Different countries, same inhumanity
LAST week we saw three haunting and tragic images of women featuring prominently throughout the world's media.
Sakineh Mohammadi-Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, who has been found guilty of adultery and sentenced to death in Iran, pleaded that her children should not be made to watch her execution. The Iranian authorities are reported to be dithering as to whether to hang Sakineh, (the Iranians hoist people up on cranes as public spectacles), or bury her up to her neck in the ground and then have people throw rocks at her head. Her lawyer has fled to Norway.
Karen Woo, a 36-year-old British doctor who was working with a medical charity in Afghanistan, was one of 10 people executed by the Taliban for working with a Christian linked charity. She was delivering healthcare to villagers in remote areas of the country. Dr Woo was due to get married in the coming weeks.
The latest edition of Time magazine featured on its cover a photograph of an 18-year-old Afghan woman called Aisha. She is the sort of attractive young woman you might expect to see on a magazine cover, except for the fact that her nose and ears have been cut off. She had been mutilated and left to die by her husband after she tried to escape from regular beatings at her in-law's house.
Maybe it is wrong to focus on these three people because they are female and photogenic, but somehow in the midst of all the horrors, politics and debates about rights and wrongs that surrounds the West's torturous relationship with the Muslim world, the fate of these three women brings home the inhumane horror that comes with fundamentalism in a way other news reports do not.
But before we embark on an anti-Islamic crusade let us remember that it is not just in Muslim countries that women are dehumanised and their lives deemed worthless.
At the weekend dissident republicans planted a bomb under the car of a policewoman in Kilkeel; luckily the device fell off the car without exploding and was later made safe. Perhaps the most perturbing part of this nasty little episode was the behaviour of the woman's uncle, Martin Connolly, an independent republican councillor on Newry and Mourne District Council. He refused to condemn that attack and instead went off on a tired old rant about it all being the fault of the Brits.
You really have to wonder about someone who cannot condemn a murderous attack on his own niece and of people, whether it be in Iran, Afghanistan or Northern Ireland, who have became so radicalised in their theology and political ideology that they have no compulsion in seeing a young woman killed just for doing her job, a sexual indiscretion or trying to escape a beating.
But what should our response be? Can we ignore the people who commit such crimes? Are these people who can be reasoned with? Does a forceful response not simply generate more publicity and support for the perpetrators?
There is no easy answer; but a first step might be for the human rights industry, often so quick to condemn western governments and to demand tolerance and inquiries from the rest of us, to break its silence regarding those who think it is OK to systematically murder and maim women whether that be in Iran, Afghanistan or Northern Ireland.
Winning friends at Westminster
THE potential impacts of public spending cutbacks in Northern Ireland are starting to sink in and predictably the response is to blame it all on the nasty Tories. Former Labour secretary of state Peter Hain has jumped on the bandwagon with a statement implying that public sector cuts would be harmful to Northern Ireland's "shared future", which I assume is the new euphemism for the never-ending peace process.
Mr Hain is correct when he says that cuts will jeopardise jobs across the entire economy, and that this is a bad thing, but he conveniently neglects to mention that it was the wanton expenditure of the government in which he was a senior member that was the cause of the massive and unsustainable public deficit which is threatening the entire economy.
One particularly gloomy take on the economic story is that Northern Ireland is "friendless" at Westminster. This is perhaps to overstate the case; Owen Paterson's pre-election legwork and David Cameron's visits here prove that Northern Ireland is not entirely friendless, but double jobbing politicians, anti-Tory platitudes and abstentionist MPs is not the way to build goodwill.
Given the dire state of the wider economy it will become increasingly difficult for local politicians to credibly demand special treatment in the form of public spending.
However we do have a case to make regarding possible special measures, such as corporation tax reductions and enterprise zones, to jumpstart the economy. It will not be an easy argument to win and we need to make more and better friends if we are to gain these benefits.
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Weather for Belfast
Wednesday 15 February 2012
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