Afghanistan, marital rape, women’s rights, secrecy and fake democracy

It has now been reported that implementation of a law concerning family matters for the Shia community of Afghanistan has been suspended after an outcry by western countries about its provisions.

This confused affair exposes the almost complete ignorance in the west of the nature of the society that they are involved in in Afghanistan as well as showing the corrupt and duplicitous nature of the Afghan government.

Afghanistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its own constitution guarantees equality of women, but the new Shia law is a viciously reactionary document permitting men to force sex on their wives, confine women to their homes, denying women proper inheritance and allowing child marriage. Karzai has tried to claim that western critics have a wrong understanding of the law because of inadequacies in translation. This is not believable, but if it were true it would be easy for him to dispel concerns by publishing the document immediately rather than keeping it secret. The law was passed by the Afghan government and signed by Karzai in conditions of secrecy which are an outrageous affront to democratic methods.

The Afghan constitution is supposed to guarantee freedom of religion and equality of treatment of all citizens. This Shia law is in clear breach of that commitment and it is reported that work is continuing on a family law for the majority Sunni community. The likelihood is that such a law would also contain seriously discriminatory and retrogressive provisions.

The truth is that Karzai is trying to gain favour with religious extremists and oppressive clan leaders in advance of elections. In this process he is prepared to ignore and contradict all the undertakings he gave to the international community in order to get aid and military support to overcome insurgency. There is no genuine democracy in Afghanistan; its government is corrupt and icompetent.

When the Taleban ruled Afghanistan they were guilty of disgusting crimes. Apart from oppressing women in the most revolting manner they murdered gay people and savagely maimed others in the name of their perverted justice. By giving hospitality and support to Al Quaida they placed the whole world at a much greater risk of terrorist murder than it would otherwise have been. It is right for the international community to have a presence in Afghanistan to ensure that there is no return to such an intolerable tyranny. What must be made clear to President Karzai and his government is that the undertakings given to take their country forward with the establishment of universal human rights and dignity are an absolute requirement and there can not be any backsliding.

Only those who commit themselves genuinely to democracy and progress are entitled to any support. The Shia family law must be scrapped immediately and the constitutional rights of women and children fully enforced for all communities.

 

 

Hospital Chaplains

The National Secular Society has calculated that hospital chaplains cost the National Health Service (NHS) £40 million each year.

About 35 years ago I spent a long time in hospital. It wasn’t a pleasant time and one of the things that made it worse was that each Sunday a christian priest came along with a helper. They handed out prayer books and service sheets then conducted a religious service at the end of a multi-bed ward. Being unwell I was not in the best of spirits and having this sectarian religion forced on me was most unpleasant. The fact that I was an atheist and refused their religion did not inhibit them in any way from forcing it on me and as far as I could see there was absolutely no regards to whether anybody in the ward was a follower of any non-christian religion or would not be happy with their particular brand of christianity. In short it was a completely arrogant imposition without regard for the views of others.

Some people may want religious support when they are in hospital and I certainly would not want to deny it to them, but if they have those religious elements in their lives they will probably be able to arrange to have the support continued while they are in hospital.

What is absolutely certain is that there will never be enough money to meet all of the medical needs of patients and the £40 million being spent on chaplains could, and most definitely should, be spent on the legitimate medical purposes of the NHS. Religion is a private matter. Its followers should practice their beliefs discreetly and above all any costs of so doing should be borne entirely by the religions concerned and their members. It is grossly offensive and immoral that taxes collected to provide health care should be misused on religious facilities.

My concern at this issue was aggravated even further when I discovered that there was a Parliamentary Group of 40 MP’s (members of Parliament) campaigning to make it a legal requirement for all hospitals to have chaplains at public expense.

The National Secular Society says:

“these chaplains are parasites on a service that is there first and foremost to provide medical treatment and health care.”

They are absolutely right. We should find out who these MP’s are and make it absolutely clear to them that we will not support them in any way unless they get out of this group immediately.

There are 20 members of this group shown on the Register of All Party Groups. They are:

Lindsay　Hoyle

Jim　Dobbin

Geraldine　Smith

Frank　Field

Jim　Devine

Sarah　McCarthy-Fry

Alan　Simpson

Keith　Hill

Jim　Cunningham

Kevan　Jones

Mike　Penning

David　Burrowes

Iain　Duncan　Smith

David　Gauke

Tim　Boswell

Greg　Clark

Stephen　Crabb

David　Amess

Shailesh　Vara

James　Brokenshire

G20, tax havens and global regulation

The achievements of the G20 summit seem very limited. Little has been done to give confidence that world leaders understand, let alone agree on, what is required to avoid a repeat of the great depression of the 1930’s. An extra trillion dollars for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank may be of some use to tide over struggling countries, but it will not provide the increase in demand that is necessary to revive economic activity. A great deal of emphasis is being placed on agreement to deal with the problems caused by tax havens. This is really a bit of a ’so what’ development rather than the revolution that they pretend. It is a good thing that a handful of tiny countries will find it harder to hide away the money of organised criminals and third world tyrants, but it is not going to bring an end to the world economic crisis. Anybody who believes that new controls will be adopted by everybody or that they will work very well is deluding themselves. Following the failure of the banks who had brought about the most ridiculous financial bubble in history through creating new financial instruments that were traded without their purchasers having any knowledge of the underlying value, there is now a need to revive demand in the face of consumer nervousness and insufficient credit. There is a very simple way to do this and deal with tax havens at the same time. Tax havens are only of interest because taxes are far too high in the overblown interfering states of the developed world. The legitimate role of government is to protect its citizens so that they can freely go about organising their lives and providing for their families themselves. Vast welfare systems, and the dependency that they produce, must be dismantled. This will allow radical reductions and simplification of taxation. Raising the threshold at which people start to pay tax on their incomes puts money into the pockets of poorer people. These are the very people who spend rather than hoard their cash because they need to spend to feed, clothe and house their families. This provides the demand necessary for economic recovery. Taxes above the threshold should be at a flat rate so that they are easy to collect and there is no longer any incentive for honest people to look for tax avoidance in havens. Protectionist actions will be named and shamed we are told. Well so they should be, but we need to go much further than that. There are still masses of duties, quotas and anti competitive specifications which restrict international trade and the G20 states which account for more than 80% of world trade are just as guilty of these protections as the countries outside the group. We need complete freedom of international trade. Not only is this the most efficient way for people to obtain the goods they want at the optimum price, but it also allows the poorest people in the world to break free from their tyrant governments and raise themselves by their own efforts. Best of all, freedom of trade is the sure way out of economic depression. In advocating free trade it should be understood that I am not supporting such a completely laissez faire approach as to permit criminal behaviour to flourish. Wherever there is money to be made there will be a temptation for some to try to cheat. Regulation must exist to prevent crime in trade while allowing the most possible freedom to bring goods to market.