The Taliban, Women, and the Hegelian Private Sphere

Cole, Juan

doi:10.2307/j.ctvk12qf0.9

Cited by 39 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…As "Commander of the Faithful", Mullah Omar viewed his own role as that of rightful successor to the Prophet in Afghan lands, a role reinforced with symbols like his personal use of perfume believed to be the same as Mohammed's (Evan, 2002;Cole, 2003). The Taliban government made clear that material progress would come second in importance to spiritual progress, and thereby it revived public executions as an exemplary measure to educate society in virtue.…”

Section: Ijcma 201mentioning

confidence: 95%

Ideologies and conflict in the post‐Cold War

Ugarriza

2009

International Journal of Conflict Management

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If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -The aim of this article is to apply a re-worked definition of ideology in order to account for cultural and political dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts. Design/methodology/approach -The paper analyzes communiqués, press releases, magazines, pamphlets, speeches, interviews and other communicational media produced by insurgent organizations in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia, particularly in the post-Cold War, in order to assess the characteristics of their ideological platforms. The extensive use of these primary sources aims at revealing the way the organizations see themselves, and how important ideological warfare is in their overall strategy. Findings -In the post-Cold War, and even in the early twenty-first century, armed guerrillas persisted in linking their armed struggle to ideological platforms, though in more flexible versions. Nationalism, fundamentalism and socialism are functional to their tactics and strategies, and have tangible effects at strategic and tactical levels.Research limitations/implications -Three sample cases have been revised exhaustively, but that methodology impedes the examination of a wider spectrum of post-Cold War insurgent organizations, which may balance the results here presented. However, the high relevance of the ideological component in contemporary armed conflicts, as shown in the Afghan, Congolese and Colombian cases, demonstrates the need for further academic works on this topic. Practical implications -Re-defining ideology, as the paper proposes, turns it into a powerful conceptual tool to be used in academic research, given that precisely the absence of comprehensive categories of analysis has prevented scholars from providing a full picture of the political and cultural dimensions of contemporary armed conflicts. Originality/value -As economic-focused researches on armed conflicts have dominated the field since the 1990s, the paper underlines the need for scholars to approach a broader scope in peace studies.

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Section: Ijcma 201mentioning

confidence: 95%

Ideologies and conflict in the post‐Cold War

Ugarriza

2009

International Journal of Conflict Management

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“…Out of this chaos the Taliban emerged to weave another thread into the texture of Afghan legal traditions. A striking feature of Taliban rule was a redefinition of the private and the public spheres, as Juan Cole points out [9]. Religion was deprivatized -how and where individuals worshipped was now a matter of public law and state enforcement.…”

Section: Legal Traditions and Previous Legal Reformsmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…These and similar strictures were expressed in detailed decrees issued by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (an institution that pre-dated the Taliban). Transgressions were punished by public displays of exemplary violence that, 'as in Foucault's old regime.... inscribed the power of the state on the body of the offender [9]. ' By the time the Taliban regime was overthrown, the old state apparatus was in ruins, and, with it, the formal system of justice that had developed since the late 19th century.…”

Section: Legal Traditions and Previous Legal Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The proportion of judges with only religious education had been reduced somewhat in the 1960's, but as late as 1972, slightly over half of the judges had no formal training beyond religious education in private madaris. 9 Of the remaining judges, the large majority had been trained in sharia law in state madaris or the Islamic Law Faculty at Kabul University. Only a small minority -10% -had graduated from the university's Faculty of Law and Political Science [14].…”

Section: Legal Traditions and Previous Legal Reformsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Negotiating justice sector reform in Afghanistan

Suhrke

Borchgrevink

2008

Crime Law Soc Change

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After almost 25 years of war, the formal justice sector in Afghanistan is dysfunctional, and comprehensive reform of both laws and institutions have been high on the Western-supported agenda for reconstruction. This article examines the post-2001 justice sector reforms in Afghanistan, which appear as a case of problematic legal transplants in a context of legal pluralism and intense political contestation. While Afghanistan's legal traditions are characterized by diversity and constant negotiations between Islamic principles, customary law and Western legal traditions, recent reforms lead by Western donors and Afghan legal modernists have accentuated the conflictual aspects of justice sector reform. The extreme dependence of the Afghan state on Western powers has reduced the element of choice in the reforms and limited the possibility for developing a syncretic (uniting what is different or opposing) and inclusive system. Building on fieldwork from rural Afghanistan, the second part of the article examines the views of village mullahs in a rural Pashtun heartland of the central region, a presumptive conservative religious constituency that wields moral authority and helps dispense justice at the local level. The fieldwork finding supports the limitations on the legitimacy and efficacy of simple legal transplants. To be legitimate and effective, legal reform needs to seriously engage with the foundations of justice in Afghan, i.e. Islamic law, as well as Afghan traditions, or what the mullahs describe as islamiyat and afghaniyat.

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“…Placing the public (unveiled) body in continual contrast with the private (veiled) body contributes to the identification of the former as both an example of modernity and, as demonstrated in this article, an example of democratic expectations of liberty and freedom (Barlas 2002). Moreover, democratic ideals and communicative processes in capitalist societies such as the US are often subverted by the economic power of large corporations (Cole 2003). Modifications to the feminine body through beauty products, dress, or surgery are not compulsory; however, the expected corporeal appearances and performances as part of public life for women are fraught with subtle complications associated with seductive power such as found in advertising (see Allen 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The beautiful ‘other’: a critical examination of ‘western’ representations of Afghan feminine corporeal modernity

Fluri

2009

Gender, Place & Culture

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This paper examines corporeal modernity as part of the larger 'savior and liberation' trope produced for Afghan women by US-led military, political and economic intervention post-9/11. This savior trope has been identified as a co-optation of women's rights discourses and activism (Hunt 2002), a misguided approach to security through gendered scripts of masculine aggressive protection and female submission (Young 2003;Dowler 2002), and as yet another example in a long history of gendered tropes devised by colonial and imperial powers to save Muslim women (Abu Lughod 2002). This study adds to existing feminist critiques of US intervention in Afghanistan by examining the Beauty Academy of Kabul and the participation of Miss Afghanistan in the 2003 Miss Earth Pageant as particular lenses through which the economic and corporeal 'liberation' of Afghan women was presented in the US. This economic approach occurs at the site and scale of the body in order to (re)define corporeal modernity through corporate driven, heteronormative, and hegemonic beauty standards.

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The Taliban, Women, and the Hegelian Private Sphere

Cited by 39 publications

References 9 publications

Ideologies and conflict in the post‐Cold War

Ideologies and conflict in the post‐Cold War

Negotiating justice sector reform in Afghanistan

The beautiful ‘other’: a critical examination of ‘western’ representations of Afghan feminine corporeal modernity

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