Mews Review Articles Afghan Women and Transnational Feminism by Valentine Moghadam Vol.xvi Nos. 3/4 Fall 2001/Winter 2002           It is widely known that the Taleban instituted a harsh and bizarre theocratic dictatorship, with a gender regime that was particularly severe on women (though men also suffered). What is less well known is how and why the Taleban emerged, the role and responsibility of the United States - as well as Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - in the subversion of a reformist, modernizing regime (the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan or DRA, 1978-1992) and the proliferation of arms and narcotics, the extent of the human rights and women’s rights tragedies that occurred during the Mujahidin era (1992-96) as well as under the Taleban, and the sordid details concerning a planned oil pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan.             Moreover, it is widely assumed - as statements by the US based Feminist Majority and Senator Barbara Boxer put it - that before the Taleban came to power, “women were educated and employed, enjoyed equality and participated fully in public life.” There is also a widespread perception that Afghan women did not wear the burqa prior to the Taleban. Such statements and views reveal unfamiliarity with Afghan political history and gender relations.              Since September 2001, events in Afghanistan have proceeded rapidly, and the country is in a political transition, although the outcome is as yet unclear. At the Bonn meetings in November 2001, two of the 30 official representatives were women, but they were part of the delegations of two of the political factions, not representatives of Afghan women’s organizations. A six-month interim government was decided upon in Bonn, and two women - activist physicians Soheila Siddiqi and Sima Samar - were appointed to the posts of health and women’s rights, respectively.  The welfare and rights of Afghan women depend very much on the success of peace-building efforts, the type of government and legal system that are formed, the reconstruction and development of the country’s social and physical infrastructure, and the amount and allocation of foreign aid. Relevant, too, is the capacity of Afghan women to organize domestically - in the face of an underdeveloped and patriarchal society - and to mobilize international support for the realization of their basic needs and basic rights.  In light of the record of successful transnational feminist organizing on behalf of Afghan women’s rights in the latter part of the 1990s, this should not prove too onerous. There is cause for concern, however, as the donors’ meeting in Tokyo in January 2002 marginalized women’s issues. This despite the fact that women’s rights have been at the center of the conflicts that have engulfed Afghanistan, and women’s participation is of paramount importance to the success of Afghanistan’s reconstruction and development.             Debates about women’s rights and divergent conceptions of “women’s place” are highly  politicized and have been central to political conflicts in Afghanistan. In the 1920s, efforts by reformers, nationalists, and modernizers to improve the status of women, to establish an education system, and to modernize the economy and society met with fierce resistance from traditionalists and the ulama. In the 1980s, two opposing movements - one Marxist-modernizing and the other Islamist-traditionalist - fought a long and bloody war over divergent political agendas and conceptions of “women’s place.”  And in the 1990s, the Taleban gave new meaning to “social exclusion” when it instituted draconian policies banning not only women’s public participation but their very visibility.             In various papers since 1989, I have argued that women’s rights in Afghanistan have been historically constrained by: a) the patriarchal nature of gender and social relations, deeply embedded in traditional communities (expressed also in the form of pashtunwali, the Pashtun tribal code); b) the existence of a weak central state, which has been unable, since at least the beginning of this century, to implement modernizing programs and goals in the face of “tribal feudalism,” especially among the Pashtuns; and c) intervention by neighboring countries and the United States (and until the 1920s, Great Britain), which intensified tribal and ethnic-based conflict, stalled or set back development, and increased women’s insecurity.             These factors were behind the defeat of the modernizing efforts of King Amanullah in the 1920s, the incapacity of governments during the Zahir Shah era (1933 - 1973), and the defeat of the DRA’s attempt to implement a wide-ranging program for land reform, women’s rights, and social development in the 1980s. The patriarchal social structure and tribal feudalism also explain the disintegration of the Mujahidin government and the inability of both the Mujahidin and the Taleban to undertake reconstruction and development, let alone address women’s rights.  