As bombs drop, marines move in, and a company makes headlines by "playing god" in a sterilized lab, our collectivized fear is cushioned in blankets of self-congratulatory speeches. Bush, Colin Powell, and several others have recently commented on our "heroic mission" in Afghanistan as bringing freedom to Afghanistan women.
What is amazing is that no one commented on the fact that we never once condemned the Taliban's inhumane treatment of women while our government supplied them with arms and training to fight Russia. At that time, President Reagan called the mujahadeen, the precursor to the Taliban, "freedom fighters."
We should confront our behavior which tirelessly and ignorantly condemns the Cuban government for human rights abuses, while not once ever before Sept. 11 condemned the Taliban's brutality in Afghanistan, whose human rights abuses overshadows any of those we accuse Cuba of having.
Our uncritical support for the Northern Alliance, a group that has proven themselves just as cruel as the Taliban towards women, should make us wonder whether our definitions of peace, freedom and terrorism need to be reevaluated.
What about our undying support for Saudi Arabia, a country that has no freedom of assembly, no constitution and brutally represses anyone they deem as dissidents? Apparently, this didn't get in the way of President Bush from making a nice mint from an oil company called Arbusto Energy, which he established in the 1970s with none other than Osama bin Laden's brother, another billionaire from the oil business club.
Our collectivized fear seems to be soothed only when we know bombs are dropping far away on a country that has harbored more bombshells than food ever since its colonial period. Fear can result in little peace and even less justice, yet "Action 7 News" seems to remind us that fear and action will always be a way of life.
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The opportunity to make another leap for true human "progress," once again, slips through the hands of so-called leaders of the "free world" by not examining how we had something to do with millions of Afghanistan women being forced to hide their faces and intellect from the sun? Nor how this country has and still is treating women in our own hemisphere?
When I think of heroes, I do not look to the British-intelligence agent James Bond, or the Texas Rangers. I look to the women of WARRI (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) who have been fighting for the education, health and liberation of women for over 20 years. I think of Women in Black, a growing international coalition of women that routinely risks their lives to prevent war by peacefully surrounding Palestinian homes being shelled by Israeli tanks and confronting war criminals in the Balkans. Amazingly, this organization that almost won this year's Nobel Peace Prize has been recently harassed by FBI investigators.
One can look to the women in Somalia who created the Center for Strategic Initiatives of Women established in 1993, which has been diligently trying to pick up the pieces of their war-stricken country in a post-colonial era.
If Laura Bush wishes to be the first lady to become a real woman, then she should know and speak about what NAFTA, something her husband raves about, is doing to the health and cultural sovereignty of Mexican women in sweatshop factories, not to mention the environment.
Mrs. Bush should also recognize how government money has funded genocidal programs of forced sterilization of indigenous women along the Mexican border, Puerto Rico and on many Native American Reservations throughout the 1970s and 1980s. It is reported that between 60 to 70,000 Native American women were sterilized.
These issues should surface when Mrs. Bush talks about freedom and education, as should the fact that one of the most lucrative industries in this country and especially in Southeast Asia is pornography and prostitution.
While we are at it, let us contrast the myth that welfare mothers drain our national reserves with the reality of increasing welfare for corporations. Are there no more working moms in North America, and should not raising a child be just as important as General Motors making enough cars to fill concrete lots around the world?
by Maceo Carrillo Martinet
Daily Lobo Columnist
Questions, comments or suggestions can be sent to Maceo Carrillo Martinet at conuco8@unm.edu.
