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'The Killing of Women Is Like Killing a Bird Today in Afghanistan'
Stephen de Tarczynski interviews Afghan women’s rights activist MALALAI JOYA
MELBOURNE, Australia - It is easy to understand why epithets such as brave and courageous often accompany the name of Malalai Joya. Slight of stature and serenely demure, the young Afghan woman's past and present encapsulate the plight of her countrywomen.
Malalai Joya, speaking in Australia. According to the BBC, "Malalai Joya is one of the most popular MPs in Afghanistan." She came to the world's attention in 2003 when, at a constitutional
convention attended by Afghanistan's leaders, she publicly accused many
of those present of being war criminals, drug lords and supporters of
the Taliban.
Joya continued to speak out against fellow parliamentarians following her election to the national assembly in 2005. While her outspoken views have gained much support both inside Afghanistan and internationally, Joya has also created powerful enemies.
She remains suspended from parliament for being openly critical of fellow MPs and has survived several assassination attempts.
In Australia to promote her book 'Raising My Voice', Joya, still just 31, met with IPS writer Stephen de Tarczynski to discuss the position of women in her country. The following are extracts from the interview.
IPS: How do you see the situation for women today in Afghanistan?
Malalai Joya: Women and children, they were the most and first victims and still there is much violence against them. And the main reason is that the Northern Alliance fundamentalists, who are mentally the same as the Taliban but physically are different, came to power.
First of all, like the Taliban, they mix Islam with politics to use against women of my country. The situation of women is like hell in most of the provinces.
It is true that in some big cities like Kabul, like Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, some women have access to jobs and education but in most of the provinces, not only is there no justice at all - even in the capital - but in faraway provinces the situation of women is becoming more disastrous. The killing of women is like killing a bird today in Afghanistan.
IPS: In your book you quote George W. Bush's 2002 state of the union address when the then-U.S. president said that the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captive in their own homes under the Taliban and became free when the Taliban were ousted from power. Do you regard Afghan women and girls as free?
MJ: The U.S. government lies and wants to pretend to the people around the world that for the first time they brought women's rights to Afghanistan and that women do not wear burqas.
After 9/11 the main message of the U.S government was that women were not wearing burqas anymore but today, eight years later, most women wear burqas because of security [concerns]. I wear a burqa because of security.
In these past eight years, Afghan women haven't gained even the limited rights that they had in the 1970s and 1980s. In the past it was like in western countries. Women wore what they wished, as I wear what I wish now [in Australia]. But in Afghanistan I have to wear a burqa and most of the women of my country don't like that.
But burqas are not the only or main problem for women. We are wearing it now just to be alive. Even now it is useful, we have to wear it. Wearing the burqa is the main tactic I use to be alive, the same as I used in the period of the Taliban.
IPS: You've become a figurehead for women's rights in Afghanistan, but are there other women risking as much as you do but who we don't hear about?
MJ: Even more than me. Only when they have been killed, then through democratic journalists the world knows it, people know it. As I said when Sitara Achakzai [a provincial council member in Kandahar who was murdered in April], the last great woman activist to be killed, she is not the first one and unfortunately she won't be the last one.
Before Sitara Achakzai, Safia Amajan has been killed in Kandahar [the teacher and public servant was 63 when assassinated in 2006]. In the same province Malalai Kakar [a high-ranking policewoman who was murdered last year] has been killed.
In Herat province Nadia Anjaman was a great poet-activist has been killed [at 25 years of age in 2005]. In Parwan [in 2007] Zakia Zaki was a young journalist on radio who had lots of supporters, people loved her, was killed in her house.
IPS: Do assassinations of women like Sitara Achakzai indicate that there is a fear in Afghanistan of women who raise their voice? Are the Taliban and others afraid of women like you?
MJ: Of course they are afraid. That's why they are against the role of women, half the population of our country. That's why I say that society is like a bird, with one wing being a man and one wing being a woman. When one wing is injured can the bird fly?
For society also it's impossible. That's why they want half the population to always be in darkness, to not have education, to not play a role, just to be in the house and give birth to babies.
Women are like machines to them. They don't even see a woman as a human.
Every year around the world on Mar. 8, women celebrate International Women's Day with lots of hope and happiness. But in my country, this year three women set themselves on fire on Mar. 8. But it's even more than that. Tens of women every month commit suicide.