These reasons also explain why apart from a very small (albeit very talented) urban female elite, the vast majority of Afghan women experience social exclusion, illiteracy, poor health, and subordination. Slow Progress in the 1960s and 1970s             During the long reign of Zahir Shah (1933-1973) Afghanistan experienced peace and stability, but very little social, economic, or infrastructural development. In 1964 the new constitution established legal and political rights for women.  The next year, a group from the small Afghan intelligentsia formed the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The PDPA envisaged a national democratic government to liberate Afghanistan from backwardness. Among its demands were primary education for all children, in their mother tongue, and the development of the different languages and cultures of the country. Its social demands included guarantees of the right to work, equal treatment for women, a 42-hour work week, paid sick and maternity leave, and a ban on child labor. Also that year, six women activists formed the Democratic Organization of Afghan Women (DOAW). The DOAW’s main objectives were to eliminate forced marriages, the brideprice, and illiteracy among women. Four women from the DOAW were elected to Parliament. Both the PDPA and DOAW pushed for profound, extensive, and permanent social change.             In 1968 conservative members of parliament proposed to enact a law prohibiting Afghan girls from studying abroad. In response, hundreds of girls engaged in a protest demonstration. In 1970 two mullahs protested against “public women,” including women teachers and schoolgirls, by shooting at the legs of women in Western dress and splashing them with acid. Gulbeddin Hekmatyar (who went on to be a leading figure in the Mujahidin, one of the “freedom fighters” hailed by President Reagan) was among those who joined in such actions. This time there was a protest demonstration of 5,000 young women.             In 1973 former prime minister Daoud overthrew his cousin Zahir Shah, established a republic, and promised more rapid reform and modernization. Women from elite families had access to education and jobs, but for the vast majority of Afghan women, seclusion, immobility, illiteracy, and ill-health characterized their lives. According to World Bank figures, in 1975 only 8 percent of girls (compared with 44 percent of boys) were enrolled in primary school while a mere 2 percent of girls (compared with 13 percent of boys) were enrolled in secondary school. World Bank statistics published in 1988 show that average life expectancy was a mere 37 years; the average fertility rate was 8 children per woman; and the infant mortality rate was 35 deaths per 1,000 births. Statistics provided to me in 1986 by the Office of the Permanent Mission to the United Nations of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, provided a bleaker picture: literacy on the eve of the Afghan revolution was estimated at 30 percent for males and a mere 4 percent for females.  Creating Space for Women: the Marxist Experiment             In April 1978, the PDPA seized power and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), introducing a reform program to change the political and social structure of Afghan society. Three decrees - Nos. 6, 7, and 8 - were the main planks of the program of social and economic reform designed to assist peasants, poor households, and women and girls. Decree No. 6 was intended to put an end to land mortgage and indebtedness; No. 7 was designed to stop the payment of brideprice and give women more freedom of choice in marriage; No. 8 consisted of rules and regulations for the confiscation and redistribution of land. The DRA also embarked upon an aggressive literacy campaign, led by the DOAW, whose function was to educate women, bring them out of seclusion, and initiate social programs. Cadre established literacy classes for men, women, and children in villages, and by August 1979 the government had established 600 new schools.             This was clearly an audacious program for social change, one aimed at the rapid transformation of a patriarchal society and a power structure based on tribal and landlord authority. Revolutionary change, state-building, and women’s rights subsequently went hand-in-hand. DRA attempts to change marriage laws, expand literacy, and educate rural girls met with strong opposition. Fathers with unmarried daughters resented Decree no. 7 most because they could no longer expect to receive large brideprice payments, and because it represented a threat to male honor. The right of women to divorce, a measure introduced by the DRA, was also very controversial. Although the divorce law was never officially announced, owing to the outbreak of tribal Islamist opposition to the regime, the family courts (mahakem-e famili), mostly presided over by female judges, provided hearing sessions for discontented wives and sought to protect their rights to divorce and on related issues, such as alimony, child custody, and child support.             