Confronting September 11: In the Name of Religion

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The Taliban, a name that translates into English as religious students, gained control of almost all of Afghanistan in 1996. As the Taliban consolidated their power they forged their militant brand of Islam into national law. Their dystopian vision had clear rules restricting membership and participation in the national life of the country. While many around the world were shocked when the Taliban ordered the destruction of ancient Buddhist monuments and people were disturbed by the law which required Hindus living in Afghanistan to identify themselves by wearing yellow patches on their clothing, reminiscent of the yellow star Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis and their collaborators, it was the Taliban's treatment of women that became an international human rights issue. Semeen Issa and Laila Al-Marayati of the Muslim Women's League explain that "many Muslim men and women alike are subjugated by despotic, dictatorial regimes. Their lot in life is worsened by extreme poverty and illiteracy, two conditions that are not caused by Islam but are sometimes exploited in the name of religion." In the Western press the symbol of that exploitation has been the burka, a head-to-toe covering that the Taliban required women to wear. Under the pretense of religious law, women were subject to numerous discriminatory regulations. Women were forbidden from attending school. They were forbidden to work or even leave the house unaccompanied. They were denied proper medical treatment, which often lead to starvation and disease. Law commanded that windows of houses that had female occupants be painted over. Punishment for those that disobeyed these regulations ranged from random physical beatings to execution.

An open letter from an anonymous Afghani woman appeared in the reader's section of the Pakistani newspaperThe Frontier on December 3, 1998. In the letter she describes the "ferocious atrocities" of the Taliban regime and cries out for justice.

This is an open letter for all Pakistanis and Muslim world. I want to expose certain criminals and unveil their ferocious atrocities, to all of my Muslim brethren. I am an Afghan Muslim woman of Hazara origin. My age is 44 and I am reasonably educated as compared to most of the women in Afghanistan. I was living in Mazar-e-Sharif with my husband and two children, a son and a daughter. My husband had a leather shop in Mazar-e-Sharif. Two days after the fall of city, persons belonging to the Taliban regime forcefully entered my house, six in number. They asked my husband about our religious background, when my husband couldn't answer them, they started beating him with their rifle butts. I started calling for mercy but all in vain. My son couldn't resist and tried to stop them, one of those cruel persons shot my son twice. My son died on the spot. He was just 19. Seeing this, my husband tried to kick the person who shot my son, they immediately shot my husband as well. This all was so much shocking for me that I started shouting and crying. Seeing this, two of the persons came to me and slapped me and my daughter and then kicked us. After that they left. When I turn towards my husband, he was already dead. They annihilated my innocent family for nothing. We kept on crying and shouting for two days, there was no one to help us. There was no one to bury them. A day later, I got another shock of my life, the cruel Taliban brutally killed my father and two brothers. My mother couldn't bear this butchery of her family members, she too died a week later. For few days I lost my senses. I might have died too after such a big tragedy but perhaps for the sake of my daughter I am still alive. There was no one to listen to us and give us justice in Mazar. I have to beg in the streets of Mazar for food. I used to tell the tragedy to every passerby but I was usually asked to keep quiet otherwise we will meet the same fate as of my family. One day while I was begging I came across a foreign journalist. I told him the story. He was a kind person. After some days he took me and my daughter to Peshawar. My host in Peshawar is a nice person. He is taking care of us. I was told that Pakistan is an independent country and unlike Afghanistan, press and media here are free and there is no need to fear, therefore I am sending my tragic story to you. I know that like me, there are thousands of Afghan women who met the same fate. My question to the Muslim world is, Is there no one in the Muslim world to stop the cruel Taliban from killing innocent people? Who will give me the justice? Is the conscious of all Muslims around the world dead, that they are deliberately ignoring the atrocities of the Taliban. Is the blood of my and other thousands of families gone to waste? There are no sons left who can listen to their mother's voice? No fathers who console his daughter? Is there no Mohammad bin Qasim left in the Muslim world to liberate my people from savage clutches of the Taliban and give us justice?1

As journalists began to broadcast the voices of the women of Afghanistan to the world many Muslims and non-Muslims alike began to take notice. Filmmakers, like the Afghan refugee Saira Shah, took huge risks to depict the violence of the Taliban's treatment of women and the courage of women who resisted. Iranian filmmaker, Moshen Makhmalbaf, wrote and directed two films starring Afghan refugees to highlight the plight of the Afghan people. In addition, activists in the United States and Europe used magazines and the Internet to educate and advocate for action.

