Then, when I actually began to look at the blog entry, another surprise - it was not even remotely close to being finished!
Still, in honor of this being Jimmy Carter's birthday, I wanted to write this obviously very belated book review, and apologies for it's being really only semi-completed. Mostly, these were notes that I was taking towards an actual, thorough book review that obviously never got completed.
But since it has been more than half a year, and I am not about to just reread it at the moment, this should suffice for the time being!
This is President Jimmy Carter's 28th book overall. In it, he writes in what will be some very familiar themes to his followers and fans, but he does it with a unique take. Yes, he talks about his upbringing in the racially segregated, Jim Crow South during his youth. And yes, he talks about issues around the world, and how his Carter Center has responded to these crises. What makes this book different, is that he keeps bringing these issues back to their impact on women, stressing that whenever there is suffering around the world, that suffering is inevitably particularly pronounced for women and children.
Carter discusses how peace would be beneficial to all, particularly women and children. He talks about violence on a massive scale in war torn regions throughout the world, as well as the impact of religion when some followers use their religion to justify their belief in the superiority of men, and try to impose male supremacy. He also discusses the overpopulated prisons and the death penalty, sexual assault and rape, forced servitude and slavery (particularly female sex slaves), spousal abuse, so called "honor killings", genital cutting (female circumcision), child marriages and dowry deaths, among other things, in this far-reaching book that focuses on the general unfairness that women have to face the world over (to varying degrees in different countries, of course).
The primary focus of President Carter's latest book, "A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power" is discrimination of women, which Carter compares to the racism and segregation that he remembers seeing when he was growing up in the Jim Crow Deep South, and how this was often justified by highly selective and self-serving aspects of religious teachings:
Some whites disagreed with the racial caste system of Jim Crow segregation, but remained mostly silent, in order to continue to benefit from the system that favored them. Similarly, Carter argues, many men do not agree that women are inherently inferior, yet they too remain silent in order to benefit from the system that favors them.
"I saw the ravages of racial prejudice as I grew up in the Deep South, when for a century the U.S. Supreme Court and all other political and social authorities accepted the premise that black people were, in some basic ways, inferior to white people. Even those in the dominant class who disagreed with this presumption remained relatively quiet and enjoyed the benefits of the prevailing system. Carefully selected Holy Scriptures were quoted to justify this discrimination in the name of God.
"There is a similar system of discrimination, extending far beyond a small geographical region to the entire globe; it touches every nation, perpetuating and expanding the trafficking of human slaves, body mutilation, and even legitimized murder on a massive scale. This system is based on the presumption that men and boys are superior to women and girls, and it is supported by some male religious leaders who distort the Holy Bible, the Koran, and other sacred texts to perpetuate their claim that females are...inferior to them, unqualified to serve God on equal terms. Many men disagree but remain quiet in order to enjoy the benefits of their dominant status. This false premise provides a justification for sexual discrimination in almost every realm of secular and religious life. Some men even cite this premise to justify physical punishment of women and girls." (p. 1-2)
Whenever suffering occurs on a massive scale in the world, Carter argues, it is women and children who inevitably are hit the hardest, and who suffer disproportionately more than men.
"We can forget or ignore these principles if their violation is to our social, economic, or political benefit. I experienced this for almost three decades of my life, when I was part of an American society that espoused the "separate but equal" ruling of the U.S, Supreme Court. Although it was apparent to everyone that the practical application emphasized separate rather than equal, the legal system of racial segregation prevailed until the civil rights laws were adopted in the mid-1960s." p. 10
Everyone knew that the system was unfair, and surely, some objected to it on some level. But very few actually said or did anything about it. It was just the way things were, and it remained the way things were for a long time. That was why Jim Crow segregation lasted as long as it did.
"Not yet seriously questioned or rejected by many secular and religious leaders is a parallel dependence on selected verses of scripture to justify that,even or especially in the eyes of God, women and girls are inferior to their husbands and brothers." p. 11
"It is significant that there were no objections raised to guarantee of equal rights for women and girls, except that Saudi Arabia, which also abstained, opposed the provision guaranteeing equality within marriage. Eight Islamic governments voted in favor of the Declaration. There is no possibility that these same commitments could be made today, as memories of devastation of world war have faded, the five permanent members are often at odds and no longer as dominant, and ther eis more polarization within regions and individual countries." 14
"It is shameful that these solemn internationally agreements...are being violated so blatantly. Some people may even find them outdated and naive. It must be presumed that even the authors of the Declaration realized at the time that many of the world's religious leaders, who remained remarkably silent, did then and always would exempt themselves and their compliant followers from the granting of these guaranteed equal rights to women and girls." 16
Carter never has been shy of taking on the tough issues and, as such, he is not shy to criticize his own country if he feels it warranted. Here is one example, where the criticism is a bit subtle, with the United States an example by omission:
"It is interesting to note that an overwhelming majority of citizens in the world's three largest democracies have different religions: India (81 percent Hindu), the United States (76 percent Christian), and Indonesia (87 percent Muslim). Two of them have elected women as leaders of their government."
"More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations." (17)
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