‘I know that if I am infected, I could infect more than one thousand people. Why, why are we not helping our health sector? Why don’t we care about our health, our family’s health and our society? These are the questions I want to ask all of those who are making excuses to break this lockdown.’
*Hasina Ghafoori is a 25 years old girl from Kabul. She graduated from literature faculty of Kabul university and currently working for Swedish Committee for Afghanistan as HR Officer.
The tension between the United States and Iran may seem to originate from the latter’s nuclear program but the root of the issue stems from the conflicting interests in the Middle-East. According to the national security of the United States of America in 2006, the major interests of the United States include:
• Providing security for the oil and gas supply.
• Maintaining Israel’s existence and qualitative military advantage.
• Eliminating threats from terrorist organizations.
However, the United States maintains broader interest in stabilizing the Middle East region. For example, the U.S claimed that its major goal is to promote democracy and economic liberalization in the region. Ironically, Iran is not under U.S. influence regarding its transportation, oil, and gas production.
The U.S. also claims that Iran is meddling with Iraqi Shia groups and preventing stabilization of Iraq, and that Iran is the greatest supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah in the region.
In summary, U.S policy towards Iran in the post-cold-war period is influenced by two factors: 1) Iran’s geopolitical importance made it even more significant for the United States to contain the USSR on its southern flank, and 2) Iran possessed rich Oil and gas resources.
In order to protect its homeland, the U.S. continues to leverage its resources and to ensure that Iran does not initiate the use of nuclear weapons.
Iran Interest
There is no doubt about Iran’s interest to spread its influence over a massive part of the Middle East. Iran has invested and sacrificed significant amounts of blood and capitol to ensure that it is able to determine the course of events in Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon.
To a lesser extent, it has sought to establish a beachhead in Yemen, and it has sought out links to groups in the Gaza Strip, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the region.
If Iran perceives its revolution as pan-Islamic, as U.S. partners in the region certainly believe, then it might very well set its sights Beyond Damascus and Baghdad.
From this perspective, the conflict between Iran and its rivals is less a product of Iran’s expansionist goals as it is a classic security dilemma, intensified by ideological differences that render both sides more suspicious of the other’s intentions.
If this is the case, then a U.S. policy that seeks to simultaneously reassure Washington’s allies in the region, while also providing the Iranian regime with guarantees that its interests in the region would be respected, could lay the groundwork for less confrontational relationships.
Impact on Indian Political Economy
India has approached the situation with cautious optimism. India has historically pushed for peaceful resolution of the nuclear issue, emphasizing diplomacy and dialogue. India’s approach to Iran’s nuclear complication evolved from one of indifference and ambivalence to encouraging Iran to adhere to its Non-proliferations Treaty or./o (NPT) commitments; politically supporting the efforts of the International Atomic Energy Agency or (IAEA) enforcing the subsequent UN Security Council sanctions imposed, and strongly endorsing the U.S.-led P5+1 negotiations.
Therefore, India stopped short of negotiating with the U.S. and its European allies when they imposed unilateral sanctions, and New Delhi continued to work with Iran on other issues.
Moreover, New-Delhi was the second-largest supplier of Crude Oil before sanctions hit in 2012. The crippling nuclear sanctions levied by the United States in 2012 engineered a deep-seated transformation in Tehran’s calculations.
New-Delhi has repeatedly voted in favor of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) resolutions against Iran on the ground that a nuclear Iran is not in India’s interests.
On the issues of energy relations, India claims that Iran is an important partner as well as an important source of hydrocarbon resources and that it is keen to further strengthen existing ties.
Iran was one of the largest suppliers of crude oil and, in return, India has supplied refined petroleum products for Iran. Therefore, the U.S. has been applying pressure against Indian companies that have energy relations with Iran.
The sanctions have led to a downturn economy in Iran, so they insisted the sanctions were illegal and had attached no credibility to the waivers.
IPI is the most prominent or (India-Pakistan-Iran) gas pipeline project. Iran and Pakistan have announced that they will move forward with the project at a bilateral level for the time being.
