From: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org (mad-mission-digest) To: mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Subject: mad-mission-digest V3 #91 Reply-To: mad-mission@smoe.org Sender: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-mad-mission-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk * If you ever wish to unsubscribe, send an email to * mad-mission-digest-request@smoe.org * with ONLY the word unsubscribe in the body of the email * . * For the latest information on Patty's tour dates, go to: * http://www.spectra.net/~ducksoup/pattyg/patttyg.htm * OR * go to http://www.amrecords.com * then click "tour" and fill in the blanks :) * . * PLEASE :) when you reply to this digest to send a post TO the list, * change the subject to reflect what your post is about. A subject * of Re: mad-mission-digest V3 #xxx or the like gives readers no clue * as to what your message is about. mad-mission-digest Sunday, April 4 1999 Volume 03 : Number 091 Today's Subjects: ----------------- MM: NPC: IF YOUR FEMALE PLEASE READ THIS NOW!!! [Vanessa McGowan ] Re: MM: NPC-how? [CornflkGl@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 11:13:27 -0800 (PST) From: Vanessa McGowan Subject: MM: NPC: IF YOUR FEMALE PLEASE READ THIS NOW!!! A WAR ON WOMEN! The government of Afghanistan is waging a war upon women. The situation is getting so bad that one person in an editorial of the Times compared the treatment of women there to the treatment of Jews in pre-Holocaust Poland. Since the Taliban took power in 1996, women have had to wear burqua and have been beaten and stoned in public for not having the proper attire, even if this means simply not having the mesh covering in front of their eyes. One woman was beaten to DEATH by an angry mob of fundamentalists for accidentally exposing her arm while she was driving. Another was stoned to death for trying to leave the country with a man that was not a relative. Women are not allowed to work or even go out in public without a male relative; professional women such as professors, translators, doctors, lawyers, artists and writers have been forced from their jobs and stuffed into their homes, so that depression is becoming so widespread that it has reached emergency levels. There is no way in such an extreme Islamic society to know the suicide rate with certainty, but relief workers are estimating that the suicide rate among women, who cannot find proper medication and treatment for severe depression and would rather take their lives than live in such conditions, has increased significantly. Homes where a woman is present must have their windows painted so that she can never be seen by outsiders. They must wear silent shoes so that they are never heard. Women live in fear of their lives for the slightest misbehavior. Because they cannot work, those without male relatives or husbands are either starving to death or begging on the street, even if they hold Ph.D.'s. There are almost no medical facilities available for women, and relief workers, in protest, have mostly left the country, taking medicine and psychologists and other things necessary to treat the skyrocketing level of depression among women. At one of the rare hospitals for women, a reporter found still, nearly lifeless bodies lying motionless on top of beds, wrapped in their burqua, unwilling to speak, eat, or do anything, but slowly wasting away. Others have gone mad and were seen crouched in corners, perpetually rocking or crying, most of them in fear. One doctor is considering, when what little medication that is left finally runs out, leaving these, women in front of the president's residence as a form of peaceful protest. It is at the point where the term 'human rights violations' has become an understatement. Husbands have the power of life and death over their women relatives, especially their wives, but an angry mob has just as much right to stone or beat a woman, often to death, for exposing an inch of flesh or offending them in the slightest way. David Cornwell has said that those in the West should not judge the Afghan people for such treatment because it is a 'cultural thing', but this is not even true. Women enjoyed relative freedom, to work, dress generally as they wanted, and drive and appear in public alone until only 1996 -- the rapidity of this transition is the main reason for the depression and suicide; women who were once educators or doctors or simply used to basic human freedoms are now severely restricted and treated as subhuman the name of right-wing fundamentalist Islam. It is not their tradition or 'culture', but is alien to them, and it is extreme even for those cultures where fundamentalism is the rule. Besides, if we could excuse everything on cultural grounds, then we should not be appalled that the Carthaginians sacrificed their infant children, that little girls are circumcised in parts