The DRA’s attempts to institute compulsory education - provided for in the Constitution of 1964 but ignored by the population - were opposed by traditionalists and by fathers keen to maintain control over their daughters. Believing that women should not appear at public gatherings, villagers often refused to attend classes after the first day. PDPA cadre viewed this attitude as retrograde, and, thus, the cadre resorted to different forms of persuasion, including physical force, to make the villagers return to literacy classes. Often PDPA cadre were either kicked out of the village or murdered. In the summer of 1978 refugees began pouring into Pakistan, giving as their major reason the forceful implementation of the literacy program among their women. In a 1984 article, veteran Afghan observer Nancy Hatch Dupree described how in Kandahar three literacy workers from the women’s organization were killed as symbols of the unwanted revolution. Two men killed all the women in their families to prevent them from “dishonor.” An Islamist opposition began organizing and conducted several armed actions against the government in spring 1979.             Internal battles within the PDPA exacerbated the DRA’s difficulties. In September 1979 President Taraki was killed on the orders of his deputy, Hafizullah Amin, a ruthless and ambitious man who imprisoned and executed hundreds of his own comrades in addition to further alienating the population. The Pakistani regime of Zia ul-Haq was opposed to leftists next door, and supported the Mujahidin armed uprising. In December 1979 the Soviet army intervened on the side of the PDPA government. Amin was killed and succeeded by Babrak Karmal, who initiated what was called “the second phase” (marhale-ye dovvom). The civil war continued, and was internationalized, with the mujahidin receiving support from the US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and China, as well as from “Islamic internationalists” in Algeria, Egypt, and other countries. Women and Public Space in Kabul and Peshawar             During the 1980s, in areas still controlled by the PDPA, and especially in Kabul, women’s access to public space increased. According to official statistics from 1985, 65 percent of the 7,000 students at the University of Kabul were women.  Special programs existed to provide financial aid to outstanding students through a collaborative effort between Kabul University and the Democratic Youth Organization. Recipients of financial aid included female students in the Faculty of Construction, a field of study usually off-limits to women in Muslim societies.             Women’s participation in “social organizations” also grew. These organizations included the Council of Trade Unions, the Democratic Youth Organization, the Peace, Solidarity and Friendship Organization, the Women’s Council, and the Red Crescent Society. Women were also represented at all levels of the Party and the government, with the exception of the Council of Ministers. The Loya Jirga included women delegates; in 1989 the Parliament had seven female members. In 1989, women in prominent positions included Massouma Esmaty Wardak, president of the Women’s Council, Shafiqeh Razmandeh, vice-president of the Women’s Council, Soraya, director of the Afghan Red Crescent Society, Zahereh Dadmal, director of the Kabul Women’s Club, and Dr. Soheila, chief surgeon of the Military Hospital, who also held the rank of general. The Central Committee of the PDPA had several women members, including Jamila Palwasha and Ruhafza (alternate member), a working-class grandmother and “model worker” at the Kabul Construction Plant (where she did electrical wiring).             During my fieldwork in Kabul in January-February 1989, I saw women employees in all the government agencies and social organizations that I visited. Ariana Airlines employed female as well as male flight attendants. An employee of the Peace, Solidarity and Friendship Organization told me that he was 37 and a man, yet had a supervisor who was 10 years his junior and a woman. There were women radio announcers, and the evening news on television (whether in Pushtu or Dari) was read by one male and one female, who did not wear a veil. In addition to being reporters, women also worked as technicians for radio and television, and in the country’s newspapers and magazines. Women worked in factories and many were members of the Central Trade Union. I was told that there were women soldiers and officers in the regular armed forces, as well as in the militia and Women’s Self Defense (Defense of the Revolution) Units. There were women in security, intelligence, and the police agencies, women involved in logistics in the Defense Ministry, women parachutists and even women veterinarians - an occupation usually off-limits to women in Islamic countries. In 1989 all female members of the PDPA received military training and arms. These women were prominent at a party rally of some 50,000 held in Kabul in early February 1989 which I attended.             While occupational segregation was being reduced, above the primary level, schools were now segregated, and middle school and secondary school girls were taught by female teachers. This was a concession made to traditionalist elements. In offices and other workplaces, however, there was no segregation. Neither were buses divided into male and female sections.             