Afghan women recognized for first time through holes in FBI profiling
COMMENTARY
Jenny Specht

The images flashed on the television screen again and again. Hijackers, al Qaeda members, potential and actual terrorists — these are the pictures that we as Americans now envision as the enemy. We easily recognize their similarities in appearance and realize, almost without note, that they all are of the same gender.

U.S. intelligence agencies include this factor in their racial profiling: those known to be involved in the plotting of al Qaeda are all male. From what we know of the terrorists’ religious beliefs, women are heavily restricted, given fewer rights and are not to be included in jihad.

It’s ridiculous to imagine in a Western country that this sort of discrimination still occurs somewhere in the world. What greatly troubles me, however, is the step forward that women in Afghanistan are making. As an American and an egalitarian, it is even more troubling that recent reports state that Afghan women are now being used as terrorism weapons in the United States. These women fall outside the specifications of FBI profiling — a different form of discrimination.

Profiling is designed to narrow the field and to make the job of security officials easier. But it is obviously based on bias and has many pitfalls.

Profiling is not just a post-Sept. 11 idea. When I arrived in London in summer 2001, I waited an hour in line for customs as two families from non-Western countries were detained and I, an American who could not remember her destination address, was quickly admitted into the United Kingdom.

The idea of using women, who have a much easier time emigrating into the country, is ingenious but creates problems in ideology. Islamic fundamentalism as practiced by the Taliban identifies a woman’s place, and that place is not as a holy warrior.

For women to be craftily used in this manner is a deviation from the tenets their religion is based on. It is an insult to true Islamic fundamentalists and simultaneously a slap in the face to women in Afghanistan who lack any semblance of equality. For them, this is a chance to gain status — not because their worth has been recognized, but because of a defiant scheme.

Maybe this should not have been the most noteworthy news I picked up out of a USA Today article. A one paragraph blurb that shouldn’t be surprising. I should have been fearful, or disdainful. But I wonder about what is unprinted, probably unworthy of the front page, or any page. How did women react? Were they honored or flattered? Offended or puzzled?

I imagine some have secretly been dying to be asked; some could never imagine a woman doing such things; some wanting a woman to be doing such things but not for the reason identified. For those women who are devoutly religious, this issue is pressing in their lives because it is a conflict between culture and gender, teachings and emotions.

I don’t know how they’ve reacted, though, and probably never will. I can identify from far away, from a country where I have and will continue to vote; from a country where I will graduate from college and attend graduate school; from a country where my father has never, despite his best efforts, been able to tell me what to do. This is hypocrisy and women’s status under al Qaeda, if anything, has been lowered.They might not be able to voice their opinion on the subject; fortunately, I can.

Jenny Specht is a senior English and political science major from Fort Worth.