Why Peace Is the Business of Men (But Shouldn't Be)A Modest Proposal for the Immodest Brotherhood of Big Men
Ann Jones, at TomDispatch: Looking for a way out of Afghanistan? Maybe it's time to try something entirely new and totally different. So how about putting into action, for the first time in recorded history, the most enlightened edict ever passed by the United Nations Security Council: Resolution 1325?...
In a nutshell, SCR calls for women to participate equally and fully at decision-making levels in all processes of conflict resolution, peacemaking, and reconstruction. Without the active participation of women in peacemaking every step of the way, the Security Council concluded, no just and and durable peace could be achieved anywhere. 'Durable' was the key word...
Most hot wars of recent memory, little and big, have been resolved or nudged into remission through what is called a power-sharing agreement. The big men from most or all of the warring parties -- and war is basically a guy thing, in case you hadn't noticed -- shoulder in to the negotiating table and carve up a country's or region's military, political, and financial pie. Then they proclaim the resulting deal 'peace.'...
But... when the men in power stop shooting at each other, they often escalate the war against civilians -- especially women and girls. It seems to be hard for men to switch off violence, once they've gotten the hang of it... From the standpoint of civilians, war is often not over when it's 'over,' and the 'peace is no real peace at all...
The Security Council... recognized that men at the negotiating table still jockey for power and wealth... while women included at any level of negotiations commonly advocate for interests that coincide perfectly with civil society... all those thing that make life liveable for peaceable men, women, and children everywhere... In more than a decade since SCR was enacted, it has never been put to the test...
When men in war-torn countries negotiated peace, often with the guidance of the U.N., they forgot all about it. Their excuse was that they had to act fast, speed being more important than justice or durability or women. At critical times like that, don't you know, women just get in the way... What we're up against is not just the intractable misogyny of President Karzai and other powerful mullahs and mujahideen, but the misogyny of power brokers in Washington as well...
The sad news from Afghanistan is that a great many progressives have already figured out their own exit strategy... I'll bet many of those progressive Afghan men will bring their families to the United States, where women appear to be free and it's comforting to imagine that misogyny is dead.
