Louise had tint on her hair and I showed her the comment Thomas Jefferson made which appeared a few blogs down. "Great quote," she said "He was a prick, though." I asked her why she said that and she responded,"Let me search my gray matter. It'll come to me." A few moments passed and asked her again."Something about a Black woman."
"You sure you don't mean Benjamin Franklin?"
"No but he was probably evil too."
"George Washington?"
"He was evil."
I felt so silly having this conversation with her, tint cap on her head and all, but I reminded her,"You know, our founding fathers were seen as terrorists, insurgents of their day."
"By whom," she asked with an indignant clucking of her tongue.
"By the English, Louise."
"Impossible! They invaded us!"
"Yeah, just like we invaded Iraq." Our eyes met and grew large because we had hit on an irony. We had only meant to engage in our typical beauty shop conversation but the truth hit us at the same time. In retrospect, it was funny, but true none the less.
Friday, we were talking about women's rights because I joined N O W. Sabrina, the client of mine with a tint cap on her head said, "We need to bring freedom to the women of Iraq."
Her sister said, "They need to bring themselves freedom, we had to here."
"You ladies see on all our news shows how women are rarely at the demonstrations and battles?" They shook their heads in unison. "Why do you suppose that is?" There was a little bit of weak speculation and they both agreed that neither had the answer. They assumed the men had not been taught to respect their women. So I pointed out another possibility. "They rely on their women. They keep them hidden by the soldiers and foreign media because to expose their women means they too would be in danger. If we attacked and killed their women instead of them, there would be no more Islamic message. The women are the breeders of their message and like drone bees, they protect their queens, the mothers of the living."
They agreed but I got this awful sinking feeling in the pit of my tummy. I'm not willing to kill the women to end the war. The idea seemed so sinister to me. I'm a mom too. <sigh> That's all for now.
1 comment:
this gives weight to that old axom" if you don't know History, you're destined to repeat it."
Englands war with it's American Colonies was to stop a Rebellion and squash a Revolution, the only similarities with the war in Iraq are the Financial ones (both looking for Gain).
If the women in the middle east feel so oppressed, why is it we never hear of any sort of demonstrations by them? Do you think they sit quietly at home in their Burkas and lament their situation?
National Geographic put the Face of an Afgani girl on it's cover 17 years ago,
and recently, the Cameraman who took the Photo, relocated the woman and took some more photos, the woman would look into the camera lens, but wouldn't look the camera man in the face. She is a married woman and must not look at a man who is not her husband.
And as far as our maneuverings go( this is after 23 years of war in Afganistan) she was asked if she'd ever felt safe."No. She replied, "But life under the TAliban was better.At least their was Peace and Order."
Maybe we can pound these people into submission, Probably not. Their customs and Faith, goes deeper than we can imagine.
Mankind would be better served ridding its self of Zealots of all forms from the planet.
Post a Comment