Article

2006-05-08 Afghanistan

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Posted by Steve White 2006-05-08 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 Steve, thank you very much for linking to this. This is an amazing article, really it touches my heart.

Women are the key. Often they are forgotten but they are the group with the most to lose under fascist Islamism and the group with everything to gain.

Give them the skills, the chance and the choice and they can remake these societies into tolerant Western democracies in 5 to 10 years, easy.

Because when you transform the women, you transform the root society. You chance the balance of power and you change the culture.

We are in World War IV (the third world war was communism) and it's a cultural war.

If you get the women on board you change the culture as they are the trunk of the social tree. The mothers of the next generation. The ones who keep the social networks alive.

Get them involved, give them equal rights and they will stop raising martyrs.

Posted by anon1 2006-05-08 09:52|| 2006-05-08 09:52|| Front Page Top

#2 I agree, anon1, but again, I'm struck by the women's role to create and build while their husbands and sons prefer to swagger and seethe.

Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious 2006-05-08 10:51|| 2006-05-08 10:51|| Front Page Top

#3 They're the ones with kids to feed. ;-)

Seriously, microlending works this way in most 3rd world countries. The men may be too proud to take the funds, or unable/unwilling to start a part-time business with little return at first.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-08 11:41|| 2006-05-08 11:41|| Front Page Top

#4 The men are perfectly willing to take the funds, lotp (I have a friend who was involved with this in Bangladesh), but they tend to spend it first on swagger. The women take the money and work, spending the profits on growing the business, then on their children. And they feel the obligation to repay the loan, which the men don't necessarily.

Posted by trailing wife 2006-05-08 12:57|| 2006-05-08 12:57|| Front Page Top

#5 If Islam is going to reform without being bombed into rubble, it will be the women who will reform it. The men seem to be worthless, for the most part.

Posted by Alaska Paul">Alaska Paul 2006-05-08 16:24|| 2006-05-08 16:24|| Front Page Top

#6 The men are perfectly willing to take the funds, lotp (I have a friend who was involved with this in Bangladesh), but they tend to spend it first on swagger.

Some B-school friends of mine were heavily involved in microlending in Africa and Asia. At least in their projects, men were less willing to take out the loans. But the ones who did, used them responsibly. I remember hearing about one Ghanian man who insisted on taking a loan first, to make sure the whole business was on the up and up before his wife took responsibility for repaying a loan of her own.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-08 16:34|| 2006-05-08 16:34|| Front Page Top

#7 Different cultures, perhaps, or just different people. And conceivably the stories I heard over dinner were told on a different level than when B-school buddies get together. ;-)

Posted by trailing wife 2006-05-08 17:54|| 2006-05-08 17:54|| Front Page Top

#8 Could be. These two were involved in microlending quite early on, actually before they came to B-school. One used his inheritance from his grandfather as the seed money.

Posted by lotp 2006-05-08 19:22|| 2006-05-08 19:22|| Front Page Top

#9 they weren't religiously opposed to interest either, were they, lotp?

Posted by Frank G">Frank G 2006-05-08 19:42|| 2006-05-08 19:42|| Front Page Top

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