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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Afghan women's voices

60 replies

ArabellaScott · 25/08/2024 13:17

Given the latest attempt by the Taliban to further silence the women of Afghanistan, seek out the writing and words and music of Afghan women.

Here's a long and very well written article on landays - a form of Afghan poetry.

https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

'When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.'

'In Afghan culture, poetry is revered, particularly the high literary forms that derive from Persian or Arabic. But the poem above is a folk couplet — a landay — an oral and often anonymous scrap of song created by and for mostly illiterate people: the more than twenty million Pashtun women who span the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan'

Landays: Poetry of Afghan Women

Poetry Magazine, June 2013

https://static.poetryfoundation.org/o/media/landays.html

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ArabellaScott · 26/08/2024 18:26

And the formatting has fucked up the Farsi/Dari. Trying again.

The hashtag has underscores separating the words, but that translates badly on MN, so posting with spaces instead:

زن زندگى آزادى

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ArabellaScott · 26/08/2024 18:23

زنزندگىآزادى

'Woman, life, freedom.'

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Imnobody4 · 26/08/2024 18:01

Powerful speech from Masih Alinejad calling for governments to act. 'The world must unite to criminalize Taliban and Islamic Republic as gender apartheid regimes.'

The new Taliban law in Afghanistan that demands not only covering a woman’s face and entire body but also forbids even the sound of her voice is like burying them alive before the eyes of the world. Don’t watch “The Handmaid’s Tale”—this is reality.

https://x.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1828052445127115167?t=HI0y-aFPyVthRd3ZeU4Ptw&s=19

x.com

https://x.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1828052445127115167?s=19&t=HI0y-aFPyVthRd3ZeU4Ptw

ArabellaScott · 25/08/2024 21:29

https://x.com/NasimiShabnam/status/1827099149122335067

Shabnam Nasimi, Former Policy Advisor to Minister for Afghan Resettlement & Minister for Refugees:

'Women in Afghanistan are being obliterated—no voice, no face, no existence. The Taliban’s latest decrees are nothing short of barbaric: women banned from singing, reciting poetry, or even speaking aloud in public. Their faces and bodies must hidden from the world. This isn’t just an Afghanistan tragedy; it is a stain on the global conscience, brought about by our failure to act.

'The UN conceded to their demands to exclude women from the Doha talks, and in doing so, empowered this regime. The global community’s silence has enabled their brutal tyranny. Global leaders, through their inaction, are accomplices to this cruelty and the most extreme Islamist misogyny imaginable.

The time for platitudes is over. We must stop the Taliban’s free rein, impose strict conditions on any aid to Afghanistan. We must push for an ICC investigation against these atrocities. And we must issue warrants against Taliban leaders. Enough is enough.

Afghanistan’s women deserve the right to asylum anywhere in the world and for the world to create educational opportunities globally. This is not just Afghanistan’s crisis—it is the world’s. This is gender apartheid. We must speak out, lobby relentlessly, and defend Afghan women with unwavering resolve. It is time to stand by them in their fight for equality, for humanity. We must act, decisively and immediately.'

I honestly don't know how effective any of that might be. But it's maybe at least a start.

x.com

https://x.com/NasimiShabnam/status/1827099149122335067

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TrainedByDinosaurs · 25/08/2024 21:19

It’s so awful and realising that one or two men in Western governments do no more than make the occasional mild rebuke to the Taliban is frightening.

I feel like we need to do something but no idea what

larklane17 · 25/08/2024 21:08

I hope that they do know Arabella. The courage it takes for them to post on social media, it's humbling isn't it?

ArabellaScott · 25/08/2024 16:55

Some Afghan women are still on social media, posting in Pashtun or Dari/Farsi.

I'd love them to know that women all over the world are thinking of them, and haven't forgotten them.

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larklane17 · 25/08/2024 16:02

Thanks Arabella.
I've read it. It's important to ear theses voices.
Women, even in the darkest of places, manage to meet and organise.

Helleofabore · 25/08/2024 14:38

Thanks Arabella. Something to read later.

quixote9 · 25/08/2024 14:21

Thank you for posting this! That quoted couplet, 'When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.
When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others.'

Dear God. True. Heartstopping. And the world tolerates this insane ultra-apartheid because ... what? It's only women?