Afghan women's voices

[ArabellaScott]

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'

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?

Thanks Arabella. Something to read later.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

زنزندگىآزادى

'Woman, life, freedom.'

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

I’m reading Vox at the moment in which women are limited to only speaking 100 words a day. It seems so far fetched and yet … these poor Afghan women are living in some kind of dystopian nightmare.

still singing

I can't find any comment from leading Labour women. Why hasn't Anneliese Dodds, Yvette Cooper, Bridget Phillipson etc spoken out.
They all had much to say when US withdrew. Why the silence. Has anyone else seen anything.

That's a very good point.

On X, Dodds is posting about Sudan, Mongolia, and Syria. Brazil, and of course Gaza.

Not a word about Afghanistan.

She did ask a (very brief) question about Afghanistan in April:

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/wrans/?id=2024-05-13.25921.h&s=anneliese+dodds

And Cooper has recently brought in this sanctuary law for those fleeing Afghanistan, so that's something.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13690395/Sanctuary-brave-Home-Secretary-Yvette-Copper-announces-long-awaited-reunion-scheme-Afghan-families-separated-2021-military-evacuation-Kabul.html

But one might have expected a bit more noise.

I'd never heard of Landays before, fascinating stuff. They seem similar to Koans but less abstract.
And I know most of us are aware, but for those who arent it bares repeating.

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/uk-news/jk-rowling-schindlers-list-moment-29073117
'Lord David Alton told the chamber how the writer and Lord Hintze "in a Schindler's List moment" came forward to help when veteran human rights lawyer Baroness Helena Kennedy needed money to rescue female lawyers - mainly judges - and their families.
Lord Alton said that, thanks to "spontaneous, generous and very substantial" private funding, "some 500 people were evacuated - 103 were women lawyers, all of whom, with their children and husbands, were on Taliban kill lists".'

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZ29lLxKFPPTefpjUX9mCNx2Rp1wo8lyH

Playlist of Afghan women singing.

Thanks for sharing @ArabellaScott - this is terrifying.

I'm amazed the international community is so quietly standing by on this - and yet I think the influence of this is evident the world over and especially in the UK , with VAWG rates soaring, Andrew Tate followers everywhere and even boys in school misogynistic attitudes and even violence against their female teachers.

We need to write to all relevant MPs, give money to relevant charities and join street marches - just need to find them/ publicise them/ organise them! Wonder what Pakistani women next door think about the whole situation and more worryingly, what do Pakistani men think - we can't have them getting ideas given their number and global spread and influence. I so fear for the future for girls and women.

Where are the Afghan men? They just seem so weak in all this, desperately fleeing to save themselves leaving their women and girls to live in this nightmare.

When they say women cannot speak in public as they regard women’s voices as a form of intimacy it is incredibly frightening yet the whole world acts like this is normal. There have been very few reactions of comments to what is happening and the Taliban are emboldened by this indifference. It is not only women but all human beings they are targeting. They must be held accountable.”

Sorry last para above from the Guardian article - it looked like it had kept l the formatting but evidently not.

Lucy Hunter Blackburn has updated 'women's rights are humans rights' in honour of Afghan women.

Lovely thread:

x.com/WRNAfghanistan/status/1830224110603186608

I’ve not seen it mentioned anywhere but we watch a lot of cricket in our house and the Afghanistan men’s team are breaking through in limited overs matches. Is there any way to use this as a lever? Not sure when the national team is due to play next but maybe some sort of protest there?
I’ll do a bit of digging

I can’t understand the thinking behind this - it is so sexually arousing for men to hear or see anything female that they will sin, so the solution is to remove all women from society?

Ostensibly yes. To 'prevent vice'.

Its some hideous perversion of Islam perhaps? I don't know.

There was a powerful piece in the Sunday Times yesterday by an Afghan woman speaking using a pseudonym about her experiences:

https://www.thetimes.com/world/europe/article/how-taliban-silenced-afghanistan-womens-rights-cvxlgmvpw