Perhaps this is a touchy subject but it's something that I feel strongly about: human rights v.s. culture. This has been on my mind particularly against the backdrop of the recent election in Tehran. Iran's new leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to have been erroneously elected, erroneously in the sense that most of the population appears to have voted for Mir Hussein Moussavi, the candidate with kinder policies with respect to women's equality, peace, and freedom. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the other hand is a nuclear weapon toting religious extremist and whackjob extraordinaire. No women's rights under his regime.
Women's rights in the Middle East and Africa are notoriously abominable. But, the excuse for inaction is always, "that's just their culture." Well excuse me, but fuck culture. Women stormed the streets of Tehran after their votes were apparently tossed out, streets that they are not allowed in by law, to protest the loss of their most liberal candidate, the candidate that may have allowed them to be in the company of men they are not related to, to uncover their heads if they wished, and to lead normal lives. That is not culture-- if it were culture they would not be rioting against it. That's oppression. Just like female-genital-mutilation is torture, and stoning a 13 year old girl to death in Africa for "the crime" of being gang-raped is nothing less than barbarism.
Call me ignorant or culturally insensitive, but I'd rather be labeled that way than have no moral center. Wake up, this is not culture. It's abuse.
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