“It was an unseasonably warm evening in April when one of Heela’s neighbours appeared at the front door. ‘Sister!’ she pleaded, ‘Do you have a headscarf? The Mujadadeen are coming.’ Heela rarely wore Islamic head coverings anymore, inside or out. But she knew that she would have to find something, for the mujahadeen’s reputation preceded them. In the closet she found two torn pieces of cloth. Her neighbour took one, wrapping it around her head. Heela took the other and waited.”
It was 1992 and the veil was on for Afghan housewife Heela Achekzai, one of three people through whose eyes author Anand Gopal tells the story of Afghanistan in No Good Men Among The Living.
The veil had come off from 1979 under the Soviet occupation, on again under the Taliban in 1992, off again in 2001 under the Americans. And we know how it is today.
This macabre dance of the veils tracks the tragic fortunes of women in Afghanistan. Today they are abandoned. Behind the US president Joe Biden’s tough love talk and US speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi’s siren song of feminist platitude, the reality is Night and Fog, where human rights will disappear and women will be invisible.
Kabul airport today is the war in Afghanistan in microcosm. The Taliban already segregates those allowed to the airport. Paralympian Zhaki Khudadadi is a first casualty of the “moderate” Taliban: unable to take her place at Tokyo 2020, she pleaded for someone to “hold my hand” in a statement on Tuesday.
Alas for Khudadadi, the US comes first. Not for the first time in his short presidency, Biden restated the policy which spells despair for the weakest.
His was a confident speech, full of the sound of Vietnam War regrets. It’s an easy play for his audience and his administration clearly hoped it would turn the weekend tide of recrimination: his popularity rating had dropped by 7 per cent.
There are signs that it worked. Biden had no alternative, became the narrative. Pity about the women and girls. But all they have to do is hang in there, right?
At the risk of being ageist, sexist and racist, I have to say there was something unseemly about a 78-year-old white guy tell a nation whose median age is just under 18½, who have known no life without international support, that they are on their own, that women must take their chances. And added the parting insult that it was all the fault of Afghan forces.
Even as tragedy loomed, Biden was unyielding. He didn’t have to implement the “inherited deadline”. He didn’t have to withdraw all air power: the USAF was the only thing that could slow the Taliban and the lack of it collapsed Afghan army morale.
Can the human rights of women and men in Afghanistan be protected without intervention?
A very small military presence had kept the Taliban in check. And allowed women to live their lives openly.
But last week, almost every Afghan woman interviewed on media was fully veiled. One wasn’t. She was older and she looked directly to the camera.
“Please watch us,” she implored.
“The world is watching,” echoed Pelosi, metaphorically wagging her finger at the Taliban. As she spoke, female bank workers in Herat were being sent home, replaced by men; female teachers were forced to wear the chador, which covers everything but the face, hands and feet.
“Any political settlement that the Afghans pursue to avert bloodshed must include having women at the table,” pronounced Pelosi. One might question her sanity had not Simon Coveney, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, said precisely that at the UN security council in June. It’s fair to say that nobody could have foreseen the speed of the Taliban takeover. Unfortunately for Coveney, our miserable offer to take in a few hundred refugees exposes his words as meaningless rhetoric.
‘Other culture’
Pelosi’s pieties, however, were a masterclass in disingenuousness, deploying the shameful get-out “other culture” card. “As we strive to assist women we must listen ... and [be] respectful of their culture.”
For a long time feminism has been convulsed on the question of other cultures, on whether abuse of women by men in different cultures is a legitimate concern. Stray from your own demographic and you risk imposing white, western values on the maligned and misunderstood.
The plight of women in Afghanistan sheds an unforgiving light on that argument. Respect for “their culture” is vital if done in the context of cultural or religious freedom.
But sharia, as interpreted by the Taliban, seems inevitable in Afghanistan. Which means women are deemed lacking in intelligence, can be beaten, are subservient to their husbands, do not have the same divorce rights; where child marriage is tolerated and female captives are raped.
Must this be respected?
Ironically the Taliban has little respect for some aspects of its culture. They gained popular support by curbing bacha bazi, the practice of forcing boys to dance and submit to sexual abuse by older men.
No mileage, apparently, in curbing barbaric practices against women. Afghanistan today presents a terrible dilemma. Can the human rights of women and men in Afghanistan be protected without intervention? Sometimes western values are the bulwark between the vulnerable and a final solution.