‘Liberated’, my foot!

It now appears as if it is going to be legal for husbands to rape their wives in Afghanistan.

Thanks to the Shia Family Act. (Thanks for the link, R.)

Note to future administrations bent on toppling theocracies that harbour militants who don’t like you so much…

1) Install separation of Church and State in their new constitution.

2) Accept submissions to a constitutional convention from the locals, but ditch them if they can’t be reconciled with secular democracy – it’s stuff like that that got them in a mess in the first place.

3) Install recognition of separation of church and state (and other rights protecting values) in a suitably minimal oath of allegiance (unlike the arbitrary crap Australia puts in the test it expects immigrants to sit.)

4) Give citizenship to those taking the oath and second class status to those that don’t* (if they don’t prefer secular democracy, don’t foist it upon them!)

5) Don’t call it a liberation if it isn’t.

And get this stuff properly planned before going to war or don’t go to war in the first place. It’s not that hard and it’s not as if every Muslim on the face of the Earth can’t operate within a secular democracy anyway (weren’t the hawkish neo-cons the ones accusing the anti-war left of patronising the middle east by claiming it can’t handle democracy? What happened? Why is this religious oppression able to be passed into law?)

~ Bruce

* Not meaning without rights altogether – just without associative and voting rights. Access to food and water, shelter and a life free from torture and the like should still obviously be values recognised by the occupant nation(s).