of Africa, that blacks in the US deep south in the 1930s were lynched, prohibited from voting, and forced to submit to unjust Jim Crow laws. Everyone has a right to a tolerable human existence, even if they are women in a Muslim country in a part of the world that Westerners may not understand. If we can threaten military force in Kosovo in the name of human rights for the sake of ethnic Albanians, then NATO and the West can certainly express peaceful outrage at the oppression, murder and injustice committed against women by the Taliban. STATEMENT: In signing this, we agree that the current treatment of women in Afghanistan is completely UNACCEPTABLE and deserves support and action by the people of the United Nations and that the current situation in Afghanistan will not be tolerated. Women's Rights is not a small issue anywhere and it is UNACCEPTABLE for women in 1998 to be treated as subhuman and so much as property. Equality and human decency is a RIGHT not a freedom, whether one lives in Afghanistan or anywhere else. 1) Judy Lalouche, Redding,CA, USA 2) Kathryn M. Jenkins, Shasta Lake, CA, USA 3) Margaret Jensen, Anderson, CA, USA 4) Mary Jensen, Redding, CA, USA 5) Robin Rentka, Pittsburgh, PA, USA 6) Dana Kelman, Toronto, ON, Canada 7) Giulia Falsetti, Toronto, ON, Canada 8) Rosemary Falsetti, Quebec City, QC, Canada 9) Maria Falsetti, Toronto, ON, Canada 10) Kim Griffiths, Toronto, ON, Canada 11) Lorraine Doherty, Mississauga, ON, Canada 12) Cara Ferguson, Brampton, ON, Canada 13) Dina Peitsch, Gulf Breeze FL, USA 14) Suzanne Dobinson Stroud, ON, Canada 15) Vanessa McGowan Collingwood, ON, Canada **** Please sign to support, and include your town and country. Then copy and e-mail to as many people as possible. If you receive this list with more than 50 names on it, please e-mail a copy of it to: Mary Robinson, High Commissioner, UNHCHR, webadmin.hchr@unorg.ch and to: Angela King, Special Advisor on Gender Issues and the Advancement of Women, UN, daw@undp.org Even if you decide not to sign, please be considerate and do not kill the petition. Thank you. === RESISTANCE IS THE SECRET OF JOY - Alice Walker From the book: Possessing the Secret of Joy _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 13:59:15 -0600 From: "James P" Subject: MM: NPC-how? 1) Vanessa, how do we sign the petition? There is no prompt or site to go to for signing it, unless I'm just clueless and it's right in front of me (which is also possible). 2) I know I'm going to get vicious responses about this, but PLEASE don't take this personally or anything.... I think that when you make the message exclusive to females (which is what your subject line implied) then in a way you are stating that it is a FEMALE problem only. Please don't get me wrong, I know this isn't what you intended and I'm glad that you posted the info about the atrocities in Afghanistan. But there are many men who are sensitive to the rights of women worldwide and I don't believe in alienating them about something of this magnitude. This is a crime against humanity, not just women and it's not just FOR women to deal with. I was very disappointed that only women have signed the petition so far. Is this message not getting out to men also? They have the same right to knowledge and social awareness that women do and we should all (if we choose) extend our rights, voices, and signatures to help elicit social change. But, of course, this is all just my opinion.... -Cristina ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 3 Apr 1999 20:57:51 EST From: CornflkGl@aol.com Subject: Re: MM: NPC-how? In a message dated 4/3/99 3:00:35 PM EST, jasepru@home.com writes: << 1) Vanessa, how do we sign the petition? There is no prompt or site to go to for signing it, unless I'm just clueless and it's right in front of me (which is also possible). >> You add your name to the list and send it on to your friends. usually every 50th person sends it to the address listed on the bottom. But here's the problem: I saw this exact petition a few months ago. When I sent it in to the address it said to send it to when you got up to 50 names, I got a letter back. The letter said that the petition's original sender hadn't understood how much mail would be generated, and the server killed her address and her account. They said that any mail to that address would not be answered and suggesteed trying to help in another way. While the plight in Afghanistan is horrific, I really think that an email petition isn't going to help- but it IS going to raise awareness about the problem, which will help people try to do something about it. I guess that's just a warning. Again, the other letter was exactly the same but ended with a different email address, so I don't know if the same problem is happening here. Thanks, Vanessa :) Rachel :D ------------------------------ End of mad-mission-digest V3 #91 ********************************