posted 10-19-2001 11:11 AM            

Miss America vs Miss Afghanistan

On the left is Katie Harmon, Miss America,
wearing the swimsuit she chose for the competition.
On the right is a typical Afghan girl, wearing the heavy smothering
burqua as required by the oppressive Taliban regime.

Miss America is a junior at Portland State University, hoping to eventually get a Master's degree in Bioethics.
Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from receiving any education at all,
and cannot read or write.

Miss America has worked as a lab assistant at both the Oregon Health Sciences University and the University of Puget Sound.
Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from working.

Miss America's father is an engineer. Her mother is a teacher.
Miss Afghanistan's father was shot by a gang of Taliban militants. Her mother begs for bread scraps since she cannot work or remarry.

Miss America wowed the judges by singing
a Puccini aria, "O Mio Babbino Caro".
Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from singing
or even listening to music of any kind.

Miss America will be traveling the nation nonstop during her reign.
Miss Afghanistan cannot leave her house without a male family member, cannot drive, and cannot be out after dark.

Miss America is an advocate for breast cancer research.
Miss Afghanistan cannot be treated by a male doctor, and for all practical purposes has no access to medical treatment of any kind.

Miss America can date, marry, or divorce anyone she chooses.
Miss Afghanistan will be stoned to death if caught in the company of a male outside of her family. She is likely to be sold into an
arranged marriage to a man who already has two wives.

Miss America wears sunscreen on the beach to keep from burning.
Miss Afghanistan cannot live in a house with windows unless they are painted black.
Since she must wear a burqua outside, her pale translucent skin has not seen a ray of sunlight in years.

Miss America could have been disqualified
if her swimsuit did not meet pageant standards.
Miss Afghanistan can be flogged if the holes in the mesh covering her face are too large.

Miss America will decide how many children, if any, she wants to have.
Miss Afghanistan will be pregnant 3-4 times more often than Miss America. Unfortunately, her babies are 25 times more likely to die in the first year. One out of four will not see their 5th birthday.

Miss America is majoring in speech communications at PSU.
Miss Afghanistan is forbidden from speaking in public.

Miss America is 21.
Since the U.S. life expectancy for women is 80, she's still a very young woman.
Miss Afghanistan is also 21.
But since the life expectancy for an Afghan woman is 43, next year she will be "over-the-hill". (Besides having a shockingly short life expectancy overall, Afghanistan is one of the only countries in the world in which women have a shorter life expectancy than men)

Miss America is a beautiful, intelligent woman and everyone knows it.
Miss Afghanistan could be a beautiful, intelligent woman, ... but nobody will ever know it.

God Bless Miss America
God Help Miss Afghanistan, ....

posted 10-19-2001 04:11 PM            

It really does make me realize how lucky I am to live in a place that even allows me to discuss conspiracies. How Americans have and will continue to die to preserve the freedoms and privileges that I take for granted. How some of them may be dying right now in Afghanistan.

Being a woman in Afghanistan or surrounding area must be something like being a black in America or Europe in the 19th Century or worse? We have certainly come a long way I think, conspiracies notwithstanding.

You're right David, it sounds like they are already in the Stone Age. Not sure if they were like that before the Soviet/Afghan war or not... maybe they've always been that way?

Maybe the Taliban regime is similar to the Khymer Rouge that took over control of Cambodia following Nixons orders to bomb them and Viet Nam back into the stone age? Another evil and oppressive (or confused and lost?) group of people that fill the void left by years of warfares bombing and devastation? I hope that's not what it takes to keep us free. I don't have all the answers but I hope that in the future there will be better ways.

I feel sorry for all the Afghans. Maybe they were just unfortunate to have been born into a world where their land has served as a killing ground for forces they couldn't hope to defeat or even understand. Just as we were fortunate to have been born in the U.S.A. But if they are striking back at us with terrorism, they have to expect the worst. It certainly seems that some good will come of all this if reforms are made under a new government in Afghanistan and terrorism can really be eliminated?

Maybe this is just a case of natural selection. The law of the jungle...A society as primitive as the Taliban/Afghanistan can't exist in this Dog-eat-dog world, especially not when they have resources that can be used by the BIGGER dog?

posted 10-22-2001 01:55 AM            

If I could have one wish come true I'd wish for no more women to be born to that nation.. in a few years there would be no more women around to give birth to their evil empire. They would eventually cease to exist. Extinction would be a fitting end for them.

posted 10-22-2001 03:21 AM            

As far as the people of China .... at one
time they had large families and all
were treated with love and respect
especially the elderly - men and
women. The policies the people of
China are now forced to endure are evil
and equal to your mind set.

posted 11-10-2001 08:49 PM            

quote:

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Sultana is a Saudi Arabian princess, a woman born to fabulous, uncountable wealth. She has four mansions on three continents, her own private jet, glittering jewels, designer dresses galore. But in reality she lives in a gilded cage. She has no freedom, no vote, no control over her own life, no value but as a bearer of sons. Hidden behind her black floor-length veil, she is a prisoner, jailed by her father, her husband, her sons, and her country.

Sultana is a member of the Saudi Royal family, closely related to the King. For the sake of her daughters, she has decided to take the risk of speaking out about the life of women in her country, regardless of their rank. She must hide her identity for fear that the religious leaders in her country would call for her death to punish her honesty. Only a woman in her position could possibly hope to escape from being revealed and punished, despite her cloak of anonymity.

She tells of her own life, from her turbulent childhood to her arranged marriage - a happy one until her husband decided to displace her by taking a second wife - and the lives of her sisters, her friends, and her servants. Although they share affection, confidences and an easy camaraderie within the confines of the women's quarters, they also share a history of appalling oppressions, everyday occurrences that in any other culture would be seen as shocking human rights violations: thirteen-year-old girls forced to marry men five times their age, young women killed by drowning, stoning or isolation in the "women's room", a padded, windowless cell where women are confined with neither light nor conversation until death claims them.

By speaking out, Sultana risks bringing the wrath of the Saudi establishment upon her head and the heads of her children. In the barren, hopeless wasteland that is the life of Saudi women today, free speach is punishable by death. By telling her story to a Western writer, Sultana has allowed us to see beyond the veils of this secret society, to the heart of a nation where sex, money, and power reign supreme.

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