Geopolitical Factors
India is trying to balance its relations between both countries. While increasing ties with the United States, India still ultimately seeks to progress toward an “equitable international order” and a “truly multipolar world, with India as one of the Poles.”
In this goal of ending Uni-polarity, India’s long-term plan with Iran is manifested in the relationship to Tehran with its clear preference for reducing the United States’ power in the region.
India’s growing ties with the United States help shape how Delhi approaches its interests in Iran as well as in the U.S. The U.S. and India share many interests in Central Asia. These include ties to Iran, and relatedly, hope for Afghanistan. India-Iran relations set up a key area of contention between New Delhi and Washington. This has caused Delhi to slow engagement with Tehran.
The 2001 Tehran and the 2003 Delhi Declaration further enhanced the relationship between the two countries, providing structure to economic Cooperation.
Indo-Iranian bonds faced pressure during negotiations for the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, which took place during 2005 and 2008. Therefore, the United States agreed to grant India full civil nuclear cooperation in exchange for separating its civil and military nuclear programs. For India, this meant economic advantages as well as a symbolic victory; India was recognized as a legitimate Nuclear power by the global hegemon.For America, the deal strengthened relations with one of the world’s major rising powers and acted as a counterweight to China.
However, during the Indian Prime Minister’s visit to Iran in 2016, U.S. lawmakers questioned Delhi’s readiness to sign a formal security cooperation agreement with Washington.
The State Department Responded that the U.S. government had clearly conveyed its concerns and that Delhi had been “very responsive…to our briefings” and “to what we believe the Lines are.” The Chamber port was tolerated by Washington due to its role as a counterweight to China’s Gwadar port in Pakistan, which is considered superior in trade capacity for the Sistani-Baluchistan region.
United States’ Attitude Toward Indo-Iran ties
The United States’ attitude toward Indo-Iranian relations is also influenced by Israel’s interests.
Tel Aviv has significant concerns regarding Indo-Iranian ties. This is partly because Israel is one of India’s top arms suppliers. During 2003 and 2004, the United States and Israel encouraged India to minimize its relations with Iran in terms of defense, energy, and strategic relations With Iran.
During the Israeli President’s visit to India in 2016, the president clearly stated his concerns regarding India’s friendship with Iran. Israeli media felt the need to publish assurances by PM Modi that India would support to prevent Iranian attempts to harm the Jewish state.
Israel’s concerns created further motives for the United States to convince India to reduce its Iran ties. Consequently, the Indian foreign minister condemned the incident. That means that Delhi follows its interests through ties with multiple powers, regardless of their animosity toward each other. No other major power could maintain amicable ties to all three states with animosity towards each other.
India shares interest in instability in Central Asia with Iran and an interest in fighting terrorism with all three countries. Delhi’s approach of walking both sides was also demonstrated when Bush and Singh administrations were attempting to convince the U.S. Congress to accept legislation in favor of the India-U.S. nuclear deal. Much of this occurred when the Iran nuclear crisis was deepening.
However, Washington politicians expected India to lean more toward U.S. positions on global affairs. As a result, there was increased U.S. scrutiny of India’s Iran relationship.
Former Indian Security officials were aware that the deal was framed to the American Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, while India and Iran maintain very different relations with Gulf countries. Continues[BL1] to increase strategic ties with states such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Tehran’s relations with these states are at historic lows.
Similar to its strategy toward The United States, India has managed to increase ties independently with both Iranian and Saudi poles in the region. Over the last decade, India has expanded political engagement, security agreements, and defense cooperation with Gulf States. This has occurred on top of Delhi’s existing dependence on the Gulf for energy and remittances from labor exports. These priorities outweigh India’s economic interests in Iran.
Under the influence of its Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, Riyadh has elevated its rivalry with Tehran as a Defining Feature of its relations with other states. This has led to divisions within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), such as the blockade against Qatar.
Oil Trade between India and Iran from 2010-2017
Iran remains a key part of India’s objective to alleviate energy poverty, the key to the latter’s access to Iran’s surplus hydrocarbon reserves and opportunities for investment in upstream oil and gas exploration.
Iran was India’s second largest crude oil supplier after Saudi Arabia until 2010-11. In 2014-15, India bought 11 MT and 10,95 MT from it.