In Peshawar the situation of women and the opportunities afforded them were very different. Unlike liberation, resistance, and guerrilla movements elsewhere, the Afghan Mujahidin never encouraged the active participation of women. In Cuba, Algeria, Vietnam, China, Eritrea, Oman, Iran, Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Palestine, women were/are active on the front lines, in party politics, and in social services. It is noteworthy that the Mujahidin had no female spokespersons. Indeed, women in Peshawar who became too visible or vocal were threatened and sometimes killed. The group responsible for most of the intimidation of women was the fundamentalist Hizb-e Islami, led by Gulbeddin Hekmatyar.             The educational situation in Peshawar was extremely biased against girls. In 1988, some 104,600 boys were enrolled in schools compared with 7,800 girls. For boys there were 486 primary schools, 161 middle schools and 4 high schools. For girls there were 76 primary schools, 2 middle schools, and no high schools. A UNICEF study indicated that there were only 180 Afghan women in the camps with a high school education.             Despite Mujahidin repression, some women in Peshawar continued to work with the aid agencies, attend literacy classes, or engage in political activities. The Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), which had been formed in 1977 as a Maoist organization run by women university students and teachers, was opposed to both the pro-Soviet government in Kabul and the Islamist Mujahidin, whom they denounced as “fundamentalist fascists.” RAWA was very active while in exile in Peshawar during the 1980s and early 1990s, although only in recent years has it received attention from international feminists. Disciplining Women, Covering Bodies             In 1992, four years after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the government of Dr. Najibullah fell, and the Mujahidin assumed power. Almost immediately, the Mujahidin factions began to fight each other. Still, the men all agreed on the question of women. Thus the very first order of the new government was that all women should wear the burqa. As one journalist wrote from Kabul in early May 1992:             The most visible sign of change on the streets, apart from the guns, is the utter disappearance of women in western clothes. They used to be a common sight. Now women cover up from ankle to throat and hide their hair, or else use the burqa. Many women are frightened to leave their homes. At the telephone office, 80 percent of the male workers reported for duty on Saturday, and only 20 percent of the females. The government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, a cleric, was ineffectual and corrupt, and the countryside came to be controlled by marauding warlords.  According to Amnesty International, tens of thousands of civilians were killed and numerous girls and women raped between 1992 and 1996. A group of religious students, called the Taleban, formed an opposition army, and in September 1996 captured Kabul after a bloody two-year campaign. The Taleban were an unconventional army of men, raised in the refugee camps of Peshawar, Pakistan, during the 1980s. They adhered to a particularly orthodox brand of Islam, one which opposed education for girls and employment for women, and they called for compulsory, and very heavy, veiling. The Taleban’s only education came from poorly-equipped religious schools in Peshawar espousing a very conservative doctrine partly inspired by the Wahhabi ideology of Saudi Arabia.  They had no conception of modern governance, democratic or participatory rule, human rights, or women’s rights.                When the Mujahidin came to power in 1992, the small proportion of urban Afghan women who were employed were initially intimidated and told to stay away from their jobs. However, the subsequent chaos of Mujahidin in-fighting and the Rabbani government’s inability to exert its authority created an opportunity for educated Afghan women to return to their jobs, seek employment (often teaching, whether at the primary, secondary, or tertiary levels), or otherwise generate income for their households. Thus, in Kabul and Mazare-e Sharif some women were able to complete their studies, obtain teaching certificates, and be employed as professionals. Many of these women, it should be noted, were beneficiaries of the educational and employment opportunities afforded them during the “communist” era.             As soon as the Taleban entered Kabul in the Fall of 1996, they worked quickly to defeat their rivals and establish a strong central authority. Terror and repression were part of their arsenal from the start. Unlike the Mujahidin’s weak Islamic state, the Taleban’s Islamic state became strong, unified, and centralized, with the capacity to carry out its peculiar interpretation of Islam and institutionalize the subordination and subjugation of women.  