and ain't i a woman?: How the West saved Afghan women
The Taliban militia has been progressively gaining control of Afghanistan since mid-1994. On September 27 they swept into the bombed out remnants of the capital, Kabul, publicly executing the former People's Democratic Party (PDPA) president Najibullah and his brother.
Their victory proved to be a dark day for women in Kabul, as they imposed the laws, their sharia interpretation, that govern women's lives in other parts of Afghanistan under Taliban control. On September 28, women were forbidden to work, or leave their homes without a male relative. Girls' schools were closed. In so doing, the Pakistan-backed militia wiped out almost 20 years of social gains by Afghani women.
Prior to the Afghan revolution, the semi-feudal social relations that predominated in much of the country meant that women were still being sold into marriage and were barred from education and almost all sectors of employment outside of the home and field. In 1978, the PDPA government passed a decree proclaiming the legal equality of the sexes, abolishing arranged marriages and drastically reducing the traditional bride price (from between $1000-$10,000 to a token $7). The decree aimed to end "the unjust feudal-patriarchal relationship between husband and wife".
The traditional order could not be simply decreed out of existence, but women were also encouraged to become politically active and fight for their rights. The Khalqi Organisation for Afghan Women was established to press forward the political struggle for women's rights and other gains of the revolution, including the land reform that redistributed big landowners holdings amongst the landless peasants, price controls on basic necessities, provision of free emergency medical care, reduction of working hours and increased wages, legalisation of trade unions, and initiation of a mass literacy and education campaign.
However the US, and particularly its ally Pakistan, pursued their Cold War interests of funding the counter-revolution. Their efforts to overthrow the PDPA government and undermine the Soviet and anti-US Iranian influence in the region left Afghanistan a mess of fiefdoms under the control of rival mujahideen militias. Killings and corruption were rife, landmines were everywhere, thousands of Afghanis lived in refugee camps, tens of thousands of women were widowed and the opium trade flourished.
The Taliban began their cross-country sweep with the backing of big Pakistani traders concerned at the limitations the country's division imposed on their trading interests. They have since received stronger backing from the Pakistani government — headed by Pakistan's first woman prime minister Benazir Bhutto — which came on board in the interests of a US-Saudi oil-gas pipeline project to run through Afghanistan and Pakistan if some stability could be imposed.
The US support for the Taliban has been more discreet, but as the British Economist notes, "for a bunch of people who advertised their takeover with public hangings, and threaten to confine half the population to their homes, the Taliban have been given a polite American welcome". The state department admits ongoing contacts for the last couple of years and is pressing for talks with the Taliban leadership.
The UN has expressed concern over the violation of women's rights, but the Kabul-based High Commission for Refugees and other non-government organisations have taken a "softly softly" approach in a joint statement saying the agencies "respect the local cultures of Afghanistan". Their approach betrays the 30,000 war widows in Kabul whose work supports their families. The agencies have told their own women employees not to come to work for the time being, suspending virtually every aid program.
Naturally, the interests of the West and it's allies and the guiding principles they represent are held in high regard by Afghan women ... but they might be having trouble believing in them now.
By Jennifer Thompson