Thirteen years ago, the fascist commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar threw acid in the face of women and girls who were outside looking for jobs or education. But the same crimes are happening, repeating now under the name of democracy.
IPS: Are there many other individual women and groups who fight for women's rights in Afghanistan?
MJ: Let me tell you about RAWA [Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan]. This is a woman's political organisation whose leader Meena - in my opinion she is a hero of my country, my people love her a lot - was killed by the fundamentalists. Still they have projects and underground activists too. The same problems [exist] as under the Taliban.
But only one time they had a function in public, many people came to their hall. At that time I was here [in Australia] when they invited me. They weren't afraid even though a bomb to kill them all was possible. But they gathered openly and exposed the mask of these warlords.
IPS: What is your message for people around the world?
MJ: My message always to democratic people around the world is to educationally support people of my country, activists of my country, democrats of my country because they are the alternative for the future of Afghanistan. They are able to fight against terrorism and fundamentalism [although] they are risking their lives. As always I am saying they are my secret heroes and heroines.
I have said many times condolences on behalf of my people to those families in Australia and the U.S., everywhere that I went, who lost their loved sons and husbands in Afghanistan. I said the condolences are not enough, to cry these tears is not enough. Please raise your voice first of all against the wrong policies of your government. This is a war crime.
They [U.S. forces] bombed Farah province in May. More than 150 civilians have been killed, most of them women and children. They even used white phosphorous but they're just saying 'sorry', that is it. They don't even want to give the exact reports, just that 20 or 30 people were killed while government officials are saying more than 150 civilians dead. Some of the children were as young as three years old, but even government officials don't want to include them in the lists. Are three-year-old babies not human?
IPS: Your country continues to be ravaged by war, women's rights are still being trampled on and you face the likelihood of further attempts on your life. What gives hope?
MJ: Another gift of the U.S. government, when [U.S. President Barack] Obama took office they want to get some Taliban, like [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar, to join the [Afghan] government.
But two days after that, acid was thrown on the faces of 15 girls in Kandahar. And [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai invited Mullah Omar to join the government. But at the same time when journalists interviewed those girls in a bad condition in the hospital they are saying they'll go back to school when they are healthy. It's hope. And these are steps towards democracy.
IPS: Where do you get your courage?
MJ: First, the truth itself gives courage. And also the sorrows and pain of my people, especially the condition of women. The history of my country and values like democracy and women's rights, these values give me hope. And I believe that these will not be given to us by someone.
But the U.S. government and its allies, unfortunately they have pushed us from the frying pan and into the fire. But we are the ones who firstly are responsible.
The silence of good people is worse than the actions of bad people. That's why I don't fear death but I do fear the political silence against injustice. I'm sure that one day we will achieve these values as our history shows that we never accept an occupation and we have many heroes and heroines in our country who taught us that sitting in silence is not the way.
18 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
Ms. Joya is a brave and powerful soul, Goddess bless her!
Her expose of the life of women in Afghanistan runs parallel with the inspired realizations uttered by Jimmy Carter.
I love her use of the bird metaphor, that men and women symbolize both wings. I have often compared the male and female experiences as two oars of a boat. The point is humanity would navigate a whole lot better (off the track of wars unlimited) if BOTH shared power; and if the Divine lovers served as complements to one another. Instead, religion and heads of state saw fit to create social hierarchies. Many men were somewhat comforted by power over women, so they went along. The sexist pattern has been so deeply etched into history that many do not notice it at all.
Once the Divine PARTNERSHIP broke down, all the other ism division bases for instituting prejudice and second-class status (in societies) emerged. And it's ALL been mostly downhill since.
Had women been sharing power and treated with respect, we'd hardly see nations waste their resources on bombs and weaponry. Most women recognize the importance of feeding hungry children as a primary goal.
There are a few in this forum who take these larger issues and treat them myopically. All they see are the few examples of women who rose up and became like the male-power structure as if their policies (and example of the same egregious behavior) captures the true scope of what's possible.
The issue is not limited to a few good men or women. There are exceptions to every general "rule." The issue is that 50% of the population has been prevented from participating in equal power or representation for CENTURIES. And even though women have made major strides in modern societies, the work is hardly done. Plus, given the rise in fundamentalist sects throughout the world, a great many would like to have women poor, pregnant, and barefoot back in kitchens. Preventing access to birth control is the key weapon used to usher in another phase of female servitude. In that regard the Taliban, the mullahs of Iran, and the Christian fundamentalists have far more in common than their battle cries would let on.
