The silenced women :Mothers, daughters and sisters victims of

THE dust is settling, but the flags are already at full-mast again. New York is wrestling with the democratic principles which have, up until now, governed its mayoral election process, as Rudy Giuliani flirts with an unconstitutional third term in his capacity as ugly-duckling-turned-America's-finest. The fourth estate steps gingerly into its new world, where official briefings become minimalist, and speculative column inches taboo. And in public, everyone is saying, "money doesn't matter," while privately, the corporate piggy-banks are in overdrive. It's three weeks since life changed for almost everyone on the planet. Three weeks, and 30 million words.

So - time to "move on"? I don't think so - not in the popular vernacular sense of that expression. Although the index and glossary of post-attack "progress" seem to get longer by the minute, there are sudden new truths from which one cannot "move on".

Superficially, we may acknowledge the realities of which we were unaware - that Afghanistan is run, whether you're Taliban or Northern Alliance, as a narcocracy, a grim version of the inter-dependent globalisation that we all now operate in; that the United Nations rather than Nato is a still-necessary fig-leaf for potential unilateral response (but would you shelter under a fig-leaf this winter?). That US hardliners mistrust Britain's historic overtures to Iran last week. But, really, we are only beginning to come to terms with what September 11, 2001 means.

A city in shock begins to take stock of that meaning, for every individual who lives there. A terrible number of people, all over the world, are directly bereaved and are only now beginning the mourning process, exaggerated and exacerbated by being conducted in the relentless limelight of the well-intentioned sympathy, occasionally misjudged commentary, and baggage-laden interpretations of the world's onlookers. And a country in shock begins to understand that bereavement extends far beyond ground zero.

It touches those in Manhattan now unable to get back into their homes, who have lost their possessions, their pets, their lives. It touches those throughout the States and beyond who have summarily lost their jobs, primarily many in the air industries - and therefore their income. It touches those millions of us who cannot resist the temerity to feel implicated and involved, because New York is a global happy hunting ground for so many. As a woman who loves New York and visits the USA at least twice a year, I am in a state of secondary bereavement. I have visited Pakistan, and been most hospitably welcomed - will that happen again? I wonder when I will see Afghanistan or get round to joining the tourist trail to Petra in Jordan.

Symbolism and reality are very different and a punched-out, toothless cityscape now represents a genuine threat to every citizen - man, woman and child. Thousands of women were killed at the World Trade Centre. Many more thousands are scraping their lives back together, without friends, husbands, sons, fathers, partners, breadwinners, carers and lovers. And the significant majority are not heard.

In the culturally-reassessed world we inhabit, I realise that we no longer expect to hear from certain women. In Afghanistan, for instance, we have not heard from women for many years. Under the Taliban regime, women are not allowed to be seen, never mind heard. They go out at their peril, cannot work, are not educated and are subject to public lashings if they attempt to breach the draconian system that rules their lives. Between 1979 and 1989, when the US was backing mujahidin fighters against the then Soviet Union's vain attempts to topple a regime of which they did not approve, the deaths of Afghan women were unreported, but presumed to be more numerous than those of the fighters. The UN guesstimate is 1,000,000 deaths, caused by fighting, lack of health infrastructure, hunger and "collateral damage".

The "anti-American" world does not prioritise the voices of women, although a token few are seen among the male-dominated demonstrations in Pakistan. The Gulf states' Islamic cultures exclude women from much of public life - from political representation to tea-laced symposia to car driving. Even within the British Isles, we hear so little from Muslim women that we tend to ignore them or generalise about them and their views - tarring them with the "fundamentalist poodle" tag - and pitying their enforced and complicit subservience.

And yet the "coalition of the willing" is carrying out a similar exercise, in a milder form. How many women have you heard or seen solemnly opining on the necessity for a "moderate, proportionate" response to the attack or spelling out the implications of being at 21st century "war" for the next 10 years and beyond? How many women journalists have you read or heard or seen reporting from the phoney frontline on potential tactics and locations and weaponry?

For we must reassess Western culture too. The US is no theocracy, but the allied response to being so cruelly attacked is to invoke the fundamentalist habits that apply whenever and wherever a traditional way of life is threatened. So women are being relegated to their former, pre-emancipation role, yet again suggesting that gender equality is a nominal feature of contemporary secular society.

And women are apparently playing the game. In Britain, the doughty, campaigning spirit of Greenham Common and Faslane has yet to be heard. There seems to be a general squeamishness about the naming of parts this time. Words now fail the shrillest peacenik, as the ambiguities and complexities of the world are clarified, day by day. Those whose voices do represent public interest - the BBC's Jacki Rowland, Time magazine's Nancy Gibbs, Newsweek's Sharon Begley - are asked to cover the "soft" end of this "story": how recent events affect us all psychologically and how the refugee crisis will impact on any action.

