Feminism as veiled islamophobia dominates discourse about afghanistan
Banning burkinis, the War on Terror and the US occupation of Afghanistan have nothing to do with improving the lives of women. Why, then, did Women’s welfare become central to any discussion about these topics?
ESTE ARTIGO ESTÁ DISPONÍVEL EM PORTUGUÊS (BR) NA LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE BRASIL.
RAWA protesting against the Taliban in Peshawar, 1998.
To wage War in the name of Human Rights is an oxymoron. Nevertheless, this is exactly how the United States, and its mass media, is diverging attention from the fact that it has just lost another war. Feminism and LGBTQ+ rights was never the motivation behind the occupation of Afghanistan. And yet, the Taliban’s treatment of women and gays seems to be at the forefront of all mediatic discussion about the pulling-out of American troops. As a woman, it’s pertinent to honestly show how uncomfortable it is to see Women’s rights being used to paint a racist imperialist regime in good light. To pair concerns for the educational future of Afghan girls with demands for the extermination of “primitive” Islamists feels like using feminism as a veil for islamophobia. Women’s rights are violated everywhere in the world, every day. Could it be that we lack perspective on the gendered violence present in the Christian world because we are submerged in it?
The Christian world is far from immune to gender-based violence, and of course it’s oblivious to this violence — it’s oblivious even to its own Christianness. Do you know any woman who’s unafraid to walk alone around a city late at night? Who has never felt pressure to marry and start a family? Who hasn’t been afraid, insecure or in denial about their homosexual tendencies? And if we look closely enough, we will find too many cases of horrific violence against women in the west that is seldom contextualized around religion. This is not a Middle Eastern story, it’s our story. We are all — everywhere — struggling in our own way to reach a bare minimum of societal wellbeing, ideally free from inequality and phobias. And, let’s be honest, none of us have gotten close to achieving it.
In order to continue to perceive the USA and Europe as being at the forefront of human development, we must make an elaborate mental gymnastics where we only see the things that paint them in good light, and veil the bad. In this case, ‘secular Christianity’ has done wonders to hide the ugly sides of Western religious fundamentalism, all the while endorsing the (not-at-all-secular) belief in ethnic superiority. Government leaders often cite the bible, and policymakers are inevitably influenced by their religious views, explicitly or implicitly. At the same time, these leaders rely on a sense of superiority that, supposedly, stems from bloated concepts like Democracy and Freedom.
“Western discourses surrounding Islam, fundamentalism and Muslim women have been interwoven since the onset of European colonial enterprises.” — Janine Rich in ‘”Saving" Muslim Women: Feminism, U.S Policy and the War on Terror’
In what way is endorsing Women’s education reminiscent of European colonization? Colonization has always relied on racial supremacy to flourish. It was the ground in which slavery and Christianization was justified. For the colonial project to endure, the ‘other’, or the colonized, ought to be rescued from themselves; Imposing a narrative is easier and cheaper than imposing an apparatus of force. In the case of US occupation, both tools were used shamelessly. ‘Allowing girls to study’ sustained the narrative that the presence of the USA did something to civilize primitive tribes. As Leila Ahmed describes in her book Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate:
“The idea that Other men, men in colonized societies or societies beyond the borders of the civilized West, oppressed women was to be used, in the rhetoric of colonialism, to render morally justifiable its project of undermining or eradicating the cultures of colonized peoples.”
According to Janine Rich in her publication at the International Affairs Review in 2014, “saving women” has been a powerful tool for Western interference in the Middle East, especially as the region became caught up in the tug-of-war between the USA and the USSR. She goes further to show that Western military presence in the Middle East hasn’t only appropriated women’s welfare to justify the “war on terror”, but it has also worsened “the status of women’s rights in the region”. Although the Taliban did restrict women’s access to education and made the veil compulsory, this meant changes to the urban demographic, which since the 90s has accounted for anything less than 26% of the Afghan population. For rural women, not much changed, except for the almost complete eradication of rape.
Moreover, all throughout the 20th century, feminist uprisings by Afghan women were severely weakened by the suspicion of Western meddling. A notorious example of this was RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan), which was founded in the 70s in fierce opposition to not only all Afghan government systems, but also Soviet and US intervention. They even threatened to sue the US government for the unauthorized use of their images by Americans during the invasion in 2001, and later arguing that Afghan forces supported by NATO were as problematic as the Taliban. Since the early 80s, RAWA has been in Pakistan — largely ignored by the Western feminist organizations that once co-oped them. As Rich explains:
“To put it simply, it is not convenient to attempt to save a woman who is telling you that your organization and your country of origin are doing more harm than help.” […]
“They [‘the other’] are the ultimate evil, so We are the ultimate good. They harm women, so We bring only gender justice. This is a false dichotomy that operates on many levels, wherein we not only assume absolute difference from our enemies, but also absolute difference from the “oppressed women” we purport to be saving.”
This difference between us and the women that ought to be saved is exemplified by the burkini debacle in France a few years ago. The Muslim-ness which emanated from the attire made people and policy-makers in France very uncomfortable. This discomfort, caused by the contrast between ‘us’ and ‘them’, would have been comical if it didn’t translate into decade after decade of War, sustained by the narrative that anything ‘Arab’ is ‘Terror’. Were the lives of burkini-wearing women helped by the passing of this legislation? Absolutely not. Were the lives of non-burkini-wearing women helped by it? Also, not.
“Muslim women in France are a minority group, and obviously not all Muslim women in France desire to don this particular style of swimwear (in fact, The Times even reported that many of the mayors considering implementing a ban admitted they had never actually seen a burkini). But sadly, the cognitive link between what is visibly recognized as Islamic styles of modest dress and threats of terrorism is already well established in France. One, it would appear, does not have to work hard to convince the majority populace that there is a direct link between a woman who covers her hair in public and a suicide bomber.” — Janine Rich in “The 'Burkini Battle': France’s capitulation to extremism”
Banning burkinis, the War on Terror and the US occupation of Afghanistan have nothing to do with improving the lives of women. Why, then, did Women’s welfare become central to any discussion about these topics? We ought to look critically at how mass media portrays Islamic peoples. More often than not, the discourse is tainted by prejudices, fear of the unknown, and, most importantly, the geopolitical interests of imperialist forces which don’t have the best interest of the people — any people, anywhere — in mind. It is often said that War is a profitable industry, and it is worth emphasizing on how this is true specifically to the United States — as it manufactures more weapons than all other countries combined. Perhaps because of its sheer magnitude, this industry is out of our scope of influence as individuals. But knowing what Women’s rights actually looks like is within our reach. Demonstrating respect and admiration for Afghan people and their history is within our reach. This way, we can dismantle the narrative that enables brutality by impeding Feminism from being used to further institutionalized islamophobia.
MIRNA WABI-SABI
is a writer, political theorist, editor, teacher and translator. She’s site editor at Gods and Radicals, and managing editor at PLATAFORMA9.