Opposition to the United States' war on Afghanistan should be a major focus in upcoming Reclaim the Night marches around the country.
Feminists played a key role in the anti-Vietnam war movement in the 1960s, the movement against the Gulf war in 1991 and the peace movement in the 1980s. We must continue that tradition.
Some of the reasons why feminists should oppose this war are pretty obvious.
First, it's the women of Afghanistan who will bear the brunt of it, their cities bombed, their homes destroyed, their food sources disrupted, their families forced onto the road.
Second, there is absolutely no guarantee that the war will liberate Afghan women from the medieval servitude the Taliban has forced upon them: the Northern Alliance, the collection of warlords most likely to succeed them, are little more enlightened than its Taliban opponents.
But more broadly, feminists should know that this war is but a battle in the larger war, the war of First World against Third, in which women are most commonly the front-line victims.
Solidarity with women of the Third World is a duty for us in the First. The majority of women in the world live in the Third World, and bear the brunt of massive poverty and inequality inflicted by multinational corporations, imperialist governments and institutions like the World Bank.
Women's share of national income in the Third World is less than half that of men's; their literacy rate is only 64.3%; their enrolment at all levels of education is only 55%, compared to 63% of men.
This "war on terrorism" will make this already dire situation worse, because it is simply the continuation by other, military, means of the policies of the corporate globalisers.
If the United States' military wins this war, as it is determined to do, it will allow US corporations a freer hand to do what they wish in the Third World. Any country or people who stand in their way will be labelled "terrorist" and targeted.
While the anti-war movement is not an explicitly feminist movement with feminist demands, it is fighting for women's rights all around the world — by opposing economic policies of governments which undermine these rights.
The second wave of feminism had its origins in the anti-Vietnam war movement of the 1960s. Finding the movement dominated by men, women began to recognise their own oppression as a sex. They began to organise and demand an end to their own oppression.
With rich lessons upon which to draw from, feminists today need to be part of the emerging movement for peace and justice. We must stand in solidarity with our sisters in the Middle East and the whole of the Third World. We must build a powerful people's movement of opposition to corporate policies — and that means stopping this war.
BY SARAH PEART
[Sarah Peart is the Melbourne district assistant secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party and a Victoria Senate candidate for the Socialist Alliance.]