I was a bit confused by Charlotte Bunch’s piece “Whose Security?” but I will do my best to summarize it. I eventually understood where she wanted to go with this piece, but it took until the last few paragraphs. She begins by looking at several issues that 9/11 has brought into a bigger light, such as “an increase in militarism, wars, internal conflicts and terrorism, which are affecting or targeting civilians and involving more women and children in deadly ways” (pg. 2). One question feminists have raised for many years, even before 9/11, is who is actually protected by “national security” and what does “national security” actually entail. We should be looking at security in terms of protecting people, and not simply using war to defend territory. However, after 9/11 we have seen the “masculine warrior discourse” reemerge. The media domination by male figures has reminded us that when it comes to policy issues such as war, defense, etc. that women still do not have much influence. Bunch critiques the Bush administration’s policies post 9/11 and cites a few examples of when they strongly opposed UN leaders simply because they were promoting policies that did agree with their beliefs. Bush’s policies, she argues, have provided a cover for other countries to push racism and violence against women aside. She concludes with what she thinks we should do in the future. She believes that if we deal with the “dynamic tension between the universality and specificity of our work [as a woman’s activist]…then we can move toward an affirmative vision of peace with human rights and human security at its core, rather than continue to clean up after the endless succession of male-determined crises and conflicts” (pg. 5).
The article by Lila Lughod was very informative and interesting. As someone who has focused on women in the Middle East, she has a lot to say. She spends the entire paper explaining to us why we should be wary of what Laura Bush had to say about the war in Afghanistan and how we should see issues in a historical context, and not a cultural one. Lughod questions on page 784 why we think it is more important to know about the culture of the region, instead of the history of the very repressive regimes of the region. She notes, “Just as I argued above that we need to be suspicious when neat cultural icons are plastered over messier historical and political narratives, so we need to be wary when…Laura Bush, all with military troops behind them, claim to be saving or liberating Muslim women” (785). When looking at the war in Afghanistan, we need to remember several things about the women there. For example, even when we “free” them, we need to realize that most women would still choose to wear some form of headcovering. While the requirement to wear the burqa is indeed very repressive, there are other factors behind the situation in Afghanistan that we need to understand. One very important point she makes on page 787 is that we need to be accepting of the fact that there is a difference between Afghan and American women, and that we need to be careful when we say that we are “saving” people. When we claim we are “saving” them we are implying that they need to become more like us, and it should not be that way. Furthermore, she states that she “cannot think of a single woman I know…who has ever expressed envy of U.S. women, women they tend to perceive as bereft of community, vulnerable to sexual violence and social anomie, driven by individual success rather than morality, or strangely disrespectful of God” (788). We need to keep in mind when discussing the war in Afghanistan that while we do want to help the country and the women, the way to help them is not by making them more like us. In the end, “Our task is to critically explore what we might do to help create a world in which those poor Afghan women, for whom ‘the hearts of those in the civilized world break,’ can have safety and decent lives” (790).
Ibrahim’s story is a personal account of what it has been like to grow up in America and what it has been like for her and her family during the American occupation of Iraq starting in 2003. Her and her family originally came to America as refugees during the first Gulf War, and has remained here ever since—she considers New Jersey her home. The first section of her story is about wanting to make the experiences of the Iraqi citizens in Iraq more humanized and to portray the American occupation in a different light. She tells of her family members being kidnapped or killed, and continues on to talk about her project. Ibrahim wanted to interview the youth who are living in Iraq or have recently been displaced to nearby Jordan. However, this was difficult because she was no longer considered an “authentic Iraqi” (41). After finding two boys to interview, they mainly complained about the lack of electricity, overcrowding at public hospitals (and the high costs at private ones), the crumbling education system, and general lack of security. The American occupation had made even going to school for the day very dangerous. She soon realizes that she needs to share all these stories with the general American audience to paint a very different picture than the mass media is—which is exactly what the boys she interviewed in Jordan wanted her to do. Her next section deals with her personal struggles post 9/11 living in America. On her trip back from Jordan she experienced what unfortunately has become the norm, racial profiling. She was held in customs for six hours and asked questions, some even questioning their view of the Iraq war. After this experience, she knew should couldn’t stay quiet. She went on many news shows to share her experience and to try to get the story out. This was her first step in her quest to “defend the human rights of all Americans, regardless of their race, ethnicity, gender, or religion” (46). The conclusion to her story talks about refusing to adopt a single national identity and her experience as an alienated refugee when she first came with her family to America.
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