The Butterfly Effect

I love to read books about the plight of women and their combined strengths of surviving the odds.

With that said, I just finished reading a wonderful book, “Veiled Threat” by Canadian author, Sally Armstrong [editor - in -charge for Chatelaine Magazine and contributing editor for Maclean’s Magazine].

This is her account of the struggle the women of Afghanistan faced under the 4 year dictatorship of the Taliban. It is a complex book telling the tales of women who once lived their lives under the influence of Islam (based on the teachings of the Koran), and then having to live under the rule of the Taliban who interpreted the Koran to their way of dictatorship.

Never once did the Afghanistan woman give up on the hope that their rights as a humans and women would be restored. All they wanted was the right to education, health care, and to choose who they wish to marry. They gathered momentum and together shunned the Taliban, and in turn won most of their rights back. These are stories of very educated determined women, true mentors of our time.; little known until September 2001.

This is a very basic overview of this touching and emotional book. My purpose of sharing is the fact that the theory of the “Butterfly Effect” was brought into last pages of the book.

On page 188 Sally writes, “There’s a theory called the Butterfly Effect. It’s based on a principle that everything in life is connected; everything no matter how small. A physicist allowed that the flapping of butterfly wings can change the weather hundreds of miles away. The message is that when a butterfly flaps its wings on one side o the world, eventually the effect is felt on the other side of the world.”

In 2001, Gloria Steinem said in a CNN chat room, “We each have a lot of power. Together we make one hell of a butterfly.”

She was referring to the women of Afghanistan but it is a statement of all women in this world.

It is also a great theory for the power of MLM, Internet marketing, and social media. Look how one flap of a wing continued across this planet until millions of dollars were raised on Twitter for Haiti. How Facebook helped find loved ones in the aftermath of the Chilean earthquake; all it took was one flutter.

If everyone joined in the fluttering, look what can be accomplished.