Overall, Iranian exports to India followed the trends in oil trade, peaking in 2012 ($13.3 billion) and dropping to a low in 2015 ($6.2 billion). These exports included fertilizers, organic and Inorganic chemicals, petroleum and its products, fertilizers, plastic, edible fruit and nuts, glass, pearls, and precious and semiprecious stones.
India is possibly one of the most energy-deficient of all rising powers. Iran is third-large rest supplier after Iraq and Saudi Arabia, it supplied 18.4 million ton of crude oil during April 2017.
In 2006, India’s Crude oil imports from Iran sat at $4.35 billion, 10 percent of total crude oil Imports. In 2008, Iranian crude oil imports grew to $11.2 billion. Prior to sanctions, Iran was the second largest oil supplier to India.
However, after sanctions had been imposed, they dropped down to $3.7 billion in 2015. The U.N. and EU sanctions were lifted in January 2016 following the conclusion Of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
After this, an arrangement was reached between Delhi and Tehran to process India’s pending oil payments to Iran, unlocking $6.4 billion installed funds. India’s imports of crude oil from Iran in 2016 grew to $6.68 billion or 11 percent of total crude oil imports. In October 2016, Iran was India’s top supplier.
India’s approach to Iran’s nuclear imbroglio evolved from one of indifference to encouraging Iran to adhere to its NPT commitments; politically supporting the efforts of the IAEA; enforcing the subsequent UN Security Council sanctions imposed, and strongly endorsing the U.S.-led P5+1 negotiations.
However, India stopped well short of bandage with the U.S. and its European allies when they imposed unilateral sanctions, and New Delhi also continued to work with Iran on other issues in different fora.
Conclusions:
India and Iran have managed to foster a multifaceted relationship, anchored within a long history of cultural ties and affinity. For India, this relationship is governed by geopolitical and economic concern that utter the terms of bilateral ties, including energy trade, infrastructure development, and security cooperation.
Geopolitically, New-Delhi sees a strong relationship with Tehran as a significant gateway to Central Asia, a means to break a strategic encirclement by china and to minimize the influence of Pakistan and potential partnership in counter-terrorism. Despite of the sanctions both the countries were very successfully able to operationalize the chabahar port project which is connecting India, Iran and Afghanistan with further prospects of connectivity to Eurasia.
*Author: Atifa Amiri student of MA. Political science at Jamia Milia Islamia (JMI) University New-Delhi
Basically, women’s rights are the most ethical concern that has a lot of history and is also ringed by historical moral theories.
For example, Aristotle (384 B.C to 322 B.C) believed that women were fit only to be subject of men and they are born to be ruled in a constitutional sense, as citizens rule other citizens.
He also mentioned in his book “POLITICS”: the salve is wholly lacking the deliberative element, the female has it but it lacks authority.
But Kant (1724-1804) on his moral works clarifies that all citizen including the women have the rights and should be encouraged to attempt towards an active condition.
Women’s rights in Afghanistan
The implication of human rights, especially Women’s rights is more complicated in Afghanistan than any definition by the ancient Greek and German, philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Nietzsche and many more.
Under the Taliban’s regime, women experience indescribably worse conditions and were deprived of their basic rights and had no access to any facilities for better development but, women were given only the most primary access to health care and medical. But even had not freedom of decisions-making and still somehow.
For example, the Burqa is, in fact, a cloth prison that incarcerates not only as a psychological, but also and physical burden on some Afghan women. It was forced by the Taliban, and is another violence that took freedom of choice from women in terms of their lifestyle.
Recognition of women’s rights should be birthrights and fundamental rights everywhere. However, in Afghanistan, addressing women’s rights is more challenging thanin the private sphere, because of the customs and the traditions that most of the people follow. In Afghanistan in a huge extent, women have been discriminated against and are struggling every day of their lives.
Challenges:
There are many challenges in addressing the issues of women’s rights in Afghanistan. The three decades of civil war ruined all sectors in Afghanistan which damaged the most but especially the schools and educations center ruined and burnt in different parts of the country.
