Voice of voiceless
As the CIA was busy chiseling out Mujahideen back in 1980s, corporate publishing houses in West were working just as hard to publish books on Afghanistan. Even Hollywood every now and then would lend a helping hand (Rambo III). In the 1990s, Pamir hills lost their appeal to lure Western writers and journalists. September 11, however, revived the Western interest in Afghanistan. From Khaled Hosseini's fictional ''The Kite Runner" to Åsne Seierstad's shamelessly fabricated ''Bookseller of Kabul", bookstalls were inundated by superficial best sellers with Afghanistan as title. Any serious work, ''Bleeding Afghanistan" by Sonali Kolhatkar for instance, was expediently ignored by commissars editing the cultural pages.
Back in 1980s, formula books authored by writers and journalists sneaking into Afghanistan embedded with Mujahideen, used to demonize Soviets and Communists while glorifying Mujahideen. The current trend is to demonize Taliban, eulogize Hamid Karzai (once a Taliban sponsor) and glorify Ahmad Shah Masood (a new found martyr). Behind the altruistic figures of Hamid Karzai and Ahmad Shah Masood, lurks the image of a benign Uncle Sam.
Alas! Occupation were as smooth an affair as these books would have us believe. Despite UN cover, occupation is bound to meet resistance. In case of Afghanistan, it is not the Taliban 'resistance' that poses the real problem. They can be cajoled, bribed, and bombed if necessary. Karzai's real rival, therefore, is not Mullah Omar. In fact, both have many similarities. One is puppet for Washington, other is ISI's proxy. Both were a product of ISI-CIA mating in 1980s. Karzai's nemesis is in fact Malalai Joya (1).
By an ironical coincidence, Malalai Joya shot to fame through the same political façade (Loya Jirga and parliament) that Washington mounted to guise Occupation in a 'democratic' cloak.
Now she shares her story with the entire world through her biography 'Raising My Voice'. Already translated into a dozen languages, 'Raising My Voice' not merely narrates glorious awards and inglorious threats her work has brought her. In this fascinating account, she describes the atrocities inflicted on Afghanistan in the course of a bloody great game big powers and country's powerful neighbors have been busy playing on Afghan fields for last three decades. Born (April 1978) during the Russian invasion, Joya's one of ''earliest memories is of clinging to my mother's legs while policeman ransacked our house looking for my father'. Described by Joya as secular, nationalist and liberal person, her father was opposed to Soviet invasion. Hence, Afghanistan's 'communist regime' was hunting him all the time. He escaped to Iran where Joya and rest of the family later joined him.
Life at refugee camps in Iran was not easy. Despite Khomeni regime's demagogy about Muslim brethren, Afghans were treated as children of lesser Allah. When Soviet forces withdrew, Joya's family returned to Afghanistan only to find the country plunging into a new civil war. Like millions of other Afghan, Joya's family moved to refugee camps in Pakistan where Joya enrolled at a RAWA school (2). When Taliban reached the helm of Kabul, Joya was offered an intriguing but extremely risky job by an NGO. Her job was to run underground schools for girls in Herat. She accepted the offer and embarked upon an adventurous but highly important journey: familiarizing Afghan girls with alphabets which put together become words. Having overcome all sorts of armed resistance, the Taliban were now out to subdue words. It is after all words that at some stage translate into subversive ideas. Joya reclls: ''On one occasion, I even burned two notebooks full of personal memories because I was afraid they would be found when our house was searched. I cried as I watched them burn, but I could not risk them falling into the hands of the Taliban."
Taliban regime
Current amnesia aside, ''As recently as May 2001 the Taliban were given 43 million dollars as reward for controlling the poppy crop." Puritan Taliban had no qualms either about accepting infidel money. What they could not tolerate was infidel practices. Hence, ''heads were lopped off store mannequins as well as priceless museum pieces".
Taliban's zeal for establishing a puritan society sometimes, however, led to absurdly funny things: ''Sometimes men and boys ended up praying seven or eight times in one day, because the Taliban wrongly accused them of missing one of the prayers".
Tyranny always invokes opposition. A civil society systematically brutalized, however, could offer only weak forms to start with. Joya narrates: ''Young people rebelled in different ways. Some neighbourhood girls became good friends of mine. Sometimes we would invite them over and all of us would dance to amuse ourselves. And dancing was strictly forbidden. ....Sometimes girls would even wear Western-style clothes and put on make-up underneath the burqa".
