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A Woman Among Warlords:
Afghanistan’s Bravest Woman Speaks Out:
Ever hear of Malalai Joya? I just stumbled upon this article, which I will “cut and paste” here with a few highlights, by:
Amy Littlefield
WeNews correspondent
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Malalai Joya, called the "bravest woman in Afghanistan," is finishing up a U.S. tour where she has pressed the Obama administration to pull the military out of her country. She says nothing could be worse for women than what she sees as the current civil war. Joya is one of a handful of Afghan women speaking out against the occupation of Afghanistan and drawing attention to the worsening condition of women.
re: Liberation for Afghan Women?
The United States billed the invasion of Afghanistan as a liberating moment for Afghan women. President George W. Bush said in his 2002 State of the Union address: "The last time we met in this chamber, the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today women are free and are part of Afghanistan's new government."
Joya, who herself was once "part of Afghanistan's new government" as the youngest person elected to the parliment, however, does not agree:
She said the violence of occupation and the misogyny of the country's current political leaders have actually made life worse. "Woman's situation is like hell," said Joya in a speech at Brown University, as part of her tour, noting that a single hospital in Kabul reported more than 600 attempted suicides, primarily by women from 2008 to 2009.
Joya called the current regime under the recently re-elected President Karzai "mentally similar to the Taliban," saying the government "only physically has been changed." She pointed to Karzai's signing of the so-called "rape law" as evidence of the misogynist nature of his government. Following global outcry in April, Karzai vowed to change the law, which mandated that Shia women submit to sex with their husbands. A second version of the law, which permits Shia men to deny food to their wives if they do not obey sexual demands, was passed this summer.
It is loyalty to "my people" that has brought her to the United States, where she has spoken to packed auditoriums and sold copies of her 2009 book, "A Woman Among Warlords."
She tells of a 5-year-old girl killed for resisting a grown man's attempts to rape her, another girl who begged for the right to divorce after her husband tortured her and hundreds of women who have burned themselves alive to escape nightmarish lives of poverty and abuse.
Joya said she wrote the book in order to communicate a small part of the sorrow and pain of her people and to reveal the truth about the warlords who were once her peers in parliament.
She was expelled from parliament after speaking out some of the truths reported here and
when she spoke out against warlords at the Afghan constitutional assembly, demanding they be put on trial in international court and declared that history would never forgive them. She was then pushed out of the assembly room in a sea of both threats and applause.
Since her removal:
multiple times, her enemies have tried to kill her, forcing her to hide in safe houses and wear a burka. Although government officials have demanded Joya's apology for insulting them, she does not believe she is the one who should be sorry.
"Someone had to do that and I did it . . . and I don't regret it," she said.
Instead, she addresses President Obama: "Apologize to my people and end this."
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If we aren't going to do it right and send in 60,000 additional troops in a major surge, as McCrystal originally suggested (not the 40k he was forced to say), we should just get the hell out. No half measures will work. If Joya thinks we should get out, maybe we should listen.
If we were to leave Afghanistan now we would be sending 50% of the population back into slavery and the country back to the dark ages. Afghanistan needs to be brought back to the pre-Soviet days when it was a secular disjointed union, but secular and more free than it's been in 30 years.
Ron, do you want the girls to no longer go to school or the wifes to once more be beaten by their husbands or thugs for showing an ankle by mistake? Since the Russians have never stood up for anyone and taken responsibility, we owe it to these poeple to stay for the long haul. And I mean long because it may take a generation to change the attitiudes of a country.
Civil Discourse - ERA - A Mother President - Women's Rights - Primary Reform
The fact that I was kicked out of office while brutal warlords enjoyed immunity from prosecution for their crimes should tell you all you need to know about the "democracy" backed by Nato troops.
"Democracy by war is impossible," Joya said in response to a question at Brown University about who would provide security in the absence of the U.S. military. She called the current regime under the recently re-elected President Karzai "mentally similar to the Taliban," saying the government "only physically has been changed."
She said the violence of occupation and the misogyny of the country's current political leaders have made life worse.
"Woman's situation is like hell," said Joya in a speech at Brown University, as part of her tour, noting that a single hospital in Kabul reported more than 600 attempted suicides, primarily by women from 2008 to 2009.
also:
So far, Obama has pursued the same policy as Bush in Afghanistan. Sending more troops and expanding the war into Pakistan will only add fuel to the fire. Like many other Afghans, I risked my life during the dark years of Taliban rule to teach at underground schools for girls. Today the situation of women is as bad as ever. A growing number of women, seeing no way out of the suffering in their lives, have taken to suicide by self-immolation.
This week, US vice-president Joe Biden asserted that "more loss of life [is] inevitable" in Afghanistan, and that the ongoing occupation is in the "national interests" of both the US and the UK.
I have a different message. I don't believe it is in your interests to see more young people sent off to war, and to have more of your taxpayers' money going to fund an occupation that keeps a gang of corrupt warlords and drug lords in power in Kabul.
What's more, I don't believe it is inevitable that this bloodshed continues forever. Some say that if foreign troops leave, Afghanistan will descend into civil war. But what about the civil war and catastrophe of today? The longer this occupation continues, the worse the civil war will be.
http://malalaijoya.com/index1024.htm
Your story and heroism is laudable but don't count on the misogynist-in-chief to support women's human rights in your country or anywere. Your sisters here in the US pissed away a once in a lifetime chance to put a woman in to lead this country, a woman who has a huge track record in working for gender equality all over the world.
There is so much talk of torture among the blathering men but hardly ever do they even consider that their treatment and attitude toward women is the longest lasting and horror ridden torture ever known, continuing still.
see more from Joya in my response to Hampster above.