Despite the discrimination that has been directed at Afghan women, their continued presence in civil, libertarian, and rights-oriented activities in the past year is an important, rare and highly promising milestone.
The strategy of terror and intimidation that the Taliban has followed since its emergence until today, was able to break the spirit of resistance among some men and make them accept the rule of the Taliban and surrender. But women who have gained knowledge and realized their abilities, bravely stood up against the Taliban’s tyranny, torture, whipping and repression to shout out their fundamental rights with courage. The coincidence of this movement with the wide wave of protests that started in Iran, and the main body of which is made up of the fighting and rights-seeking women of that country, has multiplied the belief in the abilities of women and their role in the developments of the region.
Before this, it was thought that Eastern societies do not allow women to work, and Eastern culture is based on structural discrimination between men and women, and it seems that the inevitable fate of these societies cannot be anything other than this. Now, it has become clear that ignoring the intellectual leaps in the new generation and the changes that have occurred in the heart of society has been a part of the presupposition of the error that many have been caught in their calculations. Today, the women of Afghanistan and Iran have become a part of the driving engine of social and political developments, which by producing a liberating force, give the men of their lands the courage to come to the field and defend the human rights of the citizens. Although Iran and Afghanistan are not at the same level in terms of cultural and social development, and the economic conditions are also very different, significant symmetries connect the two: both countries are under the rule of fundamentalist mullahs, in both of them basic human rights are ignored and in both countries women are second class citizens. On the other hand, in both countries, it is these women who bravely come to the streets and make men aware of their historical responsibility to defend the fundamental rights of human beings.
In Afghanistan, from Herat to Khost, from Kabul to Mazar and from Bamiyan to Panjshir, our brave women and girls have shouted for freedom and rights and challenged the tyranny of the Taliban. These courageous movements, with all the challenges that are in front of them, will remain as streams that will gradually become a wide flood and take the system of tyrants and dictators with it. A few years ago, we had the women of Kobani who, when they found out about ISIS’s enslavement in Iraq and Syria, instead of succumbing to their fate and surrendering to fundamentalist brutality, they went to the trenches side by side with the fighting men, to show that genuine humanity and dignity, cannot be divided into femininity and masculinity. A person who has realized the essence of his existence and is aware of the determining role of his own will make the history; Whether it is a woman or a man. Before that, human history has other women fighters in memory who took part in guerrilla wars for liberation struggles against the colonialists and engraved their names in the history of the independence of their countries. Women in Afghanistan have now entered the field of struggle and they want to write history this time. A history that will not be marked by patriarchy and discrimination, but by free and original humanity.
