this internet connection. And nobody looking over your shoulder is a news junkie's best environment. I recently came across this article, Indian Girl, 14, wins a divorce, on the BBC. Now, my rant.
Why? Why is it that India, a nation that is now trying to project itself as an emerging super power, have to continue to do things like this? To a certain extent, I can understand why so called 'child marriage' was an accepted practice in the past centuries. Think about it, in that nation, in the past, life expectantcy was much shorter than it is today. So naturally, you get married and start having a family at a younger age. But today, why does such a barbaric practice have to persist?
India is so rapidly changing today that it's mindboggling. But what's happening is that the newly emerging middle class is the one leading the change towards a more modern lifestyle. Just because it's modern it does not mean it has to be western. India is just as Indian as it's ever been. But now, the middle classes are taking India, together with its culture, into the next century. The core stays the same, involving family values, hard work, etc., but practices like this should be eliminated. To analogize, in the US, we still retain our civil liberties from the past centuries, but we no longer culturally accept institutions such as slavery or the like.
The problem is that the upper and lower classes are clinging to their old ways like there's no tomorrow. The article is a perfect example of the tension created. I tip my hat to this girl for taking the stand that she did. I tip my hat not for her just divorcing her husband, but for the reasons behind it - she wanted to continue her education. Now she is someone who is worthy of carrying the mantle of Indian culture into the next century.
Unfortunatley, she's the rare exception to the rule. I recently had two cousins married in India (recently meaning within the past few years). One is my age, and his wife is now only about 21. They were arranged to be married when she was 19. He's your typical old world Indian guy, who you could obviously tell pays no attention to his wife or cares for her at any deep level. She's an accessory in their house to cook and clean and rear children. His sister recently got married earlier this year to a guy in Dubai. I'm convinced that the dynamic won't be any different. Although they're from a very well off family, none of them are well educated or have any particular drive to intellectually succeed. The decision of who should carry the mantle of India into the future, if you had to decide between the likes of my cousins and the likes of the girl in the article above, the choice is obvious.
What's worse is that in Pakistan, the issue of backwardness being raised in light of the rape of Mukhtar Bibi. I you havn't heard about what's going on there, visit the New York Times Op-Ed pages and read Nicholas Kristof's recent columns. To give a summary, Mukhtar Bibi is a rural village woman from Northwest Pakistan who was sentenced to be gang raped by a village council for allegedly inappropriate actions committed by her younger brother (the allegations against the brother proved to be entirely false to begin with). After the gang rape, she was paraded around the village virtually naked, with the expectation that she would go home and kill herself. Instead, she sought that her attackers be prosecuted, and won. But that's when the problems began. The government, trying to prevent her from giving a 'bad image' to Pakistan,
kidnapped her and is preventing her from leaving the country. Read more about it from Kristof.
In this world of supposed women's empowerment, why is it that people are entirely blinded to reason? Women are about half the world's populace, half the world's brain power. Why shut that down? Ironically, the worst oppression is in Muslim countries. Frankly, to repress women is unIslamic. During Muhammed's time, lower class women were considered property and had virtually no rights. Muhammed changed all that. Women were guaranteed rights and their lives drastically improved. Some of the earliest converts were women, attracted by the freedom of choice and conscience allowed by Islam. Some of Muhammed's colleagues were shocked by the frankness with which his later wives were allowed to speak to him. He was known to have sought the counsel and opinoins of women in his decisions. Yet today, we've somehow moved backwards to the mentality that reigned well before Muhammed's arrival. And people say there's no such thing as progress.
The fact of the matter is that extremism is uncalled for from any direction. Women and men are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses that somehow balance eachother out. A big yin-yang. Overempowerment of either sex, be it women or men, is a bad thing.
Why? Why is it that India, a nation that is now trying to project itself as an emerging super power, have to continue to do things like this? To a certain extent, I can understand why so called 'child marriage' was an accepted practice in the past centuries. Think about it, in that nation, in the past, life expectantcy was much shorter than it is today. So naturally, you get married and start having a family at a younger age. But today, why does such a barbaric practice have to persist?
India is so rapidly changing today that it's mindboggling. But what's happening is that the newly emerging middle class is the one leading the change towards a more modern lifestyle. Just because it's modern it does not mean it has to be western. India is just as Indian as it's ever been. But now, the middle classes are taking India, together with its culture, into the next century. The core stays the same, involving family values, hard work, etc., but practices like this should be eliminated. To analogize, in the US, we still retain our civil liberties from the past centuries, but we no longer culturally accept institutions such as slavery or the like.
The problem is that the upper and lower classes are clinging to their old ways like there's no tomorrow. The article is a perfect example of the tension created. I tip my hat to this girl for taking the stand that she did. I tip my hat not for her just divorcing her husband, but for the reasons behind it - she wanted to continue her education. Now she is someone who is worthy of carrying the mantle of Indian culture into the next century.
Unfortunatley, she's the rare exception to the rule. I recently had two cousins married in India (recently meaning within the past few years). One is my age, and his wife is now only about 21. They were arranged to be married when she was 19. He's your typical old world Indian guy, who you could obviously tell pays no attention to his wife or cares for her at any deep level. She's an accessory in their house to cook and clean and rear children. His sister recently got married earlier this year to a guy in Dubai. I'm convinced that the dynamic won't be any different. Although they're from a very well off family, none of them are well educated or have any particular drive to intellectually succeed. The decision of who should carry the mantle of India into the future, if you had to decide between the likes of my cousins and the likes of the girl in the article above, the choice is obvious.
What's worse is that in Pakistan, the issue of backwardness being raised in light of the rape of Mukhtar Bibi. I you havn't heard about what's going on there, visit the New York Times Op-Ed pages and read Nicholas Kristof's recent columns. To give a summary, Mukhtar Bibi is a rural village woman from Northwest Pakistan who was sentenced to be gang raped by a village council for allegedly inappropriate actions committed by her younger brother (the allegations against the brother proved to be entirely false to begin with). After the gang rape, she was paraded around the village virtually naked, with the expectation that she would go home and kill herself. Instead, she sought that her attackers be prosecuted, and won. But that's when the problems began. The government, trying to prevent her from giving a 'bad image' to Pakistan,
kidnapped her and is preventing her from leaving the country. Read more about it from Kristof.
In this world of supposed women's empowerment, why is it that people are entirely blinded to reason? Women are about half the world's populace, half the world's brain power. Why shut that down? Ironically, the worst oppression is in Muslim countries. Frankly, to repress women is unIslamic. During Muhammed's time, lower class women were considered property and had virtually no rights. Muhammed changed all that. Women were guaranteed rights and their lives drastically improved. Some of the earliest converts were women, attracted by the freedom of choice and conscience allowed by Islam. Some of Muhammed's colleagues were shocked by the frankness with which his later wives were allowed to speak to him. He was known to have sought the counsel and opinoins of women in his decisions. Yet today, we've somehow moved backwards to the mentality that reigned well before Muhammed's arrival. And people say there's no such thing as progress.
The fact of the matter is that extremism is uncalled for from any direction. Women and men are different. They have different strengths and weaknesses that somehow balance eachother out. A big yin-yang. Overempowerment of either sex, be it women or men, is a bad thing.
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