Foreword: Forced to write a critique of a recent New York Times opinion piece for my politics and propaganda class, I took the time to read up on the latest situation in Kabul, which I had already posted about here, and wrote a rather cold appraisal of a fairly lousy letter to the editor. Having said that, the sentiments were noble and it's worth your time. Read in full here. My analysis is reprinted below.
The President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai recently approved a new law that applies only to the Shiite minority of the country, in which women are legally bound to copulate with their husbands whenever the husband desires.
Dexter Filkins, a New York Times correspondent based in the Middle East describes the new statute that “makes it illegal for a woman to resist her husband’s sexual advances”. However, the law itself seems to violate the Afghani constitution, which explicitly sanctions sexual equality.
Conservative Shiites strongly support the law and retaliated to a female-led protest on Wednesday (5/15/09), by chanting, “Death to the enemies of Islam! We want Islamic law!” Following the ensuing domestic and international outcry President Karzai’s spokesperson, Homayuan Hamidzada responded by stating:
We have no doubt that whatever comes out of this process will be consistent with the rights provided for in the constitution – equality and the protection of women.
The overarching conflict between secular sensibilities and extremist Islamic values sparked outrage in the author of one editorial piece published in Tuesday’s (5/14/09) New York Times, entitled, Women, Extremism and Two Key States.
The editorial reacts to the repercussions of the new law, and his argument is clear. In what the author calls a “reminder of the cost of extremism”, the law, he claims, “effectively sanctions marital rape”.
The use of the word “rape” is jarringly suggestive in comparison to the euphemistic lexis of the government statute. The term, however, is echoed by Filkins, who likewise uses the phrase “marital rape” to conclude his argument that this law reflects “Taliban-like restrictions on women”. What’s more, The Times of London reports on the protest march from Kabul, suggesting the law “appears to legalize marital rape”. Similarly, another recent report reprinted in The Times of London employs the same terminology while discussing the “new laws that are said in effect to legalize marital rape in the Shiite minority”.
It is clear, therefore, that the author of the New York Times editorial in no way neglects his responsibilities, and refrains from descending into euphemism.
As the author continues he repeatedly employs highly evocative language in order, it seems, to garner a sense of revulsion in the reader. For example, we are told of the public “flogging [of] a young woman” who was “screaming for mercy”. Further, the author uses redolent vocabulary like “sabotage”, “violates”, “intolerable”, “slain”, and “brutality” to frame his analysis of, what he implies to be, President Karzai’s “indignity” in “giving in to Taliban demands”.
The manipulation of language in this way, though syntactically astute, invokes a feeling of anger and contempt that affects our overall reading of his argument.
As the piece progresses, the author appears to attacks the authority of President Karzai by suggesting that Karzai’s “popular support plummeted because of government ineptitude and corruption, [and he] is running for re-election in August”. Here, the author’s argument seems unclear. On the one hand, he debases Karzai by holding him responsible for the incompetence of the Afghani government, yet on the other, through commenting on Karzai’s re-election campaign, he implies that Karzai may have been acting with an ulterior motive.
The reader might argue, therefore, that, although Karzai was instrumental in the passing of this statute, investigating the motives of the individuals involved should remain secondary to discussion of the law itself. In this sense, the editorial’s author is guilty of the Ad Hominem fallacy, whereby he attacks the proponent rather than the proposed.
Largely, the editorial provides a model for strong, deductive reasoning, while continuing the main argument with valid examples and points of reference. However, as the author expounds upon the implications of the new law, the reader is forced to consider an instance of invalid reasoning.
It says of Shiite women: Unless she is ill, ‘a wife is obliged to fulfill the sexual desires of her husband’. That is licensed coercion.
Here, the author is guilty of the fallacy of hasty conclusion. Rather than deducing, logically and appropriately, what constitutes “licensed coercion” the author makes the underlying assertion of an inferred premise. If the author had included a statement demanding that a legally binding obligation to “fulfill the sexual desires” of one’s spouse is, in fact, “coercion”, the reader may be more sympathetic towards his argument.
During the author’s most persuasive paragraph, he appeals to the reader’s sense of national responsibility and internationally binding accountability. “Such behavior”, as demonstrated by the Afghani president, he claims, “would be intolerable anywhere”.
[The law] represent[s] an officially sanctioned brutality that violates American values and international human rights norms.
This opinion is jointly held by the female protesters who gathered in Kabul; Filkins reports that one of the women shouted, “We want our rights! We want equality!” The Times of London agrees, calling the new law “abhorrent”, and yet, conversely, appears somewhat critical when describing the protesters as having conducted “a highly inflammatory act of defiance”.
Nevertheless, The Times of London proceeds to outline the fundamental dialectic between the conservative Shiite position and that of the protesters.
[Although] Afghanistan is a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, conservatives argue that the Article 3 of the Constitution, which permits nothing contrary to the ‘beliefs and provisions of Islam’, takes precedent over all others.
Evidently, the editorial wishes to rail against this exception, and its centrality to the passing of the new law.
Conclusively, although the author may occasionally slip into misleading the reader, the editorial succeeds in pointedly exposing the moral and political flaws of the statute, whilst making a series of valid arguments concerning the latent ramifications of such a misogynistic and religiously bigoted proposition.
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