I left behind a culture that was on the path of democracy. It had been a golden era, where the voices of women were included as necessary to the development of our country. Back then I was accustomed to the active role of women in politics. I was exposed to empowered women in my family and the larger society who held cabinet posts and worked alongside men. I promised to remain a voice for these people, and dedicated myself to their memory. I still grieve for the Afghanistan I left behind and the lost opportunities for the democratic-minded Afghan people.
In 1981 I established Refugee Women in Development, an organization dedicated to helping displaced women and victims of war from around the world to make a new way of life. For many years preceding the downfall of the Taliban, my organization was unable to conduct programs inside Afghanistan. We were centered in Pakistan. There, I listened to the voices of increasingly desperate men and women. I anguished over how to explain what I learned""that despite the growing awareness of the total destruction from the war, the Afghan people were mostly absent from campaigns waged on their behalf by the US. I realized that this callous treatment of my people, who had served the US in the war against the Soviet Union, would leave them vulnerable to a far more pervasive enemy. That enemy emerged as the Taliban.
During my visits to Pakistan prior to 9/11, the women of Afghanistan and their male escorts braved minefields and mountain passes to secretly meet with me. I listened to the women who ran schools, provided health, human rights and social services for Afghans inside Afghanistan and Pakistan. Traumatized and desperate, they spoke of the poverty, suicide and growing hopelessness that saw their dreams for a free Afghanistan swallowed by an army of Islamist mercenaries from all over the world armed by Pakistan. How did the world community allow such heinous crimes to be committed against a nation of twenty-six million people?
I still hear their cries. During this time I carried with me their pleading voices and ultimately their screams, while the world looked away. Now, as we conclude another decade of war, their screams rise again within me as I witness the Taliban resurgence. The draconian Taliban rule stripped women of their basic human rights. Their edicts against women led to a new form of violence termed "gender apartheid." Strict limitations on women's public space and education did galvanize American Feminists on behalf of Afghan women. This solidarity with the most oppressed women in the world itself was novel. That women's alliance and their influence on foreign policy became a powerful factor in the resolution of the worldwide refugee problem. I can state for the record that Afghan women were the canaries in the mineshaft, bearing witness to the inhumanity of a regime against its own citizens.
Still, in the US today there remains a profound lack of understanding about the Taliban, what political forces they represent and what their objectives are. The dearth of accurate information on their origins has resulted in a succession of dangerous policy initiatives from Washington. The consequences have negated any chance for a successful restoration of an Afghan republic. It opened Afghanistan to cross-border raids from Pakistan while at the same time providing a platform for the resurgence of the Taliban.
Once the Soviets departed and the Americans deserted Afghanistan, desperate Afghans living in Pakistan became indoctrinated into the Taliban's fundamentalist mentality. Due to the dismal conditions following the war, many young Afghan men were forcibly recruited to join the Taliban. Over the years as I witnessed the breakdown of civil society due to the long term effects of war on the people, I also witnessed the growth of the madrassa system of fundamentalist education in Pakistan. Many refugee families confirmed to me that the only way for their boys to receive education was through the madrassas. During that time, the Taliban's influence grew over the Afghan refugees in Peshawar as well as in Afghanistan as the war continued to drain resources required to maintain civil society. Encouraged by Pakistan while Americans looked the other way; the Pakistani madrassas continued to provide indoctrination and recruitment for the Taliban as it grew stronger by the day.
To set the record straight, the term "Taliban" and the movement itself were unheard of in Afghanistan until 1996. Prior to that year the Taliban mentality and the madrassa structure did not exist. As an invention of Pakistan's military intelligence with outside help, the Taliban were recruited from Pakistani madrassas. This process was funded, not by Afghans, but by the Saudis and other Arab countries who continue to seek their long term goal of a political and religious transformation of South Asia combined with the dissolution of Afghanistan as a nation state. Historically the version of Islam practiced by Afghans was moderate. The Taliban version of Deobandi Islam practiced in Pakistan and the Wahhabism practiced in Saudi Arabia were alien to Afghanistan. Suicide bombings did not exist in Afghanistan until after the Soviet occupation. The Afghan people never willingly embraced extremist Islam. These ideas were forced upon them under circumstances beyond their control.