Education:
Literacy, although literacy measures are very high between both males and females in Afghanistan but there are more challenges in women’s primary education. However, annually, in Afghanistan, millions and billions are being spent on the development projects and humanitarian aids and educations is one of them that has very slow growth rates.
Lack of proper schools in so many provinces of Afghanistan and the quality of contents and textbooks are opprobriously bad, lack of science lab supplies, regularity of teachers and so on these issues are something so general between both men and women but women are being force from family side to do not go to school which are the main issues.
In so many places in Afghanistan, still, women are not allowed to go outside. Many women empowerment projects have been donated by the western countries but have less results in outcomes.
Poverty:
Although the Afghan government provide a free educations for all but still due to poverty the poorer families are prefer their son’s educations to daughters.
Poverty caused the dismissal of women’s rights in terms of their educations also poverty is the root of all the problems. As Kofi Anan, seventh Secretary-General of United Nations, rightly said “extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.
The best policy to address women’s rights must be employment opportunities and networks for social services that support healthy families like, housing support, health care center, and child care.
Violence:
Violence against women is recognized as a major handicap to health and social development. Although this is a common concern in many geographical settings, especially in the areas with a classic patriarchy. Women are facing challenges rights from their and fights against society at every point in time.
Violence against women in Afghanistan is so challenging, violence by the husband that is both physical and emotional like hitting, cheating, and violence by mother-in-law and other in-laws family is mostly physical violence. This a significant problem among the Afghan women in Afghanistan and I think is directly linked to poverty and economical problem.
Physical violence is one of the clearest and most serious forms of violence against women in Afghanistan and is not only limited to the aforementioned ways. There other kinds of violence as well that its root can be sought in the culture, traditions and cultural practices like insulting women through harsh and abusive language. However, to a small extent, the prevalence of domestic violence decreased along with the increasing proportions of women to educations.
Women are considered as homemakers:
The other challenge that hinders Afghan women is that are bound to remain within the framework of their home and the societal pressure demotivated them even before starting their path and most of Afghan men believes that women made to rise children and give birth to children.
Child marriage:
Basically child marriage is the violation of child rights and has a great negative impact on the health, growth, educational opportunities and mental development of a child. Through child marriage, both girls and boys are suffering strongly.
However on 9th April 2017, the Ministry of Women Affairs and Ministry of Culture and Information launched a national action plan to annihilate early child marriage but, we could not get a serious result due to lack of implementation of the law is much more important than making the law. So human rights commission and ministry of women affairs must pay attention to the preventions of violence and implementations of the law.
So, in conclusion, the only solutions to get out from the current situation is educations and educated people.
A short commentary view on Afghan women situations by Atifa Amiri, student of MA political science at JMI University New-Delhi.
John Lande, University of Missouri School of Law, Isidor Loeb Professor Emeritus has painstakingly solicited, collected and organized the book in to an interesteing, far-reaching, and thought provoking book that asks each of us in the field to consider what we might be doing better. He has collected a series of essays from over fifty professionals in the field, taking on this assessment of what the future of our field may hold.
Included are several pieces describing important techniques to improve dispute resolution practice. Rosa Abdelnour describes the importance of dealing with emotions in mediation, which may seem obvious, but it bears repeating as many mediators act as if emotions are irrelevant. Noah Hanft argues that when businesses negotiate contracts, they should put the subject of developing good relationships on the agenda as an intrinsic part of the negotiation from the outset. In one piece, Michaela Keet, Heather Heavin, and John Lande recommend that practitioners explicitly help parties consider valuable but hard-to-quantify intangible costs of engaging in the litigation process. In another piece, they recommend a “planned early two-stage mediation” (PETSM) process to improve the quality of parties’ decision-making. Laurel Tuvim Amaya describes the benefits of participating in reflective practice groups that challenge practitioners to seriously analyze difficult problems in their cases.
