Afghan Activist Malalai Joya Says the Occupation Harms Women's Rights

Malalai Joya is often called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan." I'd go further and laud her as one of the bravest female activists in the world -- not only for standing up in front of the Afghan parliament to denounce the warlords and criminals in power, but also for intelligently and consistently speaking out against the occupation of Afghanistan.

Joya has recently written her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, about growing up under foreign occupation in a ceaseless series of wars, running a secret school for women under the Taliban, getting elected to and then suspended from the Afghan parliament, and campaigning both at home and around the world for Afghanistan's independence.  Joya has received overwhelming support from the Afghan people, who, after her 2003 speech at Afghan's constitutional assembly, elected her in a landslide to parliament.  This did not prevent her from being illegally suspended from parliament in 2007 and threatened with rape and assassination by parliament members.  There have been several assassination attempts on Joya's life, so she spends her time dashing between public appearances and safe houses.

Joya's discourse is an uncomfortable one for the United States.  Maybe that's why I could hardly find any articles about her in major U.S media, whereas in the first two pages of a Google search for her name I found articles from major Canadian, Australian, and British media outlets.  It's chilling what a simple Google search can demonstrate.  Joya's argument is largely ignored by the U.S press: why?

Because she is highly critical of the occupation of Afghanistan, insists Obama is not only picking up where Bush left off but intensifying the war effort and all of its disastrous consequences, and points out what none of the Anglo-Saxon occupying powers want to acknowledge: that the egregious violations of women's rights did not begin with the Taliban, but rather with the foreign occupations of Afghanistan.

Joya says that women were engaged in a struggle for independence that was making strides until back-to-back foreign invasions crushed it starting in the late 1970's.  She points out that some of the worst offenses against women were committed by mujaheddin fighters during the country's civil war from 1992-1996, countering the frequent U.S assertion that women began suffering under Taliban rule.  Joya also refutes U.S claims that women have regained rights under the U.S-installed warlord government, saying that women are as threatened as ever and have taken to self-immolation as a form of protest.  Recent U.N reports declaring rape in Afghanistan a problem of "profound proportions" support Joya's arguments.

Malalai Joya's rhetoric is not only threatening and dangerous to the warlords who run Afghanistan, but also to the occupiers who have hand-picked and supported these warlords.  No wonder her arguments are so scarce in American media.  One of the major points cited in favor of the ongoing war against Afghanistan is the "liberation" of women, but when the bravest woman in Afghanistan (and one of the country's few outspoken female activists) is denouncing the degradation of women's rights under foreign occupation, when statistics and U.N reports show that the situation of women continues to worsen, and when civilian casualties continue to rise, what is the liberation the occupying powers have in mind?  A "liberation," surely, that has far more to do with securing the interests of the United States than with the realities, needs, and interests of Afghan women.

Photo Credit: AfghanKabul