Posted on: Sunday, January 30, 2005

ISLAND VOICES

By Nancie Caraway

How does one reconcile the contradictions of mourning strangers?

Moral philosophers have long questioned the ethics of collective grief. One of them, the French novelist and intellectual Albert Camus, has his main character in the acclaimed novel "The Stranger" declare that "one strand of a woman's hair" is worth more than all the priest's abstractions and certainties.

Last summer, a small group of Honolulu residents gathered at the UH-Manoa campus peace bell to mourn two brave young Afghan women election workers, Hosay and Bibi Noor, who had been killed when their van was bombed by Islamic extremist warlords less than 200 miles from the capital city of Kabul. Our gathering was intended not only to mourn these dynamic women, but to honor the courage and commitment of all Afghan women who were determined to make the nation's October 2004 presidential elections inclusive and fair.

Although we knew little about Hosay and Bibi's individual lives, their audacity to engage the public world of this tradition-bound, male-dominated land had the counter-authority of human intelligence triumphing over the barbarity of a repressive regime. It takes more than one election, however, to redress the continuing oppression of Afghan women and girls (80 percent illiteracy, rapes, kidnapping, poor or nonexistent healthcare and forced marriages), but the pre-election climate of the country was a symbol that Afghan women would no longer be "the living dead," in the words of 23-year-old Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat.

It has been three years since the murderous Taliban fell, three years since the U.S. invasion, and hope soared for the women and girls of Afghanistan. Peace, after 23 years of Soviet invasion and Taliban atrocities — such as cutting off the fingers of women who wore nail polish, laws against women singing, and public stoning — was the motivating factor in Afghan women's desire to vote last fall. And while an astounding 41 percent of the country's 10.5 million registered voters were women (fewer actually voted because of religious derision and the refusal of tribal elders to permit rural women to vote), freedom for Afghan women remains unfinished work.

Despite the U.S. presence in the country, a recent Human Rights Watch report detailed the lawlessness that plagues Afghanistan. The specter of the Taliban, pressure on women to cover themselves in the full-length suffocating burqas and the lack of civilian security, still hang over a tense and barricaded country.

For most Afghans outside Kabul, the enemy is likely now to be the local U.S.-appointed "commander" and former Taliban militias. Nongovernmental organizations and other groups point to the inadequate security and reconstruction resources needed to rebuild the country. Of the $2.5 billion Congress has appropriated for Afghanistan since 2002, only $72.5 million has been dedicated to women's programs. More than 30 girls' schools have been torched and bombed around the country. The Taliban's repressive religious police have resurfaced under new branding — and routinely fail to prosecute or sanction those who kidnap, rape and murder Afghan civilians. Ultimately, it is the women and girls of Afghanistan — along with the support of progressive-thinking male allies — who will continue to realize the idea of emancipation.

Small victories are evident. Grass-roots, Afghan-led aid projects put the faces and voices of Afghan women before us as a collective portrait which serves to diminish the "otherness" of distant strangers.

Dr. Sima Samar, Afghanistan's first minister of women's affairs and founder and director of the Shuhada Organization, is the link to Afghanistan's women and girls for our small group here in Hawai'i. (We've recently formalized our work under the name Afghan Women's Hui.) This connection was further enhanced by Mavis Leno, who directs the Afghan Women's project of the Washington, D.C.-based national women's rights organization, the Feminist Majority Foundation. Leno, who has appeared on her husband Jay Leno's TV talk show to discuss the plight of Afghan women, is a longtime associate of Dr. Samar and the Shuhada Organization. Shuhada operates 71 schools for girls and boys in Afghanistan, numerous literacy training centers, clinics, income-generating initiatives and housing agencies.

The Afghan Women's Hui is holding a fund-raiser Feb. 12 for Afghan women and children. The public event will feature Afghan art, music and Middle Eastern food. Local Afghan poet Raofa Ahrary and Mavis Leno are special guests.

For more information about the Afghan Women's Hui, call 782-3201 or e-mail afghanwomenshui@yahoo.com. To learn more about the plight of Afghan women and girls, see www.hawaii.edu/global.

Nancie Caraway directs the Women's Human Rights Project at the Globalization Research Center, UH-Manoa.