Regardless, during the debates establishing the post-Taliban government for Afghanistan in 2001, Islamist principles that had never been a part of previous constitutions were infused into the new constitution. Many leaders in the new government of Afghanistan subscribe to extremist Islamic ideologies that were never a part of Afghan politics. And so, where in the past, extremism held little sway within the political process, the conflict between moderates and extremists has now become the norm.
After years of being driven from power by the American military intervention of 2001, today the Taliban enemy is once again reemerging as a tenacious and relentless insurgent force. But even with a military occupation the US and the West still do not perceive that their failure in Afghanistan remains as a direct result of their long-standing inability to adjust to the realities of what needs to be done. It is the failure to listen to the voices of the many Afghans who are capable of ushering in democratic change. This bias permeated American thinking before 9/11. Despite a wealth of new empirical evidence, misconceptions about Afghanistan remain in place today.
Following the fall of the Taliban, our effort was to build a democratic civil society. Our philosophy at Refugee Women in Development has been that the grassroots leadership found in local NGOs should play a vital role in promoting a balanced and tolerant society. We developed networking opportunities for local Afghan organizations by strengthening their institutional and leadership capacities through training programs. At first we were confident that, with a combination of American aid and security, the civil society that I had known in Afghanistan could be restored and expanded throughout the country. This was not to be.
Today, Afghanistan is again depicted in the worst possible light""as a haven for extremists who have hijacked Afghan cultural and religious traditions. The media often promote this misconception, and fail to recognize that the Afghan people have themselves been held hostage to external invading forces. These forces have a vested interest in keeping Afghanistan destabilized and weak. They benefit from maintaining misconceptions that prevents Afghanistan from getting enough western commitment to realistically establish democratic institutions. The international system of law and diplomacy broke down once over Afghanistan. It must not be allowed to break down again.
Following 9/11 we had the semblance of a new society, but the Afghan people are again seeing the glimmer of hope dissipate. I no longer fear that Afghanistan will be abandoned. My fear today is that despite all the good intentions, America's overreliance on targeted missile strikes, chemical spraying, and imprisoning and torturing suspected militants has turned popular opinion in the wrong direction. Combined with an inability to improve the lives of Afghans by even a small measure, America is now viewed as an occupier, instead of the friend and ally we want her to be.
While many strides have been made to bring women along in reconstruction schemes these advances are tempered by rampant poverty, violence, lack of water, electricity, and unemployment. Under current circumstances women are abducted, even jailed, for refusing to accept forced marriages. Honor killings continue and physical violence have not been adequately addressed especially in the provinces where warlords rule. Today, the common Afghan man and woman have fear in their hearts and uncertainty about their future.
Although we now have a new constitution that claims to guarantee the rights of both men and women, the advances are tempered by rising repression of women's social and political prominence. We, as women, are at peril from anti-modernist forces that are committed to rolling back the gains by resorting to the so-called "Islamic" argument. The protection of women as equal citizens does not figure prominently enough in the constitution. The world community must not be acquiescent with tokenism or symbolic assurances. What Afghanistan and its people desperately need is not misplaced charity but long-term strategies for sustainable democracy. This can only be done if the international community makes a permanent commitment to: 1) staying the course of nation building; 2) committing enough finances to sustain long-term development; 3) heeding the voices of the moderate Afghan people; and 4) involving Afghan women who constitute 67 percent of the population. Building on a ravaged nation with only 33 percent of its human resources is simply not sound economics.
The world community and especially the US realize that Afghanistan is a country of special interest. But it still remains a country whose history and struggle for democracy is largely obscured by propaganda. Afghans have endured and continue to endure unspeakable trauma. To this day, I am exposed to the impact this war has on women, men and children, and bear witness to their families' lifelong trauma. It has led me to question why anyone can claim the right to sacrifice innocent victims while pursuing their own political agendas and economic interests.
Invisible History clarifies and corrects the record, and builds a foundation upon which the whole story of Afghanistan's past can be appreciated. It is filled with ground-breaking analysis, not only of the more recent politics of Afghanistan, but the larger historical context necessary to grasp the immensity of this tragedy. It will stand as a twenty-first century guide not only to what was lost in the destruction of Afghanistan but to what can still be done to reconstruct a future where all Afghan women and men can live with the peace and plenty they deserve.
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