It did so largely through that oddly-named agency, the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. The Taleban’s Gender and Ethnic Policies             The Taleban not only instituted sex segregation and compulsory veiling (the burqa is probably the most constricting veil in the Muslim world), they also banned women from schooling and from employment. This set them apart from other Muslim countries, even orthodox ones that at least allow women to study and work under conditions of strict sex segregation. The only exception the Taleban made to the ban on women working was to allow a number of women to work with international NGOs which delivered necessary services and provisions to Afghans in the context of conflict, drought, and poverty. Even this exception was limited.  In May 2001, the United Nations complained that the Taleban refused to allow women to be hired for a survey to continue bread supplies for about 300,000 poor persons in Kabul. The Taleban blocked the poverty survey because it claimed that hiring women would violate Islamic principles. Dr. Soheila, however, was allowed to treat patients and practice surgery, because of the severe shortage of physicians.             After the Taleban came to power, women who did not conform to their edict on veiling - perhaps they showed a little leg, or their burqa wasn’t made of heavy enough fabric - were publicly beaten, in a few cases by men wielding chains, and even in front of the women’s crying children. The war had caused disruptions and destruction of services, and public health conditions were deteriorating. The lack of running water and adequate heating in Kabul forced people to attend public baths to wash, but a Taleban edict ordered that the women’s section had to close, ostensibly to avoid moral corruption. A 1998 report by Physicians for Human Rights described the horrendous health conditions of Afghan women.              The power of the Taleban and the harsh manner in which they enforced their brand of Islam and patriarchy made it impossible for all but the most determined women to engage in such basic human endeavors as education, work, and travel. Small groups of such resilient women, including holdovers from the “communist era,” such as Soraya and Dr. Soheila, held classes in their homes for young girls, tried to obtain jobs with international humanitarian agencies in the country, organized income-generating projects for other women, provided health care for women and girls, or traveled to Peshawar to make contact with women activists. The women did so at tremendous risk to themselves and their families.             Apart from the severe oppression of women, the Taleban also practiced ethnic discrimination. They decreed that all men must wear beards; the fact that Afghan men from some of the Turkic ethnic groups cannot easily grow beards did not prevent their punishment. The Taleban are Pushtuns who treat other ethnic groups - such as the Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras - as second-class citizens. It should be noted, however, that Afghanistan has often had ethnic-based privileges and conflicts, and it was precisely to end such discrimination and conflict that the left-wing government instituted a nationalities policy in 1978. Today reports indicate that elements within the Northern Alliance, comprised mainly of Persian and Turkic speakers, are committing atrocities against Pashtuns. Any post-Taleban government will have to come to grips with ethnic disparities and grievances and provide a legal framework for ethnic rights as well as women’s rights. Transnational feminist solidarity             Although women in Afghanistan have been fighting for their rights during the entire 20th century, only in the latter half of the 1990s, during the Taleban era,  did Afghan women receive international solidarity and support. International feminist action was very effective at that time, resulting in the diplomatic isolation of the Taleban regime (recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE) and the defeat of a proposed oil pipeline from Central Asia through Afghanistan. This can rightly be called a success story of transnational feminism. But why did international feminism discover Afghan women only in 1996, when the Taleban came to power? Why were feminists silent in the 1980s, when the Mujahidin were waging war not only against the Soviet-backed Kabul government but also against women’s rights, including the right of girls to attend school? Apart from Pakistani feminists and RAWA, where were international feminists in the early 1990s, when members of the erstwhile Mujahidin alliance (later the Northern Alliance/United Front) were turning their guns on each other, destroying Kabul, and bringing about new insecurity and destruction, including the kidnapping and rape of women and girls?             