Beautifully put.
Wow. I agree with every word you've written.
Quick question: Don't you think the fact that you stereotype women as being less focused on war and more focused on empathy a sexist statement?
Also, how are you comparing the Mullahs in Iran to the Taliban? They are nothing like each other.
Sioux Rose
The facts speak for themselves. Women have been left out--often on threat and actual use of violence--from the decision-making tables for centuries. MEN make war. Today women have been socialized by media to identify with the "man's world" in which having a military "career" is an "acceptable" option. And the few women who attain seats of power have been completely conditioned to accept the parameters of patriarchal society along with its BANKRUPT MARS RULES "values."
War is related to the god Mars who is a very masculine entity. His intended lover and counterbalance is Venus, and SHE has feminine characteristics. All persons have some of every archetype present in their characters. However under patriarchal religions the premise of God has taken on all the character of MARS and minimized the expression of the other archetypes intended as COUNTERBALANCES. The result has been WARS termed sacred, and WARS are where proof of fealty to 'god' is to be demonstrated; plus tons of money goes to war and militarism. Where has it gotten the world in terms of so much poverty, starvation, misery, misuse of ecosystems, etc? It's a crippled and immensely CRIPPLING perspective. And it is that mindset all my work seeks to alter. And I write many books on this subject.
The Nazis with their exalting of the Aryan/Aries ideal put warfare first and murder became banal. The U.S. in its escalation of militarism is following that example, sheltering Israel, its little cousin to do likewise.
VIOLENCE is always wrong! And when war is championed, women pay the highest price. Note the statistics on the civilian casualties of war.
It's so easy for the SEX that owns power to yell "sexism" when women point out the OBVIOUS nature of centuries of unequal access, representation, respect, and power! It's like the imbeciles on Rush-rant-radio vigilantly claiming there should be White privilege since a few Blacks received educational options through Affirmative Action programs. And, oh, the poor whites have suffered!
Mullahs and Taliban BOTH promote theocratic states that penalize women and control EVERY movement of their lives.
Keep it up and in your next life you'll be poor, of color, and a woman. Then maybe some empathy, as opposed to glib nonsensical debating over the letter of the law, will move you. My patience with dingbats falters.
I want to start of by saying that I empathize with you and that I acknowledge the long and unfair treatment of women through the course of history. Trust me, I'm extremely pro affirmative action...please don't question my empathy when it comes to marginalized groups of people including women.
However, for you to believe that if a woman comes to power that she will only advocate for peace is in my opinion nonsensical. That statement is sexist in and of itself.
I'll find you plenty of women, who if they had power, would act like the same moronic way Bush would have. If you disagree, then you clearly must be advocating that all women are somehow biologically prone to be anti-war.
I agree that women have been oppressed, but that doesn't mean that they would necessarily fix all of the world's problems (although it may help us get there).
I think your comparison of Mullahs and the Taliban are completely erroneous. The Taliban is a completely anti-women organization that uses the name of Islam to shield its deeper motives for power and control of the opium fields.
The Mullahs in Iran are not anti-woman. More than 70% of people who are entered in universities are women (more than the US). There are actually so many educated men and women that it's hard to find jobs for them (no thanks to US sanctions).
Of course there are restrictions on clothing (women must be covered), but given the fact that they have the right to vote, have higher rates of education, and are definitely known to be more dominant than their male counterparts, I think it's unfair to create slanders of sexism towards these Mullahs.
Education is the key. Give them our old computers and put them online.
Sioux Rose, your wise comments on "The Killing of Women is Like the Killing of a Bird Today in Afghanistan" speak for me too. I also liked the bird metaphor and Malalai Joya's remark that "The silence of good people is worse than the actions of bad people."
This young woman, Malalai Joya is truly one of the greatest heroes of our time.
Malalai Joya should be invited to speak to a special evening session of Congress, with live msm TV.
Women and children-- that's who we're mostly killing, this article tells us. If we could get the picture right in Afghanistan, would we still be there?
Sioux Rose
Thank you for the kind comments, HENRY 8, BLISS DOUBT & AURORA (great screen or real name).