Almost every player and commentator in these dark days is a man - be it politician or pundit. There are (sometimes honourable) flaws in this boyzone carpet: US State Department advisor Condaleezza Rice, whose bellicosity outstrips many a more moderate voice and Bay Area Congresswoman Barbara Lee, who cast the only vote against the US going to war and in the process received death threats. In Britain, there is International Development Secretary Clare Short and Liberal Democrat MP Jenny Tonge, whose minority pleas for careful thought and intelligent action win them the "maverick" label. But the majority of voices are gruff.

And some of these gruff voices seem to relish the latest version of the "game" ahead, aping previous generations' coverage of previous wars, with animated graphs and landscapes telling an old, old story - propaganda rules! Recollecting Peter Snow's infamous Newsnight Gulf War sandpit and the retired military men who speculated on what might happen in the desert on BBC's rolling news radio programme, nicknamed Scud-FM, the world of conventional warfare seems strangely, bleakly innocent. "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf's daily official briefings, however, were part of a huge veil of self-deceit that the Western alliance was spinning for itself.

It was ironic that a dissenting voice to this month's initial blanket message of outrage and vengeance came from a young Muslim woman, Fareena Alam. Alam, who is news editor of Europe's biggest Muslim magazine was speaking on the now notorious, scratch edition of Question Time which prompted director general Greg Dyke to apologise for the BBC doing what its charter claims it exists to do: reflecting the "voice of the people", however "inappropriate" those voices may be. How long will free speech be allowed in Britain?

Our time-honoured cartoon patterns - black hats/white hats, evil genius Blofeld figure - don't work. Myths and classic texts offer no parallel to the cowering new world we live in. I fail to fit into my allocated template and automatically behave as it is assumed a woman will behave. And not every man's voice has simply been gruff; these voices are broken, in more than one sense, and there are many who have been unwilling to keep the lip from trembling, or the concentration from being distracted.

So I am not suggesting that the world would be a better, safer place if it were run by women. I am not suggesting that when the going gets tough, the penis is the preferred weapon of diplomacy.

I simply ask what the silence of more than half the world's citizens conceals, or shields us from. And I do not think these reactions denote any particular gender difference. A war or three ago, I was appalled and paralysed when the Belgrano was hit and sunk during the Falklands war, and when it was over, was grateful that the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, prayed on behalf of all the fallen - views entirely at odds with the female British prime minister.

On the other hand, unlike many of my colleagues, I sympathised with the apparent necessity to bomb Serbia, to protect Kosovo, although I worried about the commitment to post-bombing follow- through - justifiably, as it transpired.

My response to the last three weeks is clearly influenced by my resistance to the conventional categorisation of what men and women are separately interested in. I am supposed to favour a curve running from Nigella Lawson's fluctuating hair colour and Kate Winslet's failed marriage to emotional empathy with the survivors and the suddenly man-less - whereas the chaps among us are expected to exercise a stiff upper-lipped fascination with boys' toys.

In fact, I shrink from the personal details of what has happened and had to force myself to read the early accounts of the horror in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. I observe worrying changes in myself - concern about my personal security in landmark buildings and locations, and a completely uncharacteristic increasing liberality in my groupling of people. I want September 11 to be forever remembered as my sister's birthday (which it is). I take refuge in big-picture analysis, and geo-political consideration.

I am irrationally delighted by the Scottish parliament's conference of women parliamentarians from the United Kingdom and Ireland, and addressed (by video) by New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Before the conference, she said, "I believe that with more women in leadership positions, we will make increased strides in working to promote democracy and civil society to build strong economies and peace."

On Friday, she added: "We know that democracies grow stronger when all citizens have a voice that is heard. Now, more than ever, we need to celebrate democracy and freedom. We know that in countries where women are denied a seat at the table, education, medical care and any role in public life, democracy remains a hollow promise. In the United States Senate, we know that by crossing party lines, and pulling together as women, we can and do make a difference to so many others."

If civilisation is to survive this century, and the next 100 years are not to echo the last, in terms of blood and battle, we might attempt to resist our "it's only human nature" excuses for kneejerk reactions and caricatures, and try to act on proper understanding of the world and its ways - and that means listening to all voices.

And I must resist resorting to my personal maxim - "Hope for the best, expect the worst, trust nobody", despite its apparent validity over the years. It seems uncomfortably close to the reality we all now live in.

Copyright 2001
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