Solidarity with Afghan women

Aug 24th, 2021 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

FEMINIST DISSENT STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFGHAN WOMEN AND WITH ALL THOSE FIGHTING FUNDAMENTALISM

Feminist Dissent sees fundamentalist movements as modern political movements of the far right which use religion to exercise authoritarian control, especially over women. The Taliban was never seen by us as simply a form of medievalist Pashtun tribalism, and certainly not as a liberation movement. The dominant views from the ‘anti-imperialist left’, Western ‘peace’ movements, Western governments and counter-terror establishments converge in ways that both stereotype and sanitise the Taliban.

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The British Chief of Defence Staff Nick Carter’s claim that the Taliban want an ‘inclusive’ Afghanistan builds on the convenient myth that the Taliban are merely ‘tribal’, romantic men of honour who will keep order in the Badlands by controlling international jihadists so that they do not trouble Western capitals. Both US President Biden and UK Prime Minister Johnson share this view. It is a dangerous, racist, and self-serving fantasy.  For the people of the region across the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, the twenty-year war that started in December 2001 is not ending but is being continued by other means.

The Taliban began as a creation of the Pakistani military establishment and could not have succeeded without its backing. The movement’s goal is the subjugation of Afghanistan, the erasure of women from public space, and the destruction of every positive aspect of Afghan culture, both traditional and modern.  As Karima Bennoune, the UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights,  has said, “Afghan cultural rights defenders have worked tirelessly and at great risk…to reconstruct and protect this heritage, as well as to create new culture. Afghan cultures are rich, dynamic and syncretic and entirely at odds with the harsh worldview of the Taliban”.

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Via Gita Sahgal

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