12/08/2009 4:00 am
POV
Women's Lib – Afghan Style, by Sara Davidson
Rabia and Sara with soldiers from Indiana National Guard
Editor’s Note: Sara Davidson, author of the bestselling books Loose Change and Leap!: What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?, has contributed articles to The New York Times Magazine, Newsweek, Harper’s, O the Oprah Magazine and Rolling Stone. She’s written and produced TV dramas and in 1994 was nominated for a Golden Globe for her work on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman." Sara now lives in Colorado. Visit Sara’s website by clicking here.
I thought I knew what we should do in Afghanistan until I flew to the country with a group of eight women and one man, organized by Code Pink. This is the fifth part in a series.
Afghanistan is no island, entire of itself. There’s a constant bleeding of people, money and ideas through its porous borders with Pakistan, Iran, Russia and nearby India. There can be no solution to its problems without involving neighboring countries, which is the point of a women’s "Trialogue" we attend at the Central Hotel.
About 60 women from Pakistan, India and Afghanistan have gathered for a two-day peace conference. Radha Kumar, a professor from India, opens the meeting by saying, "Our three countries are linked by the threat of violence. Women are being targeted, but when it comes to the peace process, we are not at the table. You cannot have peace without involving women. So we need to keep asking: "Where are the women?"
To my surprise, there’s no security check at the hotel. Nine of us walk right in, pick up programs and earphones for translation and take seats behind the horseshoe table where the delegates sit. Half of them wear head scarves and half do not. During tea breaks, we talk with the women, and when we leave, Rabia Roberts says, "No one wanted the American military to be gone." Code Pink co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin and former Army Colonel Ann say that’s not what they heard. They’d drawn up a petition urging President Obama not to send more soldiers and to work for a political solution that leads to withdrawing all troops. They asked women at the Trialogue to sign it; some refused, but a dozen signed.
Rabia says, "I feel like we’ve been at two different conferences."
The same thing happens when we visit Camp Eggers, an army base in the center of Kabul. Rabia and I speak with a dozen soliders from the Indiana National Guard who are perched on a tank, playing Texas Hold ‘Em and drinking Cokes. "We’re here to help people and make a difference," one says. "It’s not about money — we could make twice as much working for private security, but I’d rather wear the uniform."
I ask, "Were you scared to come here?"
He shrugs. "They train us up. You live day to day."
We also meet female soldiers, including an African American who says she hasn’t encountered any hostility from Afghan men. "They love me. They can’t do enough to help me. I guess they think I’m exotic." For these women soldiers, it is about money. They say they enlisted because, as one puts it, "I get free health care for my family, my kids get a free education, I can retire at 38 and get a pension the rest of my life."
When I repeat this to Medea later, she says, "Sounds like socialism to me."
Medea and Jodie say the soldiers they talked with want out of Afghanistan fast. "They told us, ‘We hate them and they hate us.’"
Rabia frowns. "I didn’t hear anyone speak like that."
"Must be the way we ask questions," Medea says.
"Must be," Rabia replies.
And it could be the proverbial story of the blind people feeling an elephant. The person who feels the trunk thinks it’s one thing and the one who feels the ear thinks it’s another.
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Blind people feeling an elephant, indeed. I think some of this group are suffering from "experimenter expectancy" on both sides… It’s a complicated situation with a lot of differing opinions, so getting the results they expect (or want to hear) is easy. Putting all of it together to form the real picture is hard. I wish they would put their own desires aside and strive harder for that.
I am encouraged by the fact that the police did their duty and protected the women protesters. In some other countries, police will stand aside while the political underdogs get creamed, then arrest them rather than the assailants.
This has been an interesting series. I thank Wow for providing it. I’m reminded of what Reinbold Niebuhr said: "The tendency to claim God as an ally for our partisan values is the source of all religious fanaticism." In this case , in the name of Allah, women are one step below dog. I have always thought that nothing will change until women revolt and revoting in these countries where men hold sway is not only difficult but dangerous.
I am also reminded of an American woman, Martha Carey Thomas who in 1877 wanted to pursue a doctorate, but no place of learning in this country would grant that, so she finally obtained one in Zurich–-the first woman to do so, by the way, with honors. She became the first Dean at Bryn Mawr when it opened in 1884. In 1895 she became its president and was so for 30 years. Her feminist zeal was a defensive response to the prolific literature of the day that preached woman’s intellectual activity violated feminine nature and caused poor health among educated women. Excessive studying, critics warned, would degenerate woman’s reproductive organs and lead to hysteria and insanity. Even president Eliot of Harvard chimed in on this. Thomas accused him of having "sunspots on the brain" and claimed that these were views of men who were "pathological, blinded by neurotic myths of sex, unable to see that women are human beings." Perhaps this story and others might help the women of these depressed countries to know the hard slog it has been to rid ourselves of the burdens of ignorance. Their plight is far greater, of course, but they must not give in or give up.
Good points, Phyllis. Revolts are always dangerous and some will pay a heavy price, but the end result in this case would be well worth it, as it was for Western women. It will be just as long a road as it was for us, though - changing a little at a time, and always in the face of opposition, ridicule, and danger.
As for the treatment of women - this goes back, I think, to the education issue of a couple of days ago. The Quran certainly does not hold women lower than dogs. The laws set forth in the Quran on inheritance, divorce rights, marital discipline and the like were a significant step forward for the rights of Arabian women of the 6th century. The biggest problem is that so many Muslim men (and women) in tribal cultures today cannot read the Quran, and are left to listen to whatever poison their imams spew (European Christians had this problem before the Reformation, when services were all in Latin and most people could neither understand Latin, nor read at all). The next problem is that, as good as the Quran was for 6th-century Arabian women, it does not confer equal rights in the 21st century; and fundamentalist Muslims (like fundamentalists of other stripes) regard the Quran as the unalterable, divine word of God. Maybe the only change one can hope for on that is that eventually, people will be allowed to make their own choices on what they believe about the Quran, instead of having fundamentalism thrust upon them. I have never understood why any true believer would think God needs anyone’s help in enforcing his will.
Phyllis
Great Post - thanks
Very good series. It appears the women in Afghanistan are taking baby steps towards liberation. A word too casually used in my opinion with respect to our own feminist movement in the 70’s but applicable here.
They are very brave and have taken huge risks for today and in the future. It is one thing for us *bra-burners* to be thrown in the local jail with our sisters for the night for disturbing the peace. Or to be called bad names or not be taken seriously in the workplace. Even Its another to know that if the Taliban returns you will be killed. I think even the worst sexual harassment pales in comparison to the target these women have on their heads.
People can talk about the *true* spirit of Islam and cultural differences all they want. I’m for declaring killing women for walking the streets without a male escort a bad bad bad thing. Dare I say evil?