å November 2017

Due Sunday, December 3rd by midnight. Word count, at least 300 words. You may include a brief quotation, but be sure this is followed by your interpretation of the text and include the proper citation (either MLA or APA). Late assignments will be accepted for partial credit if they are submitted no later than one week after the original deadline.

In Sara Ahmed’s article, “Affective Economies,” she considers the work that attends to emotions within a narrative structure. Using details from the text to explain what you mean, consider how this emotional work relates to the “rights” and “ground” often connected to the subject and nation.

In ” Do Muslim women really need saving? anthropological reflections on cultural relativism and its others”, Lila Abu-Lugnod discusses the involvement of US in Afghanistan. She starts by  mentioning how the attacks on Sep. 11, 2011 everything changed for them too. Americans started to look for almost an excuse to go into their country and start a “war against terrorism”. To the people there, it was clear that the attention  was focused on all the wrong places to try to look for something to fix. She takes first lady, Bush, to show how American troops were there and ‘liberating’ them from terrorism and supposedly from the Taliban. Instead of studying the history of the situation the country was in, they came in to ‘save’ women from the wrong factors. She criticizes that instead of getting to know their culture, the Americans came in trying to change the way they were treated to almost the same as it was in America. Here the liberation women have is different from that of women in Afghanistan. As the government announced in the first few months of the ‘war against terrorism’, women had gained some minor liberties like being able to listen to music, yet they left out things that women had been fighting against for such a long time. As she said there “was the blurring of the very separate causes in Afghanistan of women’s continuing malnutrition, poverty, and ill health, and their more recent exclusion under the Taliban from employment, schooling, and the joys of wearing nail polish”(Abu-Lugnod,784). To Americans it was communicated that these women were being saved in some way, but they did not addressed the real issues that they needed to. Maybe it might had been because they did not analyze their cultural struggles before coming in to fight a war. These women did not need the type of saving the Americans were trying to offer them.

In this article Lila Abu-Lughod discusses the way the image of the oppressed Afghan women and her victimized femininity were mobilized in efforts to justify the U.S post 9/11 wars in the middle east. She analyzes two major moments in media where this can be clearly seen: One was her interview with a PBS reporter and the other was Laura Bush’s radio address.  In her interview with the PBS reporter she discusses the way culture, women’s roles and Islam were evoked as a way to explain terrorism. Instead of analyzing the way U.S involvement created much of the instability in the region prior to the events on 9/11, the media chose to focus on Muslims and middle eastern culture to try to make sense of the attacks. The veil was evoked as a symbol of female oppression and a clear example of the “backwardness” and “barbarism” of Islam and middle eastern culture. In turn, the war was presented as necessary to “free” oppressed and victimized Afghani women. In Laura Bush’s radio address her manner of speech conflates the Taliban and the terrorists while framing the western world as the benevolent entity that would save the “women of cover.” This approach to Muslim women’s identities, their perceived oppression and victimization under the veil is problematic in different ways. Not only does It help mobilize the west to see themselves as more “civilized” and therefore superior, it also ignores Muslim women’s agency within their own cultural and religious tradition. While women face oppression and disenfranchisement in Afghanistan they fight their hardships by drawing on philosophy that makes sense in their context and through reinterpreting religious doctrine. Ignoring the way Muslim women carve out their own unique brand of feminism is an instrument that maintains the “war on terror” running by gaining support for western countries in the name of freeing middle eastern women from middle eastern men.

In the essay ” Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving”, Lila Abu-Lughod criticizes Westerners how they tried to “Liberate” Muslim women who they think they do not have freedom. After the 911 attack Laura Bush suddenly brings up Muslim women’s right which they never had before. She first mentions “War on Terrorism” which is about the Middle Eastern occupation of the United States. She also criticizes they justification Westerner made which America can occupy the area because they attacked America. She also criticize the logic since they are evil, we can beat them even though it was actually for economic benefit.  America went to War in Afghanistan against Taliban who controlled Afghan, and took the control of the country. Laura Bush said the Muslim woman is free after the invention. Women in Afghan wore burqas when Taliban control the region, and they were not allowed to go out side without it. If women in Afghan does not cover themselves they would be punished or harmed. Westerner thought it is a violence to the Muslim women right. However, even after United States took control of the country, they were still wearing them. Furthermore, she criticizes how  Laura Bush says they had been successful and that the invention of that country is helping Afghan people especially women. However, women are still oppressed in Afghanistan. I think saying something like “liberate” the area is actually looking down on people and their culture. Therefore, the way America did was totally against their will and it barely changed anything. People there have their own culture and if some outsider says something about this or forcing, I think it is really difficult for them to change suddenly. They have lived their lives with the culture, so instead of forcing to change, their regional power has to do something to it little by little.

