After 9/11, politicians in the USA brandished the cause of liberating Afghan women from the oppressive rule of the Taliban. TV news would present clips of the Taliban beating women in the streets of Afghanistan for not being appropriately dressed. A clip of a woman being executed by Taliban in a football stadium was also greatly circulated at the time.
From January 2005 to 2009, Ashraf Ghani was the chancellor of Kabul University. In 2010, The Times reported that Afghan professors were sexually harassing their female students. These students were into sexual relations with their professors who threatened to fail them in their exams.
So how did women fare in the new democratic order that the Americans promised to bring to Afghanistan? Were Afghan women elevated from the perceived oppression of the Taliban period or not? Let us review the progress made under Ashraf Ghani who presently rules Kabul.
Ghani is the blue-eyed boy of the USA, having served as an academic there before joining the World Bank in 1991.
In 2014, Ghani was elected to lead his country. However, his main political opponent Abdullah Abdullah claimed that he was the true victor in the elections; that Ghani had cheated. Abdullah Abdullah belonged to the warlord faction of Ahmed Shah Massoud which raped the women of Kabul and destroyed major parts of the city during the civil war of 1992-1996. Abdullah Abdullah eventually agreed to compromise and served under Ghani as chief executive officer. This was ironically a title previously used by General Musharraf in Pakistan, who had overthrown a democratic order in 1999. It was an apt title for Abdullah Abdullah who could not accept the results of the elections which he appeared to have lost. In 2019, Ghani was re-elected to the president’s role, but Abdullah Abdullah again declared himself to be the winner and even held an inauguration ceremony for himself as president. Ghani eventually entered into a modus vivendi with Abdullah Abdullah resulting in a power sharing agreement.
In 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman named Farkhanda was murdered in the center of Kabul by a group of up to 50 men. Afghan police officers at the scene simply failed to protect her. Farkhanda had been accused of burning the Holy Quran. She was accused by a faith healer whose practices she had questioned. Farkhanda was attacked by a mob and viciously beaten. The inhumanity of the mob was such that a car was driven over her body. Large stones were then dropped on her. However, the mob’s bloodlust was not satiated until Farkhanda’s body was set alight beside the Kabul river.
The murder of Farkhanda illustrated the absence of rule of law and a lack of understanding about the rules of evidence or even an ability to understand the need to hear the accused before punishment. Farkhanda’s pleas were ignored by the mob when she proclaimed her innocence and they simply acted as judge, jury and executioner. The deeds of the 50 people in the mob that assaulted a solitary young woman were far worse than the false accusation that had been levelled at her.
The savage slaughter of Farkhanda in 2015 represented the everyday reality of Afghan women. Truth is, Afghan women had not advanced in society to being respected as full citizens. Rather they lived under the oppression of a patriarchal society which cannot be changed by mere window-dressing that the Americans had imposed through a change of government. Cultural norms are deeply ingrained and take time to change. The behavior of the murderous Kabul mob illustrated a profound lack of understanding of women’s rights under Islam or even the understanding that a man should not be touching a non-mahram let alone brutally assaulting her and ripping off her hijab.
What sentences did the murderers receive for this exceptionally barbaric execution, the inhumanity of which had not been seen since the dark days of Ahmed Shah Massoud? They merely got jail sentences between 10 and 20 years.
After Farkhanda’s death, no Afghan minister resigned from their post nor did Ashraf Ghani step down in the face of this abysmal atrocity. In fact, the status of women or their oppression was par for the course under the enlightened Ghani who wrote a book entitled Fixing Failed States. Regretfully the book does not address the question of the rights of women. In today’s Kabul women walking on the street are routinely sexually harassed or ogled at. A society that seeks to progress must learn to respect women’s rights. Ironically, in a 2017 interview to CNN, Laura Bush had said women were not allowed to walk outside alone in the Taliban period. Under the US occupation things have not changed much.
According to an interview given by President Ghani’s wife to CNN, women had progressed tremendously and that “you start seeing women in government organizations, you start seeing them in the private sector...many more girls studying, so women are a little bit everywhere.”
So how well have women progressed in government? In 2019, a scandal rocked Afghanistan when Habibullah Ahmadzai, a former presidential adviser, stated that senior politicians were “promoting prostitution.” Women who applied for jobs with the government would routinely face demands for sexual favors in exchange for work. One of the men involved was a close aide to Ghani. A culture of impunity exists amongst these government officials and to date no one has been punished for such unlawful acts.
Afghan women did get to play football competitively in the international arena after the fall of the Taliban. However, allegations surfaced that Keramuddin Kasim (a crony of Ahmed Shah Massoud and coach of the football team) had sexually harassed and abused young female players. Keramuddin has not faced any criminal penalties from the Afghan state.
Imperialist adventurers have long projected themselves as saviors of Muslim women and the US took advantage of this theme to present themselves as being on a civilizing mission to ‘save’ Afghan women. Yet all that the US has done is murder and bomb Afghan women and let fall prey to the unscrupulous. At a time when we are seeing the end of the US adventure in Afghanistan, there are some who say we cannot abandon the progress that has been achieved for Afghan women. What has been done under Ghani’s watch to Afghan women cannot be called progress.
