women". SOPHIE MASSOURI
T HE reality of the war perpetrated
in the Middle East over the past few weeks is very distant from the principles in whose defence it was supposedly waged. The defence of the weak against the arbitrariness and violence of the strong, which the leaders of the "allied" coalition claim as their goal, has never been so travestied.
This barbarism has not ended with the surrender of the Iraqi dictator. embodiment in law of the use of force and of violence, the political use of humiliation, hurt those they claim to protect. After this carnage, the "most weak" will as weak and the strong as strong as never before.
Women had every reason to oppose this war. This legitimized and institutionalized violence echoes that perpetrated, for many centuries and in all societies, against women. War concentrates all the macho behaviour of our society and the sexist stereotypes — in support of "our gallant soldiers", mothers and wives are called on to participate in the patriotic mobilization.
The aim of the Gulf war is supposedly the defence of "international law"; but such rhetoric appears hollow when the women of Saudi Arabia are subject to the most rigorous enforcement of sharia (Islamic law) in the Middle East.