Lila Abu-Lughod argues in her article, “Do Muslim Woman Really Need Saving” that people need to stop trying to “save Muslim woman” from their culture, and learn to appreciate their cultural and historical differences. She says that this idea to save others has a tone of dominance and would lead to unnecessary violence. For example, Afghan culture does not necessarily look at the burqa as a symbol of oppression but as a socially acceptable form of attire. Yet, western culture has a strong opinion that such dressing is subservient and in no way liberating. This mindset led Americans to justify bombing and intervening in Afghanistan affairs, because it would “save the woman”. I think the problem Abu-Lughod has with this is that Muslim woman were so important to this “war on terror”, yet were not considered in any other political conflicts. This cultural mode of explanation used them to tell the public why the war was happening, and symbolized the oppression that America was trying to liberate. I think this leads to a lot of today’s problems concerning discrimination in America. People still view Muslim traditional dress as a symbol of oppression and connection to terrorism. What I find really interesting about this all, is how many white American men, shame Muslim woman for dressing too modestly, yet also shame woman for dressing to revealing. Why do men feel the need to control and shame woman based on their dress, and with concern to Lila Abu-Loghod’s argument, why must Americans associate cultural dress with political problems as if they have anything to do with each other. Maybe woman dress in certain ways because they simply want to, without any other motives or symbolic message behind the threads. A lot of violence and death could be avoided if we simply (like Lughod noted) accepted one another’s cultures, and diversity, and didn’t use them to provoke and justify political decisions.

Abu-Lughod’s essay “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving,” questions why Americans think that “Muslim women” in Afghanistan need to be rescued from their society and country. She characterizes this premise as being a method of rejecting cultural differences, and states that this has become the West’s main focus following the events of September 11, 2001, and the beginning of the “War on Terror”. Abu-Lughod argues that countries in the West should analyze their contribution to living conditions in countries like Afghanistan. Furthermore, according to Abu-Lughod, the West trying to save “Muslim woman”,  recreates past events that took place in the 19^th Century by Christian missionary woman who attempted to save “Muslim women” and attempted to impose their dominance onto their society.

Abu-Lughod’s discusses that following the beginning of “War of Terror”, culture and religious practices became the focus in understanding the events of September 11, 2001. She further argues that by studying the culture, the West switched and moved away from the more important issue, namely, the political and historical reasons for men and woman enduring hardships in the Middle East. Moreover, Abu-Lugod cites Laura Bush’s speech, which discussed the plight of the “Muslim woman”. She refers to Bush’s speech as the “cultural mode of explanation” because it discusses the importance of saving “Muslim women”. Abu-Lughod argues that the speech served as a way to support and defend America’s “War on Terrorism”, and the destruction that came along to Muslim countries.

Abu-Lughod states that the religious and cultural practices of woman, including “wearing a veil” is something that has been practiced for centuries. It is a symbol of “modesty and respectability”, and is not the product and explanation for the events of September 11, 2001. She further states that if the mandatory “burqas” were no longer enforced, woman would choose another method of “veiling”. The veil is not the problem, but according to Abu-Lughod it represents the West’s problem of accepting differences in others, and dealing with the true problems that causing the Middle East severe hardships and suffering.

Ever since 9/11 the war on terrorism has become a crucial topic in our society. Government started spending billions of dollars to fight the war. Radical Muslim movements became a reason for the government to continue funding different military campaigns. However not all Muslim people should be blamed. There is a saying that there are no bad nations, there are bad individuals.

In the article “Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving” by Lila Abu-Lughod discuses that media has a big influence on people’s opinion. Although, as Lila Aby-Lughod states media does not really discuses the crucial topic in understanding Muslim women, culture and especially beliefs. Lila also adds media gave a different representation of this war on terror. Somehow it became a question of saving and liberating. Media mostly concentrated on villainous Muslim terrorist but it does not really mention regular people who try to survive in this war. However, later on media started concentrating on Muslim women and on their culture. Muslim women were correspondingly used to justify the countless bombings. The reasoning behind it was simple because US government wanted to liberate women from the homes and give them an opportunity to be women and not fell afraid of punishment by Muslim men. Somehow, the war on terrorism turned into a fight for women’s rights. The reason was almost the same as it was before in a previous three hundred years that was used by colonizers. As we remember first colonizers, who stumbled upon indigenous people, wanted to “civilize them.” The similarity is pretty obvious. More privileged people want to make other’s people’s lives “better” even though not everybody wants that or even need that.

However, in the beginning of twenty first century countless lives were taken away. In addition to that, in the article we see that not everyone needs saving because even after rescuing women from Taliban control, women still decided to keep their burqas. Thus, the rescuing missions probably did not worth it since Muslim women strongly believe in their culture and beliefs.

Lila Abu-Lughod states that there is an explanatory power that is attributed to Islamic faith and Muslim women in particular. First thing to start with is Bush’s critique of Muslim women in Afghanistan after 9/11. Highlighting their basic freedoms as a result of military intervention. The thing is, though, is that any solution provided by military intervention always comes at a huge economic cost to the nation where the war took place. Which is an issue that Bush failed to address during his administration. A really interesting point that Lughod brings up is the issue of the burqa and how it’s a choice that these women made by themselves to exemplify modesty and separation from men. These are her points for why this was their choice, which I think is a little weak. First of all, a separation between men and women exists naturally in the form that they are already categorized differently by default. Secondly, the idea that it’s their choice to make when they were already suffering from poverty and lack of education leads anyone to think that their choice isn’t one based off of complete information as to what their freedom essentially entails both to them and outsiders. That’s not to say you can’t make a strong and independent choice for yourself without the proper knowledge, but it’s difficult to make that claim that all Afghan women are wearing a burqa because they want to feel a sense of liberation when that clearly isn’t the case. Especially in a nation that’s riddled with poverty, and poverty naturally breeds ignorance as to the “how” and the “why” for things being done the way in which they are done. It’s also not fair to say, however, that there isn’t a sense of solidarity in the choices being made by Afghan women through their clothing–which there more likely is. However, it’s hard to coincide this idea of liberation and freedom when women decide to wear these clothing during their time under the Taliban, and the Taliban enforced it onto them as well as seen through media outlets, too. It’s likely that they’re adapting the tool used against them to signify freedom, like that Game of Thrones quote about how if you wear what they use against you as armor, they can never hurt you, which is true but that isn’t an outwardly obvious message to anyone that’s looking. That’s just what I think.

In the reading,” Do Muslim Women Really Need Saving?”, Lila Abu-Lughod critiques on how Americans have the tendency to think that they are saving the Muslim women. She mentions how rather than “saving” them, they should be more interested in  learning the history of the development of repressive regimes in the region and the U.S. role in this history. Abu-Lughod talks about an interview where the reporter from the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer and First Lady Laura Bush’s radio were going  to talk about women and Islam and contacted her to see if she was able to give some background. She looked at the questions that they were going to ask the panelist and Abu-Lughod commented that the questions were  hopelessly general. She stated how if you would to replace the word Muslim with any other religion it would not make any sense. She also mentions “Most pressing for me was why the Muslim woman in general, and the Afghan woman in particular, were so crucial to this cultural mode of explanation, which ignored the complex entanglements in which we are all implicated, in sometimes surprising alignments”( Abu-Lughod, 784). She follows up by asking why were these females being mobilized in the war against terrorism. Abu-Lughod  mentions how there was a constant slippage between the Taliban and the terrorists in Laura Bush’s radio. This slippage made it seem as if they were one word. Also there was a blurring of the very separate causes in Afghanistan of women’s continuing malnutrition, poverty, and ill health. Laura Bush speech mentions how the American bombing in Afghanistan and military gain was the reason to why women are no longer imprisoned in their homes. Abu-Lughod mentioned how that statement haunts any person that has studied colonial history do to the fact that it had no outside knowledge of the topic. To conclude from this reading it, it appears that Abu-Lughod wanted to stress that instead of thinking about “saving” the women, educate yourself first.