Thank Heaven for little girls...
Muslim women, like other women of the developing world, have two open secrets. First, they know that education is their key to freedom. Even 10-year-old girls in Afghanistan defy the monsters who throw acid in their pretty faces on the way to school. Later, they will earn more diplomas, money and power than their men. Second, Muslim women know, as all development experts know, that to educate a woman is to educate a family, then a village, then a nation and the world. A new kind of Al-Andalus – without harems and subjection and dishonorable “honor killings” -- lies on every Muslim girl’s horizon.
Give peace a chance: dilute the testosterone...
Consider this: Could radically expanded opportunities for Third World girls and women prove decisive in building a more peaceful world? Could making such opportunities a central priority of U.S. foreign policy “fight terrorism” more effectively – and lastingly – than ever-creeping military actions? Could a strategy of “soft” (or “smart”) options -- education, health, business, and media training -- really prove a more cost-effective way to make our world secure? Could America – even while fighting jihadists militarily, and conducting robust counter-intelligence and cyberwarfare -- profitably complement its “resistance” to jihadists with greatly enhanced strategic reconciliation with Islam? Specifically: Could Muslim women, far from being victims, become the vanguard of reconciliation?
...All evidence since Lysistrata shows that freeing women, especially though education, creates virtuous circles of benefit for families, villages, nations, and the world. It’s no secret, and certainly no joke, that “males love fighting.” And that most women, if given a chance, will seek conciliation. Massive evidence from past and current studies in conflict and its resolution illustrate this. Women may not all be pacifist angels – remember Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi -- but at least they don’t drink testosterone every morning. Most of them normally do try to avoid the fighting that men thrive on. Giving little boys dolls and little girls toy guns doesn’t change la différence.
Summing up again:
Instead of focusing all its resources on a war of arms to kill or capture terrorists, America should now – seriously -- be fighting a parallel war of ideas to liberate women. Specifically, loudly and persistently. That’s not naïve. It’s the hardest realism. It’s the smartest, most tough-minded, most strategic way to defeat long-term terrorism. America should be fighting this other war -- the war for the people (women) who have proven they can deliver peace. A war for women, defying the old one against them.