believe it or not, gender equality is something they've gotten right in Afghanistan...

This is adapted from a chat conversation I had with a friend of mine in December. Obviously, the message in the title of this post is relative to where the country was politically 10-20 years ago and where it is now. Women are present in the parliament even if they were included initially only as tokens for gender equality, they have staked their claim in the legislature and will not give it up without a fight.

At the time of this chat, I was neck-deep in research about Rwanda's post-conflict development and security and the role women's political participation has played in the country's thus far stable and ongoing progress. The paper was my final assignment for an amazing class I took about conflict and reconstruction using Afghanistan as a case study, but which featured no specific discussion of women's roles and rights in post-2001 Afghanistan. My paper was my effort to bring women and security into the conversation about long-term peace and development in post-conflict areas.

Friend: To a certain extent, isn't Afghanistan kind of an exceptional conflict?

Me: It is, but it isn't. It's had like every version of conflict around. So, if you look at the history and the pockets of conflict, it's useful for studying other types of conflict, though I think it's mostly a lesson of "what not to do"... Like see what we did in Afghanistan? Now do the opposite.

EXCEPT... incredibly... how they've incorporated women politically...

The fact that there is a woman who has already announced her intention to run for president in 2014 is amazing... 

even if nothing else happens
even if she doesn't run
even if she doesn't win
even if she turns out to be a big fraud and corrupt and horrible (which I don't think she is, she's pretty inspiring). 

The fact that it would even be conceivable for a woman to joke about running for president of Afghanistan considering where the country was 10 years ago and what most Afghan women's daily lives look like today...

It's like going from the Declaration of Independence to landing on the moon in a decade instead of two centuries. 

And, btw, she's not joking.

a price too high

I didn't grow up around guns and I'm not from an area with lots of hunting that might have made me more familiar with guns even if they weren't in my house. In fact, my father is from one of the most, if not the most, gun averse country among developed countries, which surely had some influence on my opinions. I admit to my bias or, at the very least, ignorance, around gun culture in America.

What I do understand is words, reasoning, and legislation. I am not going to argue with the 2nd Amendment of the US constitution that says I have the right to bear arms--the right is there, enshrined in the Bill of Rights for hundreds of years, and repeatedly supported by US Supreme Court decisions. It's there to stay, at least for the foreseeable future.

What the 2nd Amendment does not say is that I have the right to fatally wound dozens of people (including children) on a psychotic whim.

Children from Sandy Hook Elementary School being led by police after the Newtown shooting. These kids are the same age, size, cuteness, maturity, adeptness of throwing embarrassing tantrums, and humanness as the 6- and 7- year old victims of Friday's shooting.

Off the top of my head, I can recall at least 6 other mass shootings committed by people who were mentally unstable with access to legally purchased weaponry: Columbine, Virginia Tech, the DC Sniper, the shooting of Rep. Gifford, the Colorado movie theatre shooting, and this one in Newtown. I don't even want to do the total on the number of victims in all of these; if it's more than 1 (and it is), it's too many.

The price for the right to bear arms as it exists in practice in our daily lives is TOO HIGH: I am not willing to trade the life of a child (or any human being, for that matter) for my right to shoot at a hypothetical future intruder or attacker.

Because that's what this is, a trade. For every gun that's legally purchased and in the public sphere for no other reason than just because it can be is a trade of one or more innocent lives against the chance to shoot a hypothetical future intruder or attacker in an effort to save myself. I would not trade my own life for a beloved neighbor or friend or relative to have that right, so why should any gun owner feel at liberty (I choose that word intentionally) to trade the lives of twenty children for that right?

Maybe that makes me a dirty hippie, tree-hugging liberal. (Liberal? Guilty. Tree-hugger? Guilty! Dirty? Not guilty!) Maybe that makes me economical--what was the earning potential and social contribution that those 20 children and 6 adult victims could have made to our society? Maybe that makes me risk averse--I'm betting that the odds of me getting attacked are much lower than me not getting attacked. Maybe that makes me human. Maybe that makes me cheap on "liberty" or "freedom" that I'm not willing to sacrifice lives for a constitutionally-mandated right--would I not sacrifice lives for the right to freedom of speech? (I would.)

It definitely does not make me un-American--how much more American is it than to want to prevent the unnecessary and senseless deaths of the most vulnerable among us? Or even the least vulnerable--hell, I don't want anyone shot!! How much freer can we be than to live without fear of such senseless and wasteful death and sadness?

The assault rifle and handguns that were used on Friday were not meant for hunting--at least, not for hunting animals. I won't get into what I think about hunting (though it's probably not what you'd expect). This is about basic safety and sanity--that is, the sanity and reason among those of us who are fully mentally capable and in charge of shaping legislation and regulating, manufacturing, selling, and distributing guns.

There are people in my life that I love, that are part of my family either by blood or experience, for whom I would literally trade my life to protect their right to speak freely and live without fear of retribution for who they are or what they believe, people who I know to be absolutely, unquestionably responsible enough, smart enough, mentally stable enough, trained enough, and valuing of human life enough to entrust with gun ownership. These are not the people I am worried about having their access to guns coincide with their access to suburban strip malls and elementary schools.

Regardless, I am not willing to trade the life of any innocent person for these responsible and sane people who I love and trust's right to own a gun as easily as they can now.

"Firearms regulation" does not mean "firearms ban." It does, admittedly and, in my opinion, rightly, mean making it very difficult for everyone and impossible for the people who should not have access to get access.

POTUS has taken flack for not using strong enough words in his statement on Friday. But I think he was putting everyone on notice: "meaningful action... regardless of the politics" means the human lobby is stronger than the gun lobby, and things are about to change.

To close (because, aptly, I have to get back to writing a paper about post-conflict security...), here is the email I sent my parents after I learned of the shooting on Friday:

I have my Econ final in a few hours and have been pretty calm about it ever since I had that freak out a few weeks ago. I'm definitely not going to do well on the test,* but, more importantly, I understand the general concepts from the semester and, frankly, at the end of the day, it's just really not that big a deal. I've been saying that to people all week--just calm down, at the end of your life, you're not going to look back and be like, if only I'd gotten a B+ instead of a C+ on the microeconomics final. 

I've been working calmly all morning just preparing my cheat sheet and working through practice problems. Some time between when I last listened to NPR this morning while getting ready for school and about an hour ago, some maniac went into a school an hour's drive from NYC and shot and killed at least 27 people, including 18 children. Literally, while people around me spent those hours freaking out about some relatively inconsequential grade on a relatively inconsequential test, children in a place we could drive to within an hour were having their opportunity to flake out on studying or do badly on a test taken away from them forever. 

Thanks, mom and dad, for raising me to (sometimes) remember to keep things in perspective and for being the ones to remind me of this when I'm being ridiculous and freaking out about stuff that in the long run just isn't that big a deal. 

Love
Miki

I want to engage in this discussion with perspective, civility, reason, and respect, and get to a place where everyone can be safe.

So, can we talk?

 Children in Karachi, Pakistan light candles early in the evening in memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims. 

This is all close to home which is why it's easy (and lazy) of me (all of us) to get so worked up about these deaths over ones that take place in other places, but maybe this is the place where this conversation will be able to take its next step and will help Americans be better friends with our global neighbors and their children.

* In case you're wondering, I think it actually went pretty well, much to my relief and surprise. Even more reason to not freak out about things that just aren't that big a deal... sometimes they turn out to be just fine.