Gyroscopic Investing

There is a lot of stuff about how supposedly we need to be kicking butt in the Islamic world so as to get them to adopt western values. I'm struck by this article describing how in Afghanistan in the 1970s, things were good for women. It was the subsequent Russian and then US/UK intervention that brought on the deranged mess that now afflicts that country. We have succeeded in creating an extreme backlash against anything perceived as being non-Islamic and sadly equitable treatment of women is included.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights ... HCcuYusWCk
[quote] Think of women in Afghanistan now, and you'll probably recall pictures in the media of women in full-body burqas, perhaps the famous National Geographic photograph of 'the Afghan girl', or prominent figures murdered for visibly defending women's rights. But it hasn't always been this way.

'As a girl, I remember my mother wearing miniskirts and taking us to the cinema. My aunt went to university in Kabul.'
Horia

Until the conflict of the 1970s, the 20th Century had seen relatively steady progression for women's rights in the country. Afghan women were first eligible to vote in 1919 - only a year after women in the UK were given voting rights, and a year before the women in the United States were allowed to vote. In the 1950s purdah (gendered separation) was abolished; in the 1960s a new constitution brought equality to many areas of life, including political participation.

But during coups and Soviet occupation in the 1970s, through civil conflict between Mujahideen groups and government forces in the '80s and '90s, and then under Taliban rule, women in Afghanistan had their rights increasingly rolled back.[quote]
[img width=750]http://www.amnesty.org.uk/webfm_send/135[/img]

Wow.


I would love to see a documentary on the pre-11th-century contributions of the Muslim world, and its subsequent collapse (IMO) into fundamentalism.  What a friggin tragedy.  Baghdad of all places was a huge center of scientific innovation.

moda0306 wrote: Wow.


I would love to see a documentary on the pre-11th-century contributions of the Muslim world, and its subsequent collapse (IMO) into fundamentalism.  What a friggin tragedy.  Baghdad of all places was a huge center of scientific innovation.

And Baghdad also had a thriving Jewish community (though as in Europe there was periodic discrimination).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ws_in_Iraq

I also wish this sort of history was more widely known about (not least by ISIS types)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_Caliphate

Muhammad had stated explicitly during his lifetime that each religious minority should be allowed to practice its own religion and govern itself, and the policy had on the whole continued. The welfare state for both the Muslim and the non-Muslim poor started by Omar had also continued.[8] Muawiya's wife Maysum (Yazid's mother) was also a Christian. The relations between the Muslims and the Christians in the state were good. The Umayyads were involved in frequent battles with the Christian Byzantines without being concerned with protecting themselves in Syria, which had remained largely Christian like many other parts of the empire.[8] Prominent positions were held by Christians, some of whom belonged to families that had served in Byzantine governments. The employment of Christians was part of a broader policy of religious tolerance that was necessitated by the presence of large Christian populations in the conquered provinces, as in Syria. This policy also boosted Muawiya's popularity and solidified Syria as his power base

Wow, that first line quoted about Mohammed's tolerance is a bombshell! Then again, things will always get twisted by some. If it's not the preaching of religious figures that get twisted, it's patriotism or something else. Still, it made me happy to read it.

I've heard about Afghan women in miniskirts (in the 60s or 70s) before, and I think they got the idea for those from the West, too. Almost certainly. The West giveth, and the West taketh away.

moda0306 wrote: Wow.


I would love to see a documentary on the pre-11th-century contributions of the Muslim world, and its subsequent collapse (IMO) into fundamentalism.  What a friggin tragedy.  Baghdad of all places was a huge center of scientific innovation.

Moda, you prompted me to google and I found this:
Science and Islam, Jim Al-Khalili - BBC Documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL41gX0fJng

I haven't had a chance to watch it myself (I don't want to clash with the TV watching where I am ) but the presenter does one of my favorite radio shows: The Life Scientific http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b015sqc ... guide    -so I expect it to be good.