A major reason for the silence, of course, was anti-communism and the fact that the last battle of the Cold War was fought on Afghan soil. But another reason, I believe, was because the DRA’s women’s rights and reform program was widely perceived as inappropriate in a developing Muslim context, and an imposition of Western/Soviet (or First World/Second World) values. During the 1980s, in the context of post-Marxism and postmodernism, academic and political debates raged around issues of universalism versus cultural relativism, women’s rights and community rights, orientalism and neo-colonialist discourses, the nature of Islamist movements, and the meaning of development. Feminists from around the world had not yet found common ground, and there existed a notion that there was a feminism for the West, but different priorities for the women of the South. The issue of who had the right to speak for or about Third World women was also a point of contention. For many, in a misguided version of anti-orientalism, veiling and seclusion were regarded as cultural artifacts not to be criticized. Anti-communism and a mindless form of cultural relativism resulted in the suspension of critical judgment regarding the Mujahidin’s misogyny, and inattention to the basic needs and basic rights of Afghan women.             In more recent years, views among international feminists concerning women’s rights and interests have converged. A turning point came in the years following the 1985 UN conference on women in Nairobi, which saw the formation of transnational feminist networks around the problems of structural adjustment, poverty, development, and Islamic fundamentalism. Another turning point was the 1993 UN conference on human rights in Vienna, where feminist claims for rights were finally included under the rubric of human rights, and where rape was designated as a human rights violation and a war crime.  The subsequent UN conferences -- notably the conference on population and development in Cairo in 1994 and the fourth world conference on women in Beijing in 1995 -- reinforced the emerging consensus on the universality of women’s rights to reproductive autonomy, equality, empowerment, political participation, and the various aspects of social development. Those opposed to this consensus in whole or in part -- for example, the coalition of Catholic and Muslim delegations at the Cairo and Beijing conferences that tried to emphasize cultural differences -- faced the ire of what was by now an organized and transnational feminism.             During the 1990s, transnational feminist networks grew and linked feminists and women’s groups in developed and developing countries alike. The issues were framed not in the dialect of postmodernism but in the language of universal and non-negotiable women’s rights and human rights. It is no longer possible to speak of a feminism for the West versus a different set of priorities for the Third World. Feminists from around the world, including Muslim countries, now agree on the basic issues of education, income, and reproductive rights for women, no matter what the cultural context, and they are struggling for greater political representation and participation in economic decision-making. Cultural relativism and the “hands off” approach of the past are explicitly rejected by Women Living Under Muslim Law, as well as by Afghan women’s groups such as RAWA.             The transnational feminist campaign for Afghan women’s rights that began in 1996 is significant for at least three reasons. First, it is illustrative of the way that global feminism is invoked, transnational feminist networks are mobilized, and international feminists respond. Second, it was the campaign that helped to “internationalize” the American feminist movement and its key organizations. Third, the US Feminist Majority’s Campaign to Stop Gender Apartheid, including the successful protest against the pipeline from which the Taleban would have benefited financially, represents the first time that a woman’s issue has galvanized so much support as to affect US foreign policy. But the American campaign has not been without its problems. Oversimplification or exaggeration of the facts, a “go-it-alone” approach, overuse of the burqa symbol, and certain media events proved to be alienating.             Nevertheless, we can expect that the new global environment favoring women’s rights will influence planning, policies, and resource allocations for a post-Taleban Afghanistan.  Certainly transnational feminist networks can be relied upon to monitor the situation, advocate for the right of Afghan women to participate in and benefit from peace-building, reconstruction, and socio-economic development, and lobby the relevant governments, donor agencies and inter-governmental organizations. Afghan women have suffered oppression, exclusion, and deprivation for a very long time. Given that literacy is estimated (optimistically) at only 20 percent and average life expectancy is only 43 years, there must be a serious commitment on the part of the national government to provide health, schooling, and employment opportunities for women and girls. In order to improve women’s lives, massive amounts of financial resources and technical assistance from the international donor community are needed. Investing in the women of Afghanistan and ensuring that women’s groups participate in negotiations and decision-making are necessary steps to bring about development, modernization, and women’s rights in Afghanistan. Valentine Moghadam is director of women’s studies and a professor of sociology at Illinois State University, Normal, Illinois, USA.   Home | About | Committees |Publications| Activities | Alerts | Pedagogy Corner || | Links | How to Join | Questions about the site? Email the webmaster.