From January 2005 to 2009, Ashraf Ghani was the chancellor of Kabul University. In 2010, The Times reported that Afghan professors were sexually harassing their female students. These students were into sexual relations with their professors who threatened to fail them in their exams.
So how did women fare in the new democratic order that the Americans promised to bring to Afghanistan? Were Afghan women elevated from the perceived oppression of the Taliban period or not? Let us review the progress made under Ashraf Ghani who presently rules Kabul.
Ghani is the blue-eyed boy of the USA, having served as an academic there before joining the World Bank in 1991.
In 2014, Ghani was elected to lead his country. However, his main political opponent Abdullah Abdullah claimed that he was the true victor in the elections; that Ghani had cheated. Abdullah Abdullah belonged to the warlord faction of Ahmed Shah Massoud which raped the women of Kabul and destroyed major parts of the city during the civil war of 1992-1996. Abdullah Abdullah eventually agreed to compromise and served under Ghani as chief executive officer. This was ironically a title previously used by General Musharraf in Pakistan, who had overthrown a democratic order in 1999. It was an apt title for Abdullah Abdullah who could not accept the results of the elections which he appeared to have lost. In 2019, Ghani was re-elected to the president’s role, but Abdullah Abdullah again declared himself to be the winner and even held an inauguration ceremony for himself as president. Ghani eventually entered into a modus vivendi with Abdullah Abdullah resulting in a power sharing agreement.
In 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman named Farkhanda was murdered in the center of Kabul by a group of up to 50 men. Afghan police officers at the scene simply failed to protect her. Farkhanda had been accused of burning the Holy Quran. She was accused by a faith healer whose practices she had questioned. Farkhanda was attacked by a mob and viciously beaten. The inhumanity of the mob was such that a car was driven over her body. Large stones were then dropped on her. However, the mob’s bloodlust was not satiated until Farkhanda’s body was set alight beside the Kabul river.
Imperialist adventurers have long projected themselves as saviors of Muslim women and the US took advantage of this theme
The murder of Farkhanda illustrated the absence of rule of law and a lack of understanding about the rules of evidence or even an ability to understand the need to hear the accused before punishment. Farkhanda’s pleas were ignored by the mob when she proclaimed her innocence and they simply acted as judge, jury and executioner. The deeds of the 50 people in the mob that assaulted a solitary young woman were far worse than the false accusation that had been levelled at her.
The savage slaughter of Farkhanda in 2015 represented the everyday reality of Afghan women. Truth is, Afghan women had not advanced in society to being respected as full citizens. Rather they lived under the oppression of a patriarchal society which cannot be changed by mere window-dressing that the Americans had imposed through a change of government. Cultural norms are deeply ingrained and take time to change. The behavior of the murderous Kabul mob illustrated a profound lack of understanding of women’s rights under Islam or even the understanding that a man should not be touching a non-mahram let alone brutally assaulting her and ripping off her hijab.
What sentences did the murderers receive for this exceptionally barbaric execution, the inhumanity of which had not been seen since the dark days of Ahmed Shah Massoud? They merely got jail sentences between 10 and 20 years.
After Farkhanda’s death, no Afghan minister resigned from their post nor did Ashraf Ghani step down in the face of this abysmal atrocity. In fact, the status of women or their oppression was par for the course under the enlightened Ghani who wrote a book entitled Fixing Failed States. Regretfully the book does not address the question of the rights of women. In today’s Kabul women walking on the street are routinely sexually harassed or ogled at. A society that seeks to progress must learn to respect women’s rights. Ironically, in a 2017 interview to CNN, Laura Bush had said women were not allowed to walk outside alone in the Taliban period. Under the US occupation things have not changed much.
According to an interview given by President Ghani’s wife to CNN, women had progressed tremendously and that “you start seeing women in government organizations, you start seeing them in the private sector...many more girls studying, so women are a little bit everywhere.”
So how well have women progressed in government? In 2019, a scandal rocked Afghanistan when Habibullah Ahmadzai, a former presidential adviser, stated that senior politicians were “promoting prostitution.” Women who applied for jobs with the government would routinely face demands for sexual favors in exchange for work. One of the men involved was a close aide to Ghani. A culture of impunity exists amongst these government officials and to date no one has been punished for such unlawful acts.
Afghan women did get to play football competitively in the international arena after the fall of the Taliban. However, allegations surfaced that Keramuddin Kasim (a crony of Ahmed Shah Massoud and coach of the football team) had sexually harassed and abused young female players. Keramuddin has not faced any criminal penalties from the Afghan state.
Imperialist adventurers have long projected themselves as saviors of Muslim women and the US took advantage of this theme to present themselves as being on a civilizing mission to ‘save’ Afghan women. Yet all that the US has done is murder and bomb Afghan women and let fall prey to the unscrupulous. At a time when we are seeing the end of the US adventure in Afghanistan, there are some who say we cannot abandon the progress that has been achieved for Afghan women. What has been done under Ghani’s watch to Afghan women cannot be called progress.