One of those who took notice was the Moroccan scholar Fatema Mernissi. In her book, Scheherazade Goes West, Fatema Mernissi emphasizes that battles over the role of women, in both the Muslim world and in the West, are often reflective of larger struggles over human rights, democracy, and pluralism. She writes:

All the passionate if not hysterical debates about women's rights taking place today in Muslim parliaments from Indonesia to Dakar are actually debates about pluralism. These debates relentlessly focus on women because women represent the stranger within the Umma, the Muslim community.

Laila Al-Marayati of the Muslim Women's League believes that change will come when people recognize that human rights and democracy are not inconsistent with religious beliefs. She argues that "the extreme position taken by the Taliban hardly deserves to be considered an ‘interpretation' of Islam. That implies the position has some degree of validity, when it is really an aberration in violation of the most basic tenets of the faith." She explains:

To the Taliban and other extremists, Western - and especially feminist - views on women are often blamed for many of the social ills that plague society today, including exploitation of female sexuality, rape, high-risk sexual behavior, the disintegration of the family, and moral decadence in general.

Given this view, the Taliban believe their own policies are more protective of women - and, therefore, more enlightened.

Changing the situation will require the Taliban and other Muslim leaders to look within Islam itself, rather than through a cultural lens not their own. In so doing, they would find that promoting women's rights does not mean compromising and capitulating to the "West." Rather, it means they are being consistent with their commitment to the message of Islam they seek to uphold.

Any government that professes to enforce shari'a (Islamic law) must be aware that the essential purpose of shari'a is to guarantee for every citizen five broad rights encompassing all aspects of human endeavor. These are the rights to life, intellect, family, property and religion. These rights mirror fundamental freedoms as they have been articulated in the major human rights documents of this century. 2

After the fall of the Taliban, women have begun to re-enter public and political life in Afghanistan. They face serious challenges, but their success may be a barometer with which to measure the relative strength of democracy and human rights in Afghanistan.

CONNECTIONS

• Guaranteeing women's rights remains a central challenge in the struggle to balance human rights against local customs.

• Why is confronting patriarchy so difficult? What happens when patriarchal customs come into conflict with notions of human rights in a society?

• Writing in The Frontier the Afghani woman called out for help from within the Muslim world. Whose responsibility is it to respond to the brutality she describes? What are consequences of letting human rights violations go unchecked?

• How does the Moroccan scholar Fatima Mernissi explain the connection between the treatment of women, democracy, and pluralism in predominantly Muslim countries? How do women's choices get taken away in the name of clarifying the rules of membership?

• What patterns do you see in the restrictions that controlled women's lives under the Taliban? How would you explain these patterns?

• For many across the world, the symbol of the struggle for women's equality in Afghanistan has become the burka, a head-to-toe covering that women in Afghanistan were required to wear under the Taliban. According to many Muslim women's rights advocates, the symbol became a distraction, distracting those concerned by the status of women from the more immediate challenges. Do advocates need symbols to focus attention on a struggle? In which ways can they be helpful? How can they hinder the cause?

• The documentary film Beneath the Veil, directed by Saira Shah, alerted the world community to the abuse of women by the Taliban. Kandahar, an Iranian film about women in Afghanistan, was released in the United States shortly after the fall of the Taliban. Before the September attacks the filmmaker, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, nearly changed the name fearing American audiences would not know where Kandahar was located. To learn more about the both films and the issues of women, human rights and the Taliban visit the web site.

• Research the lives of women since the fall of the Taliban. What changes are most evident? What challenges remain?

• Fatima Mernissi believes that the treatment of women offers insight into nations' commitment to democracy, pluralism, human rights. What barometer would you use to measure democracy in the United States? In the world?

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