Day 37 - Kabul Women's Garden

This is bit of a cop out, but in today's blog I'm going to refer you to another article. I was forwarded this today by our resident Human Geographer from Westpoint. She's trying to work out a way to visit the Kabul Women's Garden referenced in the NY Times article. If you have the time, I highly recommend reading this. Here are a couple quotes from the article just to tempt you into reading it:

“What would I do with a husband, especially an uneducated husband?” Zehia asked. “A job is much better.”

and

"Most of all, Ms. Salik would like to see a program that would take women on brief trips to other countries, perhaps for job training, but really, she said, just to see how women live in lands where there are no women’s gardens."

Quoted from: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/21/world/asia/21kabul.html?pagewanted=2&hp

This reminds me of a strong point Bernard Lewis makes in his excellent books "The Crisis of Islam" and "What Went Wrong." Traditional Islamic society is falling behind due in large part because they willingly squander half of their intellectual capital by not allowing women to gain an education and work. Things are turning around some in Afghanistan, but it is slower than many people realize. There are still a preponderance of women that wear Burka's in public, and virtually all of them wear conservative scarves over their heads pulled down low and tight. You can see how conservatively the NMAA female students dress in yesterday's post. I don't think this is overtly mandated, but there is certainly societal pressure that is nearly impossible to overcome.

I'm not arguing against any of the traditions of modesty, that is up to each society to decide. I just think women should be allowed and encouraged to go to school and work if they want. I sure hope my three daughters have the opportunity to attend the school of their choice and study whatever topic they are most interested in (as long as it is Computer Science or Mathematics :>)...

As for work today, I finally finished up my grunt work in NMAA's new language lab. It is now fully configured and ready to go. I'm giving it to the language instructors officially tomorrow, and will finish up the lab at KMTC in the next few days. It will be good to be finished with all that. I'm planning to send the details of what I've done back to the Tobyhanna Army Depot and DLI just in case they want to duplicate the effort. I managed to combine their two products (Tobyhanna hardware and software with DLI course content) in a way that makes use and maintenance significantly easier.

So, take some time over a cup of coffee while your boss isn't looking and read the NY Times article. Also, if you're extra motivated, provide some comments here on the blog. Too many lurkers and not enough contributors. Big day tomorrow. I'll have details and pictures in the next post.