In Kabul, Afghanistan, women recently gathered at great personal risk to protest the treatment of women by the newly re-established Taliban.
Twenty years ago, during the Taliban’s previous time in power, women were almost completely removed from public life; confined to the home, unable to leave without a male family member, denied an education, and often married off at a young age. After the American invasion of Afghanistan, a part of the U.S nation-building project centered around the women. Schools were opened up, and women were encouraged to hold public office or pursue careers. But with the removal of American troops from Afghanistan, the Taliban have moved back in.
Despite the uneasy precedent set by their last stint as rulers, the Taliban are trying to present themselves as positively as they can to the watching world. Zabihullah Mujahid, speaking on behalf of the interim government, announced that the Taliban would respect women’s rights, while still upholding Islamic law.
Photo by the Guardian
Some elementary age girls have been permitted to return to school, but women with jobs have been told to stay home “for their own safety.” Classrooms have been segregated between men and women and dress codes enforced, with some subjects under review. Women’s sports have been shut down. The Ministry of Women's Affairs is now called the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, and no women have been permitted to join the ruling members of the new government.
Shahrzad Mustafvi, an Afghan woman, former legal consultant, business owner, and now protest participant, predicted that the situation would deteriorate quickly once the public eye has turned away from Kabul. The women protesting in Kabul rightly fear that they will eventually be forced completely out of the public sphere. After twenty years to learn, establish careers and public presences, all that progress may very well disappear overnight.
Mustafvi, in an interview with NPR’s Arezou Rezvani, said that the Taliban will ultimately regret leaving women out. “They know that they are faced today with talented, educated, experienced women, and the Taliban are afraid of this. These mullahs, their place is at the mosques or Ministry of Religious Affairs. They are not experts at running the government. They need us.”
Mustavi is correct. There is a correlation between societies that treat women poorly, and the stability and wellbeing of those nations. Even peace treaties with women as participating negotiators tend to last longer than those created solely by men, according to a study done by Jana Krause, Werner Krause & Piia Bränfors in 2018. Women are now an essential part of Afghanistan's workforce, and a forceful removal of their presence will bring about economic disaster.
But the women in Kabul protesting the Taliban are only one piece of the puzzle. Americans naturally focus on these urban educated women, now exposed to Western freedoms and fighting to keep their rights; but in rural areas, many women are ready to welcome back the Taliban or are at least happy to have the U.S. gone. To understand why, there is a history to be understood — the history of Afghanistan as “the graveyard of empires.”
Afghanistan is a collection of perpetually warring tribes and clans belonging to different cultural and ethnic groups, all which speak different languages. They have never been united. For the last 200 years, parts of Afghanistan have changed hands multiple times, between both internal rulers and outside conquerors.
With every political change came an ideological one, and the goals and policies of the new leaders changed the way people lived. In the 19th century, the British invaded from northern India, placing and switching out rulers as they saw fit.
In 1919, Emir Amanullah Khan declared the country independent, but made a serious effort to westernize the country, banning slavery and child marrage, encouraging western dress and culture, and placing a special focus on women’s independence. His wife, Queen Soraya, headed the government's efforts to educate women and give them voices in the public sphere.
But Amanullah’s reforms were met with resistance, and he was forced to abdicate. The government revolved among a succession of rulers, many of whom participated in rolling back Amanullha’s reforms, and imposed their own agendas.
Then in 1979, the Soviets moved in, bringing their own ideologies. After a decade of civil war, the Soviets were forced out and the Taliban moved in. And then, twenty years ago, the United States joined the long list of ruling powers with a stake in Afghanistan's modern history. They were not the first to attempt to shape the cultural landscape, and they were not the first to leave, having failed.
Additionally, those living in the rural areas saw few benefits from the American regime. For them, the U.S. was just another invader, and a deeply culturally foreign one at that. For women living outside of Kabul, they simply hope for peace. In a New Yorker article entitled "The Other Afghan Women,” journalist Anand Gopal describes a world with constantly shifting political and social norms imposed from outside. Rural women hope that the Taliban will bring peace and stability. For them, Americans brought strangeness and destruction; the Taliban, for all their strictness, may be less corrupt, and are less culturally incompatible.
It is worth noting, therefore, that the brave and determined women in Kabul who are fighting for their freedoms are not the only female voices in Afghanistan. But both groups are today alike in one way: their powerlessness and lack of agency in a male-dominated world.