Philobiblon

I posted recently on the tragic case of Nadia Anjuman, the Afghan female poet apparently murdered by her husband.

In The Times today, Christina Lamb (author of The Sewing Circles of Herat)has a lovely piece about her, her work and the brave group of women and girls with whom she had studied through the Taliban years.

Her poetry alluded to an acute sense of confinement. “I am caged in this corner, full of melancholy and sorrow,” she wrote in one “ghazal”, or lyrical poem, adding: “My wings are closed and I cannot fly.” It concludes: “I am an Afghan woman and must wail.”

It is hard to know how much attention the case is getting within Afghanistan, but there are some suggestions that it might at least encourage the start of a debate about domestic violence.

“Unfortunately, this shocking act indicates there is increasing violence against women in our society,” Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said, adding the security officials had not properly investigated such cases in the past.
“Only condemning is not enough, the government should take strict action to avoid such violence against women in the country,” Hakim added.
Khalida Khursand, a local journalist and writer in Herat, said Anjuman’s killing demonstrated that violence against women was universal in Afghanistan, even taking place in intellectual families.

My experiences in Thailand suggest that international pressure and concern for international opinion can be a big help to local campaigners trying to address such issues. (Usually working against enormous local pressures.) It can only be hoped that the UN and other international groups will do all they can to keep up the pressure on the issue.

Here in Britain it is easy to look across the Atlantic and think: “Thank the gods we’ve got sanity about abortion here.”

Yet, perhaps because of “leakage” of the American anti-abortion campaigns, perhaps because while you have religion there’ll be people trying to impose their views about the world on others, even here there are people trying to nibble away at the reasonably clearly established rights we have. (Still not straight abortion on request, of course – as it should be.)

In the past week it has been the rather odd mother Sue Axon, who has chosen to place through a legal action to put her own two teenage daughters in the glare of the media spotlight – which has shown that one of them is pregnant! (Since “teenage mother” is still clearly a term of abuse, so exposing your daughter has to raise questions about her parenting skills.)

And in fact Ms Axon told the Daily Mail that the law was probably at fault in her child having sex “so young”, because of the right to confidentiality meant she thought she could get away with it. Not much sense of her either taking responsibility for her own parenting, or indeed for her ability to think logically, there.

She’s brought a legal case trying to stop health professionals providing abortions to under 16s without parents being advised. Her only expressed motivation is that she felt “forced” into having an abortion (at the age of 30!) and has regretted it ever since. (Hardly a comparable case to a frightened 15-year-old, who could well be the subject of abuse – sexual or psychological, within her family.)

I was not surprised to learn from Mary Riddell in the Observer this morning that she’s far from the lone crusader that she claims to be. In fact all of the “usual suspects” of the “pro-life” movement are lined up behind her.

Riddell says:

Ms Axon’s side has talked reverentially of ‘the family’, omitting to mention that this can be an institution boasting rates of abuse and murder which make Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution look like Pontin’s. The trust that should impel teenagers to confide in their parents has to be earned, not imposed by law.

And I can’t avoid the feeling that Ms Axon has failed to earn that right and is, with the support of people with a classically anti-abortion agenda, trying to enforce it.

The judge’s decision has been reserved, but I fear this is the sort of case that will run and run. And if not this one, the same coterie will soon be back with some other attempt to reduce women’s rights to their own bodies.

Women, Abortion.

Miss Williams Wynn is today telling the elaborate, dramatic tale of a conman who passed himself off as the Archduke John, brother of the Emperor of Austria across half of Europe.

He starts out with the British Consul at Jaffa, travels around various convents, to the “Turkish ports”, on to Hamburg and is finally wrecked (on his way to America – where you get the feeling he would have done rather well) off the coast of Britain.

Says Miss Williams Wynn:

The conman escapes again, however, by seducing the wife of his jailer. The young lad travelling with him, son of the consul, is saved by a kindly judge “the only one man in the whole world who would not have hanged him because he had been imposed upon by a rascal.”

The whole story does have a very novelist feel, but who knows? It might be true.

Anyone looking for a story for a movie, this has definite possibilities!

One of the best summaries and explanations of the current unrest that I’ve read is on Dangereuse Trilingue.

“Well, and then “foutre le bordel” (“creating a disruptive mess” or “fucking up everything”, take your pick for a translation) is in a way a rather French response to social dissatisfaction. However deplorable, however inexcusable, this is not the first time in history this sort of thing has happened.”

Which echoes my thoughts. This sort of political violence (broadly very controlled – the targets have almost entirely been property rather than persons, and the one death may have related to a pre-existing grudge rather than the events themselves) is pretty well a French tradition – farmers, anti-globalisation protesters, unionists often engage in similar, if slightly more formal “protests”.

Who says the young inhabitants of the banlieues have been inadequately assimilated into French culture?

As for the foreign media coverage, you have to remember that a burning car is just about an irresistible image to a sub-editor looking for an image for a colour page (and I should imagine for a television editor). These are the sorts of things that can have an enormous impact on how the news is reported.

Julie Birchill is being typically inflammatory on the subject of children today in The Times.

She’s often obviously writing for effect rather than from conviction, but she does have a way of striking deep to the heart of an issue.

She’s also being upset in this article about historians speaking about their subject in the current tense. I hadn’t noticed it; has anyone else?

As a small celebration – after last night’s lively communal work leaving party – I’m cooking myself tonight a slap-up baked chicken with all the trimmings. (It has taken me years to get over my early journalism experience – of endless rubber chicken dinners with tinned peas, as served up by the “women’s auxiliary” of whatever organisation was conducting the evening – but I can now almost face the idea of the dish again.)

The choice was made by the fact of the local Sainsbury having their “best quality” free-range chicken, from an identified farm, promising treed-pastures, at half price.

I’m increasingly trying to buy only meat from really decent sources, particularly regarding animal welfare. I saw some horrible things in my agricultural science days, but must admit that I’ve only really thought about them, and acted on those thought, in recent years.

So I was taken by this week’s Times Literary Supplement article about Factory farm ethics – a review of several books, including Peter Singer’s revised opus.

The wide-ranging history of human-animal relations – Hunters, Herders, Hamburgers:
The past and future of human-animal relationships by Richard W. Bulliet – sounds particularly interesting.