Some pieces take on “big picture” issues in our field. Charlie Irvine urges us to take seriously substantive justice – not just procedural justice or other goals of dispute resolution. Grande Lum describes why negotiation is especially important to deal with the major social divisions. Rachel Viscomi suggests that we can use online resources to help bridge deep differences in our society. Woody Mosten describes several ways that mediation trainings can improve the quality of mediation and include more peacemaking in our work. Chris Draper envisions possible future uses of technology to promote collaborative justice in dispute resolution. Lara Fowler suggests ways that the dispute resolution community can help address the existential threat to our planet of climate change.
Two pieces are reminders to take advantage of the Stone Soup Project, geared to faculty resources. The Stone Soup website has everything faculty need to give students great learning experiences through encounters with the real world. Another piece describes how, with a little bit of extra effort, speakers at educational programs can generate new knowledge by systematically tapping the experiences and perspectives of audience members.
This book has lots of ideas, but no specific plans or suggestions to take any actions. This is left up to the reader to consider and inplement. John does suggest that members of the ADR community would most likely need to undertake some collaborative actions in order to implement the collective suggested changes.
John kindly synthesized the many suggestions in the book into the following broad recommendations:
Develop clearer common language of dispute resolution
Redefine what we do and who we are
Integrate technology into all our work
Develop best practice standards
Redesign teaching and training curricula
Develop and implement a research agenda
Develop a searchable dispute resolution bibliographic database
Engage the major issues of our times with realistic plans and expectations
Attract “all hands on deck”
Unbundle and prioritize our lives
As you will see, there’s quite a range of people speaking with very different voices. They are Rosa Abdelnour, Ava Abramowitz, Jim Alfini, Cynthia Alkon, Laurie Amaya, Lisa Amsler, Peter Benner, Debra Berman, Russ Bleemer, Michael Buenger, Alyson Carrel, Sarah Cole, Ben Cook, Chris Draper, Noam Ebner, Deb Eisenberg, Brian Farkas, Lara Fowler, Doug Frenkel, Steve Goldberg, Rebekah Gordon, Michael Green, Jill Gross, Chris Guthrie, Noah Hanft, Heather Heavin, David Henry, Howard Herman, Chris Honeyman, Charlie Irvine, Barney Jordaan, Jane Juliano, Michaela Keet, Randy Kiser, Russell Korobkin, Heather Kulp, John Lande, Michael Lang, Lela Love, Grande Lum, Andrew Mamo, Scott Maravilla, Woody Mosten, Jackie Nolan-Haley, Lydia Nussbaum, Rebecca Price, Nancy Rogers, Colin Rule, Amy Schmitz, Linda Seely, Donna Shestowsky, Jean Sternlight, Donna Stienstra, Tom Valenti, Rachel Viscomi, Nancy Welsh, Roselle Wissler, Doug Yarn.
Finally, if you don’t already subscribe to the Indisputably blog, I encourage you to do so. It is intended to link Dispute Resolution Scholarship, Education, and Practice. There, you will find a range of interesting posts about various aspects of dispute resolution.
She sighed and whispered silently, “May God help and protect the helpless and the struggling ones.”
I looked out the window to find any reason why she uttered these words.
Looking out of the car window, it appeared to me that I was really looking at a screen playing a movie on structural violence at that moment. A movie that evidently picturizes hunger, suppression, abuse, maltreatment, and the devastations of war.
I was heading home on public transport after spending my day doing field research. I was lost in my thoughts of the disheartening stories of working kids I had collected for my research project when the car door suddenly opened. The woman sitting beside me, who was closest to the door and would have fallen out, had I not held her back. In Afghanistan, drivers pack as many people as they can so they can earn more money per trip and without any consideration for the safety of their passengers.
But little did I know that the unexpected opening of the door would present me with another painful, unwrapped story.
Coming back to the door, we realized that it was the driver’s assistant who had opened it to make sure it was latched properly. Nevertheless, it frightened the woman. Her fearful reaction to the opening of the door made the driver’s assistant and driver laugh. My mind hanged to processes. Men’s laughter at a woman’s fear of falling down reminded me of how women are constantly emotionally broken down in my country because of stupid gender rules. It made me contemplate the depths of my insights and discourse about men that were adversely influenced and shaped by the recent harassment cases that I had to struggle and deal with almost every day on the way to my job. The stories of self-worth and damaging relationships of some female friends who had to compromise self-love and confidence. The narrated stories of women in Kandahar. Particularly, the recent story of a child marriage, in which the girl escaped and returned to her to her parents’ home only to be expelled by her parents and sent back to her husband’s house, later to be beaten and ill-treated by him and her in-laws.