The 'Titanic resistance' deserves a special mention and Joya devotes an entire page to this episode: ''Of course, despite (and because of) all the restrictions, there was still a black market, and it was during these years that the Hollywood film Titanic became a huge underground sensation. People smuggled copies of film, and other contraband, across the Iranian border. Young people were especially big fans. Children and young adults would organise secret 'Titanic parties' to watch this movie". Joya also arranged to see Titanic. ''Some merchants even went so far as to name their vegetables after the movie. So you could go to the market and buy Titanic onions, Titanic tomatoes, eggplants, potatoes, and so on"
Hence, after ''the Taliban regime fell in 2001, one of the first things people did was buy cassettes and DVDs - they became bestsellers at the markets that were suddenly full of them". She could also have mentioned that barber shops were equally busy. Men lined outside barber shops to have their first shave in years.
Meantime, most of ''the Taliban were long gone before the first bombs fell on Farah. Some of them shaved off their beards to make themselves less conspicuous as they ran away."
Old toxic wine in rusty old bottles
'Raising My Voice' offers a sharp indictment of the regime Washington installed to 'liberate' Afghan women, plant 'democracy' and 'rebuild' the country. One finds the very monsters who consigned Afghan women to the status of concubine, brutalized the civil society, pillaged the country are now holding ministerial portfolios and framing countries 'constitution'.
There is dreaded Wahabbi warlord Rasul Sayyaf. He was ''a leading theorist of global jihad, running training camps in Pakistan that were a magnet for militant Muslims from every country". Lest we should forget, it was Sayyaf who first invited Osama to Afghanistan and trained Khaled Shaikh Mohammaed.
Karim Khurram, a leading member of Hekmatyar's party, was appointed as minister of Culture, Information and Tourism. He once stopped a woman photographer from taking his photo saying he did not want to be photographed by a woman.
Even Taliban leaders were accommodated and co-opted. Arsala Rehmani was appointed as Senate member by Karrzai. Sayed Rehmatullah Hashemi, a Taliban spokesperson, was granted special status to study at Yale University. All Hashemi had to do was to shave his beard off to study at Yale. He did it without hesitation.
An important pillar helping Karzai regime to stand on its feet is Ismail Khan. Iran-backed ''Ismail Khan remade his version of Taliban's 'Vice and Virtue' squads to enforce his primitive fundamentalism. Like the Taliban, Khan's men roamed the province harassing men for dressing in western clothes, smashing and burning videos and music cassettes and terrorising women. They even dragged women off the streets - if they were found with a male companion who was not a close relative - to conduct humiliating medical examinations to make sure they were virtuous".
Besides implementing Sharia, the democratically-elected-at-gun-point warlords swindle money and shamelessly show it off too. ''Once in a TV interview in Kabul, Mohaqiq showed off three of his luxury armoured vehicles. People joked that he once had no donkey to ride, but suddenly today he owns such expensive cars".
Early in 2007, these warlords demonstrated their contempt for justice by passing the so-called Reconciliation Draft Law granting themselves immunity for all war crimes committed since 1979.
Jirga to suspension
It was the Loya Jirga convened in 2004 to approve the constitution where Joya made her first mark. The Jirga was chaired by Mojaddedi who told the women delegates: ''Even God has not given you equal rights because under his decision two women are counted as equal to one man."
When she criticized the warlords and US hypocrisy at Jirga, even 'Viceroy' Zalmay Khalilzad was upset and thought Joya had overstepped the framework of politeness. She wrote a letter to Khalilzad:
Mr Khalilzad Salam,
If these criminals raped your mother or daughter or even your grandmother, or killed seven of your sons, let alone destroyed all the moral and material treasure of your country, what words would you use against such criminals and puppets that will be inside the framework of politeness and respect?
Malalai Joya.
Afghan voters though thought her speech perfectly in line with framework of politeness and voted her to parliament where she became a voice of the voiceless. But at the same time, she was daily threatened by fellow parliaments, physically attacked in a few cases, and subjected to vicious character assassination campaign.
In one case, the warlords bussed in thousands of men to march and demand ''Death to Joya". Niaz Mohammad Amiri, Sayyaf's man, would never miss an opportunity, on the floor of house, calling her a whore.
Flyers were distributed calling her prostitute, communist and anti-Islamic. ''Among the worst was a leaflet that showed a photograph of me without my headscarf, falsely saying that the picture was taken at the Loya Jirga. Underneath was the awful slogan: ''She took off her scarf at the Loya Jirga, she'll take off her pants in Parliament." Once she was abroad on Valentine day and it was propagated that she was abroad for love making on Valentine Day.
In her two years at parliament, she never once had the chance to speak without her microphone cutting off. But even her half-delivered speeches were too much to be tolerated. Hence, she was suspended from parliament. Her suspension has been widely criticized. From Noam Chomsky to Noami Klein, host of noted people have signed petition for her reinstatement. She now leads an underground life. To hide her identity, she wears burqa which she otherwise hates. This is the real-life Afghanistan Joya narrates in her 'Rising My Voice', an Afghanistan we often never come across in bestselling titles.
Notes.
1. For Joya's detailed introduction see Viewpoint's online issue no. 2.
2. RAWA stands for Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (www.rawa.org)