WUNRN
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جلال
فونديشن JALAL FOUNDATION |
An
Afghan Women-led, Women-focused Organization
________________________________________________________________________
SECURING
A PLACE FOR WOMEN BEYOND THE TRANSITION
By:
DR. MASSOUDA JALAL
Founding President and Chairperson of Jalal Foundation
And former Minister of Women, Afghanistan
20th September 2013
INTRODUCTION
I come to you today with loads
of gratitude to the organizers and a fervent hope that
the wisdom of everybody gathered here today may illuminate the political
eclipse that has gripped the nation of
It has been twelve years since
THE FOUR COUNTRY
SCENARIOS AND WOMEN’S PROSPECTS
Today, our people stand again
in a precarious crossroad of a new milestone.
After 12 years, the international security support that once helped us
drive away the Talibans are preparing to leave. And our government has been
negotiating with the Taliban, purportedly, to bring back national peace and
reconciliation. At this point in time, there are four scenarios[1][1] that can possibly
happen after the departure of the international security troops in the end of
2014.
·
The
Afghan scenario
The first scenario is
the Afghan Scenario. It implies a negotiated peace based on consensus between
different Afghan power factions with a consolidated oligarchy in power. Among Afghans, this is termed as “Afghan solution”
because it is based on the country’s tradition of consultations to reach a
consensus. This is a solution that will be owned by most, although not all, of
the many opposing interests and factions in the country. In Afghan’s own
version of democracy, it is seen by participating factions as a good solution
because it is based on negotiations and trade-offs. This is also the scenario
that is being pursued by the government and the factions that used to be its
enemies, most notably, the Taliban. This is the most dominant scenario and the
likely outcome of all the events going on in the political scene of the
country.
In such a scenario,
however, only the powerful has a voice and only the powerful will benefit from
the new political set up. In the present context, those who are powerful are the
ones who have guns, money and international support. The people do not matter, especially the most
powerless and marginalized. In such a
scenario, democracy will be challenged as a foreign imposition; and extremism
will dominate politics and the mindset of the people. The Constitution and laws of the country may
be changed, rule of law will take a back seat, and we will return to square
one, where gains of the past 12 years may go down the drain and the powerless
returns to a state of submission and hopelessness.
Where do women stand in
this scenario? We are already
experiencing the dominance of this scenario in our life. We see the clawing
back of the rights that women began to enjoy during the past 12 years. We see women’s agenda becoming a mere token
in public policy, where women’s voice is either silenced, distorted or divided;
and where extreme, Taliban-style violence against women spreads once again
across the country with unbridled impunity.
In this scenario, it will be an uphill, all-time struggle for women
leaders and activists like me once again.
And as what you have already witnessed, defenders of women’s rights will
fall one by one as targets of assassination, aggression and brutality by the
oligarchs. But no matