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Assignment 12: Miguel Montana

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.