These all contributed to how the incident happening at the moment should have been processed and analyzed. For a while, I was struck by the irritating thoughts that perhaps these men who make the vulnerable go through sexual abuse and exploitation, marital rape, psychological abuse, femicide, slavery, and harassment to satisfy their desires, embody the worst demons in human form. Very well informed of the harm the acts cause, yet making women suffer as if their suffering is a source of pleasure and joy.
However, coming back from my male-bashing thoughts to the reality of the moment, I decided that I had enough of their laughter and the more time went on, the more unbearable it became. I knew I should interfere; I told the men that they should be sorry for their disgraceful behavior, but it was so disappointing that they kept making fun of how they scared the women with the sudden opening of the door. I sensed that my voice was filled with anger and a part of my sub- conscious mind reminded me of the norms of my suppressing culture that a woman must keep in mind while conversing with the opposite gender.
Nevertheless, I shut the conflict inside my head so that I could hear the woman. I noticed her talking to me and complaining about how her last few days had gone by.
She said, “I have been through worst these past few days, this is nothing compared to what I have experienced recently. It is okay, let them be.”
I asked if everything was alright with her. She was sobbing, couldn’t spare time to talk. Indeed, in a male-dominated society like ours, women expressing emotions through crying is considered guile by drama queens. Obviously, a woman having this in mind, wouldn’t cry. Yet, shading tears is the ultimate expression of deep emotional pain. Having this realization in mind, I knew she was going through a very serious phase but I wondered what that could be. I asked if I could help her but she remained silent. After a while, she burst out that it was her husband. He expelled her from their home.
This really concerned me about what she would do based on the fact that a lot of women are financially dependent on their husbands. That is why separation put the women in an impossible situation. However, I curiously asked if she had a job. She said she was a teacher and jumped into the topic of what her husband thinks of her as a teacher.
She asserted that “he tells me that I am a pimp”
She later asked me if a school was a place for pimping and pandering, desperately seeking my validation. She further explained how loyal she is to her husband and what treatment she gets in return.
Looking sad, she claimed, “I only have my husband’s number saved on my phone and except for him, no other man calls me anyway. It is that easy, if you set limits to how people treat you, you never get late-night calls from the opposite gender and you wouldn’t go on talking for hours and flirting with them through the phone.”
I wondered why she was telling me all this until she opened up that her husband got a call from his female colleague late at night, the previous night. He left for the other room and locked the door. He talked for hours with that girl.
“I wouldn’t mind it if it was a formal call and he wouldn’t have issues with me hearing their conversation. It bothered me the whole night but I didn’t dare to talk about it until the next morning when I finally spoke with him.” She said.
She asked the reason why he was doing this to her, but his response came in the form of a severe beating and also him throwing her out of the house. That is why, she was in the car heading to her only sister’s home with no clarity and many concerns about her future, especially now that she is considered a dishonored woman.
I reached my destination and dropped out of the car with many questions in mind. He is the one who breached the sacred bond of marriage, while she remained loyal. He lives free of all social constraints while she is bound to follow them. Yet, despite all this, it is her who was blamed, it was her who was beaten up and thrown out of the home, the one who broke rules of the sacred bond of marriage, not him, never him. Didn’t he have the reason to expel her from their home?
Did he not have the reason to beat her up?
And did he not have the reason to kick her out of the house?
However, like many times before, I was struck by the fact of how flawed the marriage institutions were in my society. How it perfectly cages women while setting men free to break the rules. The destruction it has wrought on the society. Recalling similar stories I had known. Thinking about how each one of us knows of a story similar but preferring silence. Letting the destructions and sufferings keep winning over us as if both genders, by consent, desire to live this life of inequality, distress, and constant misery.
Zakira Rasooli is a human rights activist and writer. She is the co-founder of conflict transformation movement named Afghanistan Unites and is a senior political science student at American University of Afghanistan.
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