Time To Stand With The Women
This week Lawrence Cannon joins other foreign affairs ministers in Afghanistan for the Kabul Conference, to hear what the Karzai government has to say for itself regarding its plans for combating corruption and improving the delivery of services to Afghan citizens. With withdrawal impending next year, it’s not clear in which areas Canadian dollars will be committed; but it is clear that enthusiasm in the Conservative government for Afghanistan is quickly waning.
Fair enough, considering that there has never been overwhelming public appetite for our Afghan engagement and politicians do seek to stay in power, after all. Further, the Karzai government admittedly makes for a challenging bilateral partner, and the insurgency rages on after eight years.
In the short-term, disentanglement from this mess seems very practical, especially as other NATO partners find ‘exit strategy’ in their lexicon more often these days than ‘winning’. Of course, recent past history should remind us that in the long term, abandoning Afghanistan by deadlines derived from our own squirming discomfort at being found dealing with other people’s problems in far-off Central Asia rather than by the achievement of specific objectives would be disastrous. Premature disinterest in Afghanistan’s future will almost certainly come back to bite us in the form of terrorism spilling out of the region again and landing on our doorstep in the west. But besides bothering with our own survival years or even decades down the road, what of the moral imperative to stand by the people of Afghanistan?
In a Canada where the ‘anti-war’ movement has come to mean advocating for abandonment, rather than confronting fascism, totalitarianism and terrorism of innocents, talk of ethical obligations towards people in other places has been drowned out by our increasing insularity. A naïve desire for the Canadian reputation to only be associated with blue berets, and especially not to be seen as meddling in Muslim countries, even when fundamentalism runs rampant over the unwilling, has helped us excuse ourselves out of following our thoughts long enough to visualize the consequences of pacifism and appeasement, to paraphrase Orwell. That consequence is, of course, moreviolence, not less; and a reversal of basic human rights and human security. In the case of Afghanistan, it may very well mean a return to Taliban rule. In that scenario, everyone loses, but especially Afghan women.
It is precisely the gains Afghan women have made over the past eight years that should give Canadians reason enough to insist to our government that we cannot walk away just yet. Our military may be leaving, but on the development front we must continue to support the advancement of women’s rights through investments in education, health and livelihoods, as well as democratic development and good governance. The gains made- women’s presence in parliament, the return of over two million girls to school, the rising human development indicators, women-run businesses springing up around the country- are too valuable to give up quite so easily, or to leave vulnerable to annihilation from the Taliban’s ideology of misogyny.
Afghan women will not give up their fight as quietly as many Canadians are willing to, and they remind us that “achieving a lasting peace is impossible without the realization of justice, good governance, rule of law and respect for human rights,” as articulated in a statement released on July 14th by the 50% Campaign, which is led by the Women’s Political Participation Committee, a coalition of over 200 women’s and civil society organizations in Afghanistan.
Groups like the WPPC, the Afghan Women’s Network, Afghan women MPs and others have been pushing from the sidelines of the Kabul Conference, where their participation and leadership have been token at best, trying desperately to be heard by both the Karzai government and the international donors, that their rights are not bargaining chips to be traded away in deal-making with the Taliban. Amidst the push for a political settlement with the Taliban, a clear commitment to uphold the rights women are entitled to, under both the Afghan Constitution and international law, has not been vocalized by Karzai nor by donor governments in the lead-up to the Kabul Conference. Thea Garland writing in the New York Times on Wednesday reminds us that, “if the Taliban were brought into the government, they would likely demand Shariah law”... “Iran, invoking Shariah law, last week sentenced Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, a 43-year-old mother of two, to death by stoning”.
Governments never go to war to protect the rights of women. The best that women can hope for is to gain some ground when regimes change, and for a fleeting spotlight on their country that makes it harder to deny their rights with utter impunity. As the western backers of Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy hope no one remembers the resolute statements that implied they would see this thing through to the end, Afghan women still remember Hillary Clinton’s words to them in May this year: “We will not abandon you”… “We will stand with you always.”
It’s Canada’s turn to stand with Afghan women. Not only because it’s in our own self-interest to stand up for the basic rights of Afghans and to see a lasting stability finally come to Afghanistan, but also because it’s the right thing to do.
Lauryn Oates is a human rights activist and Projects Director for Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan
