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Set shortly after the Taliban came to power the film Osama tells the story of a young
Afghan girl who attempts to disguise herself as a boy in order to provide for her family. The
Taliban had banned women from working or even going out in public unescorted, which costs the girl’s mother her job as a doctor. Since the girl has no male family members after her father was killed fighting in Kabul, she has no choice but cut her hair, dress as a boy, find work and take the name “Osama.” Eventually, she is discovered and forced to marry a much older man who already has multiple wives. The first and most readily apparent of Hofstede’s dimensions of culture displayed the film is that of the masculinity-femininity dynamic. It is very clear that Afghanistan
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There a number of different ethnic groups in the country, with the largest being Pashtuns, who make up the bulk of Taliban membership. Others, such as the
Hazara and Tajiks (Marina Golbahari is Tajik, again according to the imdb) make up sizeable
Minority populations. Areas with high minority populations tended to resist Taliban rule more, to the point where active fighting continued throughout the nineties until the U.S. led invasion in
2001.
Another issue, one that the film did feature somewhat, is the damage that highly patriarchal societies can cause to men as well as women. Osama’s father, and indeed a great many men, where expected to fight, and died doing so. This led not only to their deaths, but left their families defenseless. Boys were essentially drafted into the Taliban ranks via religious indoctrination from elementary school age. Additionally, with so many girls their age being forced into marriages with much older men, leading many boys to enter adulthood without any suitable romantic partners. Since sexually frustrated males are probably the easiest people to recruit into terrorist organizations, this causes some serious problems down the
According to Christopher and James Collier,”War turns men into beasts.” It is true because many people are willing to
The Taliban regime was infamous for its treatment of women. Windows had to be painted black so men could not look into the windows of houses and see the women inside. Women were unable to work. Under Taliban rule, women were not allowed to be educated, unable to go to school or university. 9 out of 10 Afghan women are illiterate. Unfortunately, Meena was unwillingly cast into the role of teacher to young girls who wanted to learn how to read. Because she had been to university, girls flocked to...
The women in Afghanistan during this time period, were shielded from the outside world, and the outside world was shielded from them. Women became nobody’s and their life was unimportant. Burqas kept the women from being who they were, and being more than just a wife. They were not known or judged for the women they used to be, but for the wives they had become. Whether they could cook well, keep a house clean, or even bear children (particularly boys), it never mattered. What mattered was that they obeyed their husbands and the rules of the Taliban. “You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with a burqa when outside, If you do not, you will be severely beaten.” (pg. 278). Before the Taliban forced women to wear burqas, women were already being diminished. Women were raped, beaten and even killed just by walking outside their house. That doesn’t even start to describe what happened behind closed doors. Women were already losing their rights, but burqas took away who they were. Burqas affected Mariam and Laila in a big way. Mariam was barely a teenager when she married Rasheed, and had grown up with a strong, independent, man-hating mother. Mariam was never taught that she
Another piece of evidence is: “The Taliban have publicly executed women simply on the suspicion of adultery. In Taliban controlled regions wearing one [a burka] is strictly enforced.” The Taliban tries many ways to keep women below them by not allowing them to learn or having them wear something they may not want to or killing them based off a rumor. But, every year Malala chooses a place where human rights are being denied to travel to help fight for their rights to make our world a better place.
By 1996, popular support for the Taliban among Afghanistan’s Southern Pashtun Ethnic group tremendously helped the Taliban come to power. (Encyclopedia Britannica) The Pashtuns represent an Eastern Iranian Ethno-linguistic group with its headquarters mainly in Eastern and Southern Afghanistan. This chain also practices the Islamic code of conduct in their culture (which explains why they had such support for the Taliban.) The Pashtuns gained attention from the world from their support to the Taliban,the group is similar to the Taliban in many ways, they also exclude women from joining, even without women the Ethnic group has a huge following with a total population of over forty million, as stated in New World Encyclopedia. Consequently, the Support from the Southern Pashtun Ethnic Group and other influences the Taliban was able to seize the Capital of Afghanistan and gain control of all of the country from 1996 to
Men killed, and died, because they were embarrassed not to. It was what had brought them to the war in the first place” (O’Brien 21). The soldiers did not go to war for glory or honor, but simply to avoid the “blush of dishonor” (21). In fact, O’Brien states “It was not courage, exactly; the object was not valor.
The Taliban also require all women to wear a chadri (a veil that covers the woman's head, face, shoulders, and arms). In addition to veiling, which Lerner's book talks about, it is mandatory that women are accompanied by a man at all times when they are out in public. Also, women cannot wear brightly colored clothing or make-up under their chadri. In further attempt to keep women out of the public eye it is forbidden that women work. This is almost like what Mintz talks about in her book where in the 1950's women are not supposed to hold jobs or get a college education. In the 1950's it is for more of a social reason rather than law, but the same idea applies. Men frown upon the thought that their wives are more educated than them or that their wives have a job. Women are supposed to stay home and keep house.
Women are living in a patriarchal society which contributes to gender inequality. It dominates most of the institutions of society like; religion, the family politics, and the work place. The International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences describes patriarchy as a social structural phenomenon in which males have the privilege of dominance over females, both visibly and subliminally. The value of women is often reduced to the role of Trophies, housekeepers and reproductive tools. “Because the subordination of women to men is a feature in the majority of all societies, patriarchy is often argued to be due to biology, such as women’s principal role in childbearing.”(Darity) Patriarchy is the cultural norm of many societies so it is seen as natural. “Bloodchild” challenges how natural the role is by reversing the roles and showing a parasitic male pregnancy.
...a visit with Aziza, Laila saw a middle-aged woman, with her burqa pushed back…Laila recognized the sharp face… Laila remembered this woman once forbidding the female students from covering, saying women and men were equal, that there was no reason for women should cover if men didn’t” (322). To see a woman who was as close to a feminist as a woman in Afghanistan could get, to see her fall to level that the government wanted her at was crucial point in the novel that allowed us to really see the affect that the government had on the women in controlling every aspect of their lives.
...h Muslim “clerics” (Ottaway) unaware of modern diplomacy and skeptical of the Western world, and they were unsuccessful in taking the advantage of cracks in the Taliban governance. A former CIA station chief said that the CIA did not hear anything the Taliban Representative said. The US Government wanted Osama Bin-Laden from them and they were asking for the help to give him up; two different tone of language- meaning it was hard for both representatives to understand each other’s wants and needs. The conferences took place in many different places like Kandahar, Islamabad, Tashkent, Bonn, Washington and New York. There were satellite conversations that took about 40-minute between State Department officials and the Taliban's top leader, Mohammad Omar. There was also a surprise visit to Washington, made by a Taliban representative giving a carpet to President Bush.
Women under Taliban law did not have the rights to speak freely, to show their face to men, to go outside without an escort, and the right to work. Osama's father was killed in the Kabul war during the Russian invasion, leaving behind his widow wife and only child, Osama. The only hope of survival for her family was Osama, who was forced to learn to become a man by day and a woman at night. Afraid of starving in poverty, Osama's mother forced Osama to wear her father's clothing, cut her hair, and behave like a man. She worked in the daytime and accepted her family's decision of transferring her in to a boy. Under the Taliban's extreme law, if caught, Osama would be sentenced to death. This young girl learned how to behave according to the rules, even though she was
The protagonist in the story began to realize society’s views of her when her father introduced her to a salesman, while she was working outside, as his “new hired hand”. She was almost pleased until the salesman replied “I thought it was only a girl”. Even her grandmother bombarded her with commands, “Girls keep their knees together when they sit down.” And “Girls don’t slam doors like that.” The worst was when she asked a question and her grandmother answered “That’s none of a girl’s business.” Even after that, she continued to slam doors and sit awkwardly because she felt that it kept her free. In other words, she was not ready to accept and claim her gender identity.
Abstract: Women of Afghanistan are forced to live under oppressive regulations set forth for them by the men of their societies. Women have virtually no rights to do anything for themselves. There entire lives are controlled by and lived for someone else. Through their songs, they lament the conditions of their lives and are able to convey a beauty in their verses that all people can identity with. (67 words)
Mrs. Kandahari grew up in the dusty, rocky outskirts of Afghanistan. From being smuggled to Pakistan to catch a flight to America, to surviving through the war in her hometown, Mary and her family have been through it all. "My family never had a choice, the war was so brutal
In the modern day era, we find in society a ubiquitous usage of technology that seems to be never ending and forever growing. Included with this notion, the broad subject of surveillance is of course included. Contemporary surveillance, or more specifically technological surveillance, has been described as ambiguous; meaning that it is often misunderstood or open to different interpretations. The representation of surveillance within popular culture has played an impacting role on how we as a society perceive it and this raises certain questions that may reflect back on to society. The 1998 film Enemy Of The State directed by Tony Scott, Starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman and Jon Voight is considered to be a ‘spy-thriller’ blockbuster. Its central themes explore a range of surveillance techniques and equipment and also provides some insights, no matter how realistic or unrealistic they may be, into the real life security organisation; The National Security Agency (NSA). Using this film as an example and analysing how these themes are represented will hopefully allow us to key these ideas back to modern surveillance theories and practices.