Sections of the international women's movement today call for gender equality and women's participation in Iraq's "reconstruction". Forums and conferences are organised calling for women's representation in the post-invasion administration and gender "focal points" have been appointed to "mainstream gender".
The United Nations Development Fund for Women (Unifem), for instance, has been a key player in lobbying for women to be appointed to the post-invasion administration. In collaboration with the Iraqi planning ministry, Unifem organised a meeting attended by some 90 women representing various non-government organisations from across the country and lobbied for the creation of an Iraqi Women's Higher Council within the administration, nominated 50 women for high-level positions in the US-appointed Interim Government of Iraq and recommended that the IGI's vice-presidency be filled by a woman.
Some feminists would argue that this is not surprising because Unifem is the handmaiden of the UN's policies in Iraq. But what is surprising is that there has been hardly any criticism in the women's movement of Unifem's position of collaboration with the US-led occupation forces in the name of gender equality.
Meanwhile, the reality for Iraqi women is death, destruction of homes, schools and hospitals, lack of water, unemployment, rape, an increase in trafficking and kidnapping, torture and other unimaginable atrocities as a result of the US-led occupation. Reports also point to a majority of Iraqi women refusing to collaborate with the occupation regime.
Western feminists who have written and spoken volumes about anti-woman violence remain largely unmoved in the face of the violence committed against the women of Iraq by the US-led occupation. There is no mention for instance, let alone condemnation, of the recent US assault on the city of Fallujah in the many websites devoted to opposing violence against women.
The Third World women's movement, which in the past has distinguished itself by its strong anti-imperialist positions, is also noticeable for its lack of voice and activism against the US occupation of Iraq.
Some women's organisations that condemn the occupation and its violence also condemn "equally" the supposed violence of the Iraq resistance forces against women. There are reports that Islamic militants patrol the streets of Iraqi cities harassing and beating women who are not "properly" dressed. It is also estimated that about 400 Iraqi women were abducted and raped within the first four months of the US occupation. There are also reports of an increase in the number of "honour killings", in which male relatives murder rape survivors who have "shamed" their families.
In the reporting of these acts of violence there is a tendency to blame them on "the resistance" and to label the whole resistance as anti-women Islamists. Clearly, there is an alarming increase in violence in Iraq, including acts of violence against women, carried out by criminal gangs, primarily as a result of the social disintegration caused by the US-led occupation.
Blaming the resistance for an increase in violent crimes (which also happens to be the propaganda of the occupation forces) and then placing an equal sign between the violence of the occupation forces and the "violence" of the patriotic resistance, could be a slippery slope toward accepting the US occupation as the "lesser evil".
The analysis of some women's organisations even suggests that the "Islamist" resistance is a greater danger to women's lives than the US occupation. For example, Yanar Mohammed, chairperson of the Organisation of Women's Freedom in Iraq (which is aligned with the Workers Communist Party of Iraq) in an October 24 interview with the Women's Human Rights network describes the entire resistance as "Islamists" and "terrorists", and even gives a favourable nod to the presence of the US occupation forces. "In fairness, they have not stopped other groups from organising", she states. In the interview, Mohammed does not call for the immediate withdrawal of the US-led occupation forces.
Opposition to the imperialist occupation of Iraq is a key question for all progressive political activists throughout the world, including the women's liberationists. You are either unconditionally against the occupation or you support it. There is no neutral zone.
If feminists don't unconditionally and actively demand the immediate end to the US-led occupation of Iraq they help will be perceived as accepting Washington's reactionary agenda for the people of the Third World and this will discredit feminism as a radical force for progressive social change among the big majority of the world's working people, including among the majority of women.
Reihana Mohideen
[The author is a leading member of the Socialist Labor Centre, the Bukluran Ng Manggagawang Pilipino.]
From Green Left Weekly, December 15, 2004.
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