TheMojoPin
09-11-2002, 08:46 AM
This is the latest newsletter from RAWA, a secret organization of Afhani women who still live in the country who have fought for decades against the various extremist groups who have tried to violently wrest control from the country. These women have risked their lives to educate themselves and other women and help those wishing to escape the Taliban flee the country. The newest posting brings up some interesting issues as to who is really in charge if Afghanistan, and if things really can be better this soon...
"Neither opium cultivation nor warlordism have been eradicated in Afghanistan. There is neither peace nor stability in this tormented country, nor has there been any relief from the scourges of extreme pauperization, prostitution, and wanton plunder. Women feel much more insecure than in the past. The bitter fact that even the personal security of the President of the country cannot be maintained without recourse to foreign bodyguards and the recent terrorist acts in our country speak eloquent volumes about the chaotic and terrorist-ridden situation of the country. Why is it so? Why has the thunderous uproar in the aftermath of September 11 resulted in nothing? For the following reasons which RAWA has reiterated time and again:
1. For the people of Afghanistan, it is "out of the frying pan, into the fire". Instead of the Taliban terrorists, Jihadi terrorists of the "Northern Alliance" have been installed in power. The Jihadi and the Taliban fundamentalists share a common ideology; their differences are the usual differences between brethren-in-creed.
2. For the past more or less twenty years, Osama bin Laden has had Afghan fundamentalists on his payroll and has been paying their leaders considerable stipends. He and Mullah Omar, together with a band of followers equipped with the necessary communication resources, can live for many years under the protection of different fundamentalist bands in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to plot against the people of Afghanistan and the rest of humankind.
3. The Taliban and the al-Qaeda phenomena, as manifestations of an ideology and a political culture infesting an Islamic country, could only have been uprooted by a popular insurrection and the strengthening and coming to power of secular democratic forces. Such a purge cannot be effected solely with the physical elimination of the likes of Osama and Mullah Omar.
The "Northern Alliance" can never sincerely want the total elimination of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, as such elimination would mean the end of the raison d'ˆtre of the backing and support extended to them by foreign forces presently dominant in the country. This was the rationale behind RAWA's slogan for the overthrow of the Taliban and al-Qaeda through popular insurrection. Unfortunately, before such popular insurrection could come about, the Taliban and al-Qaeda forfeited their positions to the "brethren of the 'Northern Alliance'" without suffering any crippling decimation.
With their second occupation of Kabul, the "Northern Alliance" thwarted any hopes for a radical, meaningful change. They are themselves now the source and root of insecurity, the disgraceful police atmosphere of the Loya Jirga, rampant terrorism, gagging of democracy, atrocious violations of human rights, mounting pauperization, prostitution and corruption, the flourishing of poppy cultivation, failure of beginning to reconstruct, and a host of further unlisted evils, too many to enumerate.
Oppression and crimes against women are rife in different forms throughout the country. RAWA has always maintained that the fundamentalists' rabid hatred of women as equal human beings -be they fundamentalists of the Jihadi brand or of the Taliban one- is not due merely to their unhealthy upbringing or morbid mind frame, but emanates from their religio-fascistic ideological world outlook. As long as such an ideology exists, propped up by military forces available at its disposal, neither crazed misogyny nor a myriad of shameful social evils associated with it can be
"Neither opium cultivation nor warlordism have been eradicated in Afghanistan. There is neither peace nor stability in this tormented country, nor has there been any relief from the scourges of extreme pauperization, prostitution, and wanton plunder. Women feel much more insecure than in the past. The bitter fact that even the personal security of the President of the country cannot be maintained without recourse to foreign bodyguards and the recent terrorist acts in our country speak eloquent volumes about the chaotic and terrorist-ridden situation of the country. Why is it so? Why has the thunderous uproar in the aftermath of September 11 resulted in nothing? For the following reasons which RAWA has reiterated time and again:
1. For the people of Afghanistan, it is "out of the frying pan, into the fire". Instead of the Taliban terrorists, Jihadi terrorists of the "Northern Alliance" have been installed in power. The Jihadi and the Taliban fundamentalists share a common ideology; their differences are the usual differences between brethren-in-creed.
2. For the past more or less twenty years, Osama bin Laden has had Afghan fundamentalists on his payroll and has been paying their leaders considerable stipends. He and Mullah Omar, together with a band of followers equipped with the necessary communication resources, can live for many years under the protection of different fundamentalist bands in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to plot against the people of Afghanistan and the rest of humankind.
3. The Taliban and the al-Qaeda phenomena, as manifestations of an ideology and a political culture infesting an Islamic country, could only have been uprooted by a popular insurrection and the strengthening and coming to power of secular democratic forces. Such a purge cannot be effected solely with the physical elimination of the likes of Osama and Mullah Omar.
The "Northern Alliance" can never sincerely want the total elimination of the Taliban and the al-Qaeda, as such elimination would mean the end of the raison d'ˆtre of the backing and support extended to them by foreign forces presently dominant in the country. This was the rationale behind RAWA's slogan for the overthrow of the Taliban and al-Qaeda through popular insurrection. Unfortunately, before such popular insurrection could come about, the Taliban and al-Qaeda forfeited their positions to the "brethren of the 'Northern Alliance'" without suffering any crippling decimation.
With their second occupation of Kabul, the "Northern Alliance" thwarted any hopes for a radical, meaningful change. They are themselves now the source and root of insecurity, the disgraceful police atmosphere of the Loya Jirga, rampant terrorism, gagging of democracy, atrocious violations of human rights, mounting pauperization, prostitution and corruption, the flourishing of poppy cultivation, failure of beginning to reconstruct, and a host of further unlisted evils, too many to enumerate.
Oppression and crimes against women are rife in different forms throughout the country. RAWA has always maintained that the fundamentalists' rabid hatred of women as equal human beings -be they fundamentalists of the Jihadi brand or of the Taliban one- is not due merely to their unhealthy upbringing or morbid mind frame, but emanates from their religio-fascistic ideological world outlook. As long as such an ideology exists, propped up by military forces available at its disposal, neither crazed misogyny nor a myriad of shameful social evils associated with it can be