Those few strong, outspoken women like Malalai Joya who dare to venture out and to speak about the plight of women are a rarity in tribal, patriarchal, war-torn Afghanistan. America's Ann Jones, women's right activist and award-winning journalist, spent 4 winters working among Afghan women and girls. In her book, 'Kabul in Winter,' she tells us that Afghan females learn the rules early if they are to survive and they do not include speaking out.
Contrary to Laura Bush's rosy picture of liberated Afghan women now freed from the burkha and the pre-American invasion restraints, Jones tells us that women are constrained from participating "in life beyond the household in the mythical new Afghan democracy" and that "violence against women is used as a way of reinforcing women's adherence to local purdah norms."
As a teacher of Afghan teachers, Jones tells of the difficulty of getting women to participate in academic discussions when men are present and says they turn their bodies slightly away so as not to "make trouble" by offering an opinion. And even other women will not back up one who dares to speak. "Let one woman speak up in a mixed discussion," she says,"and no other woman will back her up" even when in full agreement.
So thank you, Malalai Joya, for having the courage to do what so few of your Afghan sisters dare to do. The world today, dominated and ravaged as it is by the violent and the preditory where a human life grows less valuable by the hour, is in desperate need of your firm, strong voice.
I am in awe of Malalai Joya's courage and moral clarity.
I have never liked being told what to do. Not by others, and especially not by my own instincts.
The Buddha's final temptation was never having to eat again. He was free from his remaining appetites, having himself conquered those of sex, wealth, power, reputation.
He was content to have to continue to remain watchful over the impulse to gluttony.
Nobody likes being told what to do, and when these clerics who have political power are struggling in vain against their own appetite for sex see a potential scapegoat they transfer blame automatically ('If she were not so attractive I wouldn't be so attracted').
If this sounds silly to you, try to remember the last time your unconscious mooning at your waitress made her roll her eyes and frown.
I don't know about you but it makes me feel guilty and ashamed. Nobody likes to be seen as an object, ever, not even by those closest to her.
The fundamentalist cleric is incapable of such introspection. It would accuse HIM of lechery. Obviously, he reasons, the woman is to blame. And the hotter his lust burns, the more guilty she becomes.
The lies we tell ourselves and then believe and then use as the foundations for our societies will be the death of us all.
Literally.
It's still taboo in America to speak the truth about how the current disaster for women in Afghanistan began; but it was the fruit of the CIA-organized, funded and equipped war against the Afghan revolution and then against the Soviet troops who came into Afghanistan to defend it.
But I remember the accounts every week of US-supported "Mujahadeen" entering towns, burning the school and the health center, killing the doctors and the teachers, and fleeing into the mountains.
And I remember the story of the AFSC volunteer in an Afghan village who was present when the civil war began in '78, before the Soviet intervention. The revolutionary government in Kabul issued a series of decrees, taken up by the town's revolutionary committee. These were, in order (if I remember it right): a decree that women could appear in public without a veil; a decree that women must be allowed to speak at public meetings; a land reform ordering that the holdings of the feudal landlords be distributed to the peasants; a decree that all girls had to receive a 4th grade education just like the boys; a decree granting women equal rights with men to a divorce; a decree granting women the right to attend college; and finally a decree abolishing the right of husbands to kill their wives.
It was on the Friday after the last of these decrees that the Mullahs led the outraged faithful (men) out of the Mosque and on a rampage, hanging any communists, supporters of the government or unescorted women they could lay their hands on.
Thus began the civil war, with the US supporting one side (with arms so advanced that even its NATO allies weren't allowed to have them) and the Soviet Union supporting the other. Many young people I've told this story to are unable to guess which side the US was on; but of course it was on the side of the wife-killers. And it was in protest of the Soviet intervention - and in support of the wife-killers - that Jimmy Carter (Lord bless him) withdrew the US athletes from the Moscow Olympics and initiated the rapid arms buildup that marked the beginning of Cold War II.
Virtually no one spoke against this madness, because our terror of being accused of being soft on communism was still so great. Even most of the US anti-imperialist movement shied away. The Soviet move seemed outrageous because they no sooner entered Afghanistan then they presided over the arrest and execution of the Afghan President Amin who had invited them in. They claimed proof that he was a CIA collaborator who had deliberately sabotaged the revolution by leading a campaign of wanton killing of enemies, which seemed like quite a whopper at the time; but now, in hindsight, I'm not so sure.
