Talk:Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan/Temp

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Logo of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) (جمعیت انقلابی زنان افغانستان) is a women's organization in Afghanistan that promotes women's rights and secular democracy. It was founded in Kabul in 1977 by Meena Keshwar Kamal, a student activist who was assassinated in 1987 for her political activities. The group opposed both the Soviet-supported regime and the later Mujahideen and Taliban Islamist rulers. Since RAWA opposes all forms of religious fundamentalism, it is regarded as a controversial group in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Much of their efforts in the 1990s involved holding seminars and press conferences and other fund-raising activities in Pakistan, as well as the creation of secret schools, orphanages nursing courses, handicraft centers etc. for women and girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the secret filming of women being beaten in the street in Afghanistan by the religious police, [1] (video) and being executed [2] (video). (There is some question, however, whether RAWA members actually filmed many of these videos. See below: Controversies) They were unable to have any visible presence in the areas under Taliban or Northern Alliance because their activities were forbidden, and there were several death threats against their members.[3]

RAWA was highly critical of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, emphasizing casualties among the civilian population. [4] The organization went so far as to threaten to sue US authorities for unauthorized use of four photos from their website that were used in propaganda handbills that were dropped on various cities in Afghanistan during the 2001 invasion.[5] After the defeat of the Taliban regime by U.S. and Northern Alliance forces, RAWA warned against the Northern Alliance as being equally fundamentalist and dangerous. They charge that the current government led by Hamid Karzai has no support in most areas of Afghanistan, and that fundamentalists are enforcing anti-woman laws as they were under the Taliban.[6] These claims are supported by media reports about the Herat government of Ismail Khan, who has created a religious police that forces women to obey strict dress and behavior codes, and many reports by Human Rights Watch.

They declare their current activities as the promotion of women's rights under Afghanistan's government, attempting to keep women's issues in the forefront of any permanent government, and expanding educational opportunities for women. They collect funds to support hospitals, schools and orphanages and still run many projects in Pakistan and Afghanistan. For example they are running a project for orphans sponsorship with CharityHelp.org.

Recently RAWA has started its mission inside Afghanistan and organize some of its events in Kabul. They marked the International Women's Day in Kabul on March 8, 2006. [7] [8] which was one of the main fuctions in Kabul on that day and over 1,200 people attedned it.[9]

RAWA has so far won 16 awards and certificates from around the world for its work for human rights and democray, some of the awards include The sixth Asian Human Rights Award - 2001 [10], The French Republic's Liberty, Equality, Fraternity Human Rights Prize, 2000 [11], Emma Humphries Memorial Prize 2001 [12], Glamour Women of the Year 2001 [13], 2001 SAIS-Novartis International Journalism Award from Johns Hopkins University [14], Certificate of Special Congressional Recognition from the U.S. Congress, 2004 [15], Honorary Doctorate from University of Antwerp (Belgium) for outstanding non-academic achievements [16], as well as many other awards.[17]

In the book "With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan" by Anne Broadsky [18], a number of world-known writers and human rights activists write their views of RAWA. They include Arundhati Roy who says "Each of us needs a little RAWA", Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues says asks that RAWA must stand as a model for every group working to end violence, Katha Pollitt, Author of Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture upload RAWA for its role. Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban and Jihad and Asma Jahangir, Special Rapporteur of the UN and prominent women's rights activist of Pakistan are two Pakistanis who write about RAWA and express their support. [19].

[edit] Controversies

There is some controversy surrounding whether RAWA is a Maoist group or has been in the past. This controversy is fueled by the fact that RAWA is rather tight-lipped about their early history and the fact that early documentation by this group was almost entirely in Pashto, Persian, and Urdu, languages understood by a relatively tiny number of Westerners.

RAWA event in Kabul on March 8, 2006. Over 1500 people attended it.

In its early years, RAWA does seem to have been closely associated with the Afghan Maoist organizations, Afghanistan Liberation Organization (ALO) and the Afghanistan Peoples Liberation Organization (SAMA), with critics charging that RAWA was little more than a front group for the ALO. RAWA's leader, Meena Kamal, was in fact married to ALO leader Faiz Ahmad. Anne Brodsky, a RAWA supporter, claims that, "they were both so dedicated to their separate causes that they rarely spent any time together and indeed had very different visions of the future of Afghan society."[20] However, much of the artwork in early issues of RAWA's journal, Payam-e-Zan seems to have a clear Maoist character and a picture of Qayum Rahbar [21], leader of SAMA, is prominently displayed on the cover of one of the issues.[22]

Perhaps another reason that RAWA tend to be seen as "Marxists" or "Maoists" in Afghanistan is that RAWA is the only group in Afghanistan which publishes biographies and works of prominent leftist intellectuals and poets, both Afghan and international. Some authors that have been published in the pages of Payam-e-Zan include Abdulliah Rastakhez [23], Dawood Sarmad [24], Siedal Sokhandan, Anis Azad, Bashir Bahman, Khosrow Gulesorkhi [25], Ahmad Shamlu [26], Ahmad Sohrab [27], Sayed Ahmad Dehzad [28], Julius and Ethel Rosenberg [29], and Otto René Castillo [30]. Few, if any, present-day Afghan publishers will publish the works of leftist intellectuals of this kind.

It could also be argued that RAWA's past political allegiances do not necessarily determine their present politics. Indeed, the ALO and other Afghan Maoist groups at present make no mention of RAWA in their literature, nor do they count Meena among their "martyrs".[31] For its part, RAWA in its present form makes no mention of Maoist ideology or Afghan Maoist groups.[32]

There is also controversy over the degree of support that RAWA enjoys in Afghanistan and among Afghan refugees in Pakistan. RAWA claims to be an important political organization in these countries while critics charge that the group is actually quite marginal in those countries and enjoys support mainly in the West. For its part, RAWA tends to be very critical of other Afghan women's rights activists and groups as being too uncritical toward various Islamist factions in Afghanistan. Many of these activists counter that RAWA engages in smear campaigns against them and that the group is excessively radical and sectarian.[33] RAWA has responded that other NGOs working in Afghanistan are excessively conciliatory toward powerful Islamic fundamentalists and that a "middle ground" between democracy and fundamentalism is simply not desirable. [34]

RAWA initially gained a great deal of publicity [35] in the West through its videotaped exposes of Taliban atrocities. RAWA claims that their member surreptitiously filmed inside Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and smuggled the footage out at great risk to their own safety. However, it is alleged that at least some of this footage was not produced by RAWA and had been widely circulated in Pakistan for some time before RAWA publicized this footage in the West.[36]

[edit] Links

[edit] Further reading

Benard, Cheryl. 2002. Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance. New York: Broadway Books.[37]
Brodsky, Anne E. 2003. With All Our Strength: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: Routledge.[38]
Chavis, Melody Ermachild. 2004. Meena, Heroine of Afghanistan : The Martyr Who Founded RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York: St. Martin's Griffin.[39]
Follain, John and Rita Cristofari. 2002. Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom. New York: William Morrow.[40]de:RAWA

fa:جمعیت انقلابی زنان افغانستان

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