Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Iraqi women fear they will be restricted

This article and many like it look at the situation in Iraq through the veil of ignorance , personal bias and misinformation.

BAGHDAD — The women at Nasar's beauty salon were Christian and Muslim, both Sunni and Shiite, but they spoke with one voice on an issue that worries them all.

"I'm sure they will form an Islamic government and our freedom will be gone," Suzan Sarkon, 30, said as she settled in to get her long black hair trimmed. "We've never lived freely in Iraq, and now I think we never will."

Since the election results were confirmed, many women have expressed deep concerns about the direction in which they see their country headed. A coalition of Islamist Shiite parties won the largest share of the seats in Iraq's new National Assembly. The parties have nominated an Islamic scholar to be prime minister, and though they insist they do not want to impose a religious government on Iraq, they have made it clear they expect Islam to feature prominently in the new constitution.

A third of the representation in Iraq will be comprised of women. A significant percentage of those women are conservative and support Islamic law being central to governance. Jenan al-Ubaedy a leading female politician in Iraq is one of many who support "sharia" and other ideas we might find archaic. The point is, it's their country, their decision, and not everybody is going to be satisfied. Classic MSM spin is to find a group of the disaffected and then use them in an attempt to discredit the entire process. YOU CAN"T PLEASE ALL THE PEOPLE ALL THE TIME. Perhaps this author should have listened a bit better in civics class. The nature of a democratically elected representational process is that it bestows a certain advantage to the majority. After all 48% of the people in this country were pretty unhappy after our last election.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Anything to delegitimize the process