The great thing about reading independent news sources is the variety of information that you receive and learn. Not to get off topic but BBC News is one of the best sources for worldwide news. I recommend Drudge Report and BBC News first and while the Wall Street Journal used to be independent of filtering, it seems that might have changed since Rupert Murdoch bought it in 2007. Another great news site is Breitbart, but their site needs some improvement in terms of looks and just cleanliness. Anyways, back to the point, I was reading the BBC and found an extremely disturbing article about women in Iraq who lose their husbands and become suicide bombers or prostitutes. Wow.
When you usually hear of this topic on one of the major news stations such as ABC, CNN or NBC you'd most likely hear that these women knowingly joined the "terrorist" organizations freely just because its an honorable thing to do but in actuality the major reason is because they have nothing else to live for. They are limited to the amount of options they have, and the options aren't many. They face almost certain physical and sexual abuse and to make ends meet do things that would otherwise be unthinkable in their culture. One women who commented on her husband's death even said,
"When he was killed, I wanted to blow myself up. I wanted to kill the people who took away the person who was most precious to me."We never hear their side of the story...this is what I mean when receiving filtered news. Of course, who would want us to hear about such atrocities happening in Iraq. Do you know how many women have lost their husbands in the last five or so years? Over hundreds of thousands of widows currently reside in Iraq. At best case scenario, I would estimate 1 of 100 women is able to get refuge supplied by various organizations. The rest of them have to earn their own living which if you could imagine is hard enough. Some of you may say "Oh, they just live with their family..." which I thought as well but its not always as "family" orientated as it is here. In Islamic culture, if a woman loses her husband her respect goes way down. Compared to our standards of living here where a woman might lose her husband in war and gain support from everyone around her...that does not necessarily happen in Iraq.
Their unquestioned faith in the "will of God" keep these women from actually thinking that they deserve to have better lives. You know you don't feel the pain of such actions and just the reality of what is going on the other side of the world. Well, it is clearly real and it is happening even as I write this blog.
War is never good for either side, there are always causalities on both sides but the worst thing is who is affected after the fact. The millions of men and women who serve the countries and cultures always face not coming back home. We see random articles here and there to be reminded of our soldier's sacrifice and how it affects their mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children...but it lingers for awhile and then we forget about it...its not knowingly but it just happens. You never remember anything unless there is a constant reminder...kind of like during the Bush presidency we were reminded of the constant terrorist attacks and why we were in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. But for women who adopt such a style of living where 100, 50 or even 10 years before would have gotten them killed are now dancers and prostitutes. While whatever disagreements I have towards religion, to be forced into doing something that goes against what you believe in is just wrong.
Sometimes you just have to do what you have to do to survive, I guess. The errors of our leaders and the greed of businesses cause pain for us everyday...it is now apparent in America but it has been apparent all over the world especially in the Middle East for thousands of years. Do the people of the world really have a say in anything or is it the businesses and leaders that we appoint to make all of those decisions for us? Whatever the case may be, it just isn't right.
EDIT: I just found this video on YouTube describing the despair that widows in Iraq currently face. The video is very recent from Al Jazeera taken on February 24, 2009.
BBC News: The shame of Iraq's pariah widows (here)
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