The ‘oppressed Afghan woman’

For a Western audience, the very mention of acid-throwing as a form of intimidation immediately conjures up images of the ‘oppressed Afghan woman’. The media has developed a fetish for reporting these events in Afghanistan (and broader Muslim world for that matter). So we hear countless horror stories of acid throwing, or Afghan women killed in some honour killing to ‘punish’ them for their audacious attempt to attend school, go to work, to fall in love with the wrong person. We are made to believe this is the doing of the brutal Taliban regime and their twisted version of Islam– which the ‘alien’ visibility of the Burqa helps to convey and validate the very oppression these women are experiencing. This trend of reporting marks the new found interest in Afghan women’s discrimination which conveniently began in 2001, in which saw the assault on Afghanistan—one of the top five poorest countries in the world—by a U.S. led force. Their ‘Western sisters’, Laura Bush and Cherrie Booth Blair appropriated Western feminist language in defense of Afghan women, disseminated and absorbed by gullible Western media consumers. Of course, these ‘Western feminists’ happen to conveniently forget the equally draconian measures that discriminate against women in other countries like Saudi Arabia, a key ally of the U.S. Ironically, Western feminists who supported and continue to support the invasion of Afghanistan did a great disservice to their cause. Not only did they deny the agency of Afghan women, they helped to construct a West that was the ‘saviour’ of women; in doing so, they silenced their own voices in the West by producing the erroneous understanding Western women have been already liberated.

The dichotomy of the Western saviour of women (Other) versus an oriental Islam symbolized by the Taliban was once again resuscitated for imperialist endeavors. Like the colonisers of the past, white men were called upon to save brown women from brown men. Within this neo-colonialist framework, the West was constructed as the beacon of civilisation and Afghanistan was constructed a land of barbarism and darkness—where the ‘evils’ of Islam reigned supreme and women were left at its mercy. Thus, the Afghan woman had to be ‘protected’. In IR theoretical understanding, Afghanistan was the feminised other;–penetrable territory that needed to be protected from the predatory advances of a constructed enemy: Islam.

Within this reductive framework, the complexities of Afghan culture and history are removed. The 26 year period of war in which the current disaster unfolding in the country has become irrelevant. The ugly reality of the U.S. contributing to the very abuses against women in the country; a non-issue. In reality, the U.S. funded the very men who later became part of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. (Most of us know this. We know that the Northern Alliance committed acts that were criminal if not more against women and the entire Afghan people for that matter.—which was conveniently ignored). In other words, the U.S. fomented the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the region. After pushing the Soviets into Afghanistan and using the Afghans to fight a proxy war, and leaving the entire country absolutely destroyed—the U.S left with their money and their support. American promises of rebuilding the country were left broken. What occurs when civil society has been destroyed and a power vacuum has been left: of course a civil war—which occurred between warring Mujahideen factions who had been armed to the teeth by the Americans. The civil war ended with the advent of the Taliban.

As Carol A. Stabile and Deepa Kumal rightly point out, this crucial historical context has been denied, and by doing so, it has put the blame on Afghan society itself. That the acid-throwing, the honour killings and the brutal oppression of women become the product of Islamic and cultural barbarism. That this is just something that occurs in these societies and the enlighten West’s intervention is probably a good thing for these people.  Not only is the correct historical and political context removed, but a particular construction of the ‘Afghan woman’ is deployed in order to reinforce this deep division of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In reality, the experiences of Afghan women differ vastly–especially rural and urban experiences of women. Of course, there are those who are subjected to revolting acts of repression. Which society hasn’t experienced these? It is true, generally, Afghan culture is patriarchal and this has been accentuated in the current climate, but this has not meant women in the past have not been successful or lacked agency. Women’s organisations like RAWA didn’t just appear after 2001. Such organisations have existed since the 1970s. I look at my own family as an example, where Aunts and other female relatives were teachers, doctors, nurses, journalists as well as mothers and wives.  However, the wars that have raged for decades, both international and civil, have played a significant role in destroying the country, creating an environment of extremism, poverty and political exploitation by international actors like the U.S. and corporations. Sultan Barakat and Gareth Wardell’s interesting essay on Afghan women’s experience in the past 30 years conclude that Afghan women should not be assumed as passive or powerless women, because they have developed new roles and opportunities in their new environments as community leaders, mobilizing the family and community, have key roles in the economy, brokering peace deals, and fighting. Why aren’t these women ever shown in the media? Is it because they rupture the static construction of the ‘passive and oppressed Afghan (Muslim) woman’ who lacks agency of her own?

My intention here isn’t to undermine the harrowing experiences of those women of Afghanistan who are suffering—indeed, it’s a gruesome reality; rather, Afghan women’s experiences–whether inspiring or oppressive—not only should be represented proportionately, but also cannot be understood nor represented in a historical, religious and cultural terms alone. The fault lies both with cultural tribalism and the politics of Western countries. Acknowledging and understanding the complexity of historical and political events and experiences in the country is more useful to Afghan women than the superficial removal of burqas or wholesale condemnation of the Taliban.

-Sahar

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Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)

• The Permission to Narrate
• An Unwanted Spokeswoman
• Visiting the Hijab… Again.