In response to Uzayr's comment that the mullahs in Iran cannot be compared to the Taliban in Afghanistan, the differences may be a matter firstly of who did the dirty work and secondly that Iran has not yet been invaded but only threatened by a western power. Consider this comment from a report by Dr. Donna M. Hughes, women's rights researcher and writer, and consultant by governments and non-governmental organizations on policy related to human rights:
"When the mullahs came to power, one of the first things they did was to burn down the brothels in Tehran. Then they made it compulsory for women to cover their hair. Government-backed hoodlums roamed the streets and beat up and arrested women who did not observe the compulsory dress code. They splashed acid on the face of any woman who wore make-up. They beat up and arrested young couples who could not prove that they were married. Women and men were stoned to death for illit relationships.
"Twenty years later, the clerical regime's draconian laws and harsh measures have backfired and the mullahs have failed to address the underlying causes of these problems, namely a terrible economic situation with 80% of Iranian families living below the poverty line. The multitude of problems plaguing the country are the direct result of the mullahs' despotic and misogynous rule, from which women have suffered the most."
Some of Iran's problems today: child prostitution, prostitution of female college students to pay for tuition, drug addiction, chaotic economic conditions, run-away children, hunger and hopelessness.
Basenjis, please read the new comment I posted.
The rights of women in Iran are nothing like the Western media portrays it.
Remember, the US hates Iran and uses libels of sexism in order to garner support in internationally alienating them.
Uzayr,
While I am aware of the US antagonism toward Iran and the distortion of facts coming from our compromised and biased media, I have no reason to believe the mullahs of Iran have ever been anything but misogynists or have ever been even remotely supportive of women's right or of their welfare. Women are attending universities but often at their own peril as there is extreme poverty, few jobs and no money for tuition. As Dr. Hughes has reported, girls and women prostitute themselves for food and tuition in hopes of insuring a better life later. This is without their paren't knowledge as they would not bring shame on their traitional Muslim families. And there are other sources of information about conditions for women in the Middle East aside from the American media. Life for women under the mullahs is oppressive and difficult. Call it "Taliban Lite," if you must.
Perhaps I am biased because of my own experience. When the mullahs came to power a few years ago I was house mother and art teacher in a small exclusive private girls' school. I remember well greeting, among other foreign students, a frightened 16 year old Iranian girl to my dorm. I got to know Fariba and her two brothers, students at a nearby college, quite well the following summer. Fariba had been in school on a student visa which was about to run out and the brothers, whom she was now staying with, were very worried. I got a call from them at my home one day with an urgent message that they needed to talk to me about Fariba.
What I was asked was nothing less than astonishing to me. The boys said their father had pulled strings and moved mountains to get Fariba safely out of Iran when the political troubles had started. He was a business man and well-traveled and knew people who had helped. After the shah was deposed and the mullahs took over, he was frantic that Fariba be allowed to stay in the US as she would never have a chance at any kind of life if she was forced to go back to Tehran with the mullahs in power. I listened to some of the same horror stories that I quoted from Donna Hughes' report. The father had sent word to the young men that they were to ask me if I would consider adopting Fariba so that she could stay in American and attend a good university. I would not be resposible for anything besides making it possible for her to remain in America without the threat of being sent back to Iran due to a lapsed student visa. She was not eligible for a renewed visa. If I would help she could continue to stay with her brothers until university arrangements in another location could be made. He would pay any amount of money to keep her from having to go back to Iran--that conditions for women there were hopeless.
The adoption never took place and a renewed student visa somehow was arranged. Fariba got her university education and graduated with honors as I learned. However, I will never forget the panic in her brother's eyes as they pleaded with me to help their sister stay in America where she would be safe.
Call it "Taliban Lite," if you must, but I have read other reports of life for Iranian women under the mullahs. There are other sources of information about conditions for women in the Middle East aside from what is available in the American media. I hear the clerics are now losing much of their control and young people are chafing at oppressive religious restrictions. Hopefully conditions will change for the better.
It may seem that the US hates Iran. I don't think that's true. What is true is that most Americans know little or nothing about the long history of US political interference in the internal affairs of Iran. But the public is learning.I also doubt the the US has garnered much international support for its attempt to create a political case against Iran. We no longer have that kind of influence after the undemocratic and militarily aggressive behavior of the Bush Administration.