<the constitution I hope they set up>
You can make a wish-list. So can I. Our wish-lists probably aren't too different. But policy should not be guided by wish-lists. Especially when they are impractical.
Is this what our army is for, to teach feminism (and other aspects of modern American culture) to Iraqis? Do we really want to have NOW activists going door-to-door, asking Iraqi women to sign petitions for an Equal Rights Amendment to the new Iraqi Constitution? That will go over, about as well as the Mormon and Baptist missionaries.
In the colonialism of the 1500s-1800s, sometimes the soldiers went in first, and sometimes the missionaries did. Either way, they were two aspects of the same process. The missionaries worked to destroy the local culture, and replace it with Western culture. The soldiers worked to destroy Native armies, and replace it with a Western monopoly on the use of force. The anti-colonial reaction targetted both.
Relations between men and women are among the most central core aspects of any culture. Cultures change and evolve, but sexual roles are "highly conserved", using Darwinian terminology. And attempts to change them, especially attempts forced by foreigners, are going to be resisted, violently. |
