Thursday, October 11, 2012

Real Terror


The Compte de Rienville was staying at the Manor for a few days, and in between bouts of ...well, never mind...we had some good conversations. One in particular stands out.

After an excellent dinner, we were enjoying some warmed Brie on Henri's fantastic home-baked crackers while sipping a forty-year-old Port brought from the Compte's cellar in his Chateau. For some reason, we were discussing what really terrifies people. I, for instance, am frightened of people with 'Causes'; I mean, if you argue with a reformer, you are always wrong. The Compte confessed to a fear of a world without electricity, and he has a point. Were the global grid to collapse suddenly, well, just imagine, and a marketable skill in such a world would be how good you were with a bow and arrow.

This was proving an interesting subject, and we thought of a number of groups, and just what they would be most frightened of. At some point, I mentioned the Taliban, and we both realized that one thing that terrified that ghastly lot were fourteen-year-old schoolgirls such as Pakistan's Malala Yousafzai. She had been shot by a member of the Taliban, and was, at the time of this writing, in critical condition in a hospital in Peshawar. The Compte put forward a thesis as to why the Taliban had acted so savagely.

In his view, the Taliban were adamant that no girls should receive any education other than a home reading of the Qu'ran, and then only appropriate suras. Girls are, after all, chattel, and what's the point of teaching chattel? It would like training a goat to sing. It can't be done, and more importantly, it would annoy the goat.* Girls are there to serve the patriarchy, and follow the precepts of vani.

"The what?" I asked at this point.

"Vani. This is the custom by which girls are handed over as child brides to settle blood feuds. In fact, just last month in Pakistan's Balochistan province 13 girls aged 4 to 16 were so used by a tribal council to settle a conflict between two clans of a major tribe over the murder of a man."

"How the hell did you know that?"

"I was there. So was your colleague Matilda Hatt. We got three of the girls out, not one of our more successful missions. Difficult to work in that area. But you would know that."

I nodded. The Compte went on to explain that a girl, once even partially educated, became extremely difficult to manage, and in at least a few incidents, had either killed their husbands -- or, as the girls state, their owners -- or killed themselves. Education of girls, then, has to be nipped in the bud. Hence that attack on the unfortunate Malala.

The Compte said, "There is, however, a bright spot in all this. For perhaps the first time, there were nationwide protests across Pakistan, denouncing the barbarity of the act. Admittedly, these were held by women. The men seem to only protest silly film footage or Danish cartoons. But it is a start."

All this was getting pretty heavy, and a change of topic was in order. So we both helped ourselves to more Brie, crackers and Port, and began to discuss who REALLY got married at the Biblical feast of Cana.

* De Rienville is, I think, referring to a remark once made by NFL quarterback Ken Stabler, who referenced a pig in this regard. The Compte well realized that a goat would be a better exemplar than a pig -- a observant Muslim wouldn't go near such a creature. --ed.

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