A couple of days ago, I wrote a passionate entry stating my opposition to the Canadian government’s involvement in Afghanistan. It was in response to their new laws that make it impossible for women to refuse sex from their husbands, as well as making women eligible for marriage immediately following menstruation. As far as I’m concerned, these two laws alone make both rape and sexual abuse to children legal.

Yesterday, about 300 Afghan women protested these laws, and for their bravery, they were pelted with stones. Police had to hold back the angry mob that accused the women of being ‘slaves to Christians’ and for not being ‘proper Shia women’.

The law as it’s written is only for the minority Shia community, but it would appear few native Afghans consider the issue important. In a way I can’t blame them; the country is a mess, and there are probably many who feel laws of this nature are not a huge concern.

I’m relieved the violence didn’t escalate any further, but it would be naive to assume this issue resolved. What usually scares me is the people who agitate for equal rights are usually met by people who physically crush all opposition. To say these women are in danger for holding their beliefs is an understatement.

Many Muslims feel attitudes of gender equality is a form of Western oppression, and I have no doubt these opposing world views will continue to be a great source of friction. It would appear we cannot force individuals to take the rights of women seriously, and that’s a very frightening reality.

I’ve spoken many times about the fact Canada needs to leave this country. Proportionally, we’ve taken the heaviest casualties, and even with the hard work accomplished, the country still seems bent on converting itself into a theocratic hellhole. Here are some of the proposed amendments to their constitution President Karzai is trying to pass:

Article 132 says. “Unless the wife is ill or has any kind of illness that intercourse could aggravate, the wife is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desires of her husband.”

Article 133 reintroduces the Taliban restrictions on women’s movements outside their homes, stating: “A wife cannot leave the house without the permission of the husband” unless in a medical or other emergency.

Article 27 endorses child marriage with girls legally able to marry once they begin to menstruate.

The Canadian government has threatened to pull its troops if these amendments aren’t killed, but even if they are, it’s only a matter of time before they eventually become law. It’s inevitable. The religious conservative element is too big and too entrenched to ever leave. All we can do is hold them at bay, but the second we leave they’ll jump in, establish their own religious government, and prove this entire thing was just a gigantic waste of time and human life.

As much as we’d like to believe other countries envy our modern values, the truth is much of the world doesn’t really care about concepts such as human rights, women’s rights, or personal liberties. We believe these values are the building blocks of any free society, and we find it shocking when a country, like Afghanistan, begins to introduce draconian laws which allow marital rape, or child marriages to occur. We feel insulted that anyone would refuse to live by our code of conduct. We are confused because we are under the delusion that the rest of the world wants to be like us. Why wouldn’t they? We rock, don’t we?

Step outside your own world view for a moment and imagine you were born and raised in a culture that sees women as second class citizens. Your neighbor recently killed his daughter because she kissed a boy, and when you hear the details about her stoning, you find yourself agreeing the punishment fit the crime. Now your country is invaded by individuals with a much different set of values attempting to impose them on you. They set up a democracy for you however, and so you do the only thing that seems rational to you: you demand the government change its constitution so the code you live by (and everyone you know lives by as well) is now accepted as law. This isn’t rocket science; you cannot hope to change the opinions of a generation, especially one with already established customs and rituals laden with values, with ideas that drastically conflict with their own.

A democracy in the hands of ethically unenlightened population only brings tyranny back into power. We naively believed the only reason the country was so fucked was due to being ruled by the ‘Iron Fist’ of the Taliban. If a heavily trained army with sophisticated weapons can’t stabilize the place, then why would we assume a shitty poorly armed group would be any different? Afghanistan is so poorly developed many areas are essentially self governing entities much more like ancient tribes than modern cities. The reason is for more than 1000 years, the area has seen nothing but bloody conflict after bloody conflict. The longest recorded political stability in this country was 40 years. That’s it.

I’m not saying everyone in Afghanistan is religiously conservative, or they don’t wish to secularize. In the past, the country’s leaders tried at various times to modernize their own governments. One of these reformers was assassinated. The other was overthrown. In other words, the country is a quagmire.

I wish it wasn’t this way at all. I wish we really could go there, free their population from religious tyranny, and let the population live happily ever after. We are stuck in a no-win situation. We can’t win by staying there, since we only delay the inevitable and continue to send more soldiers to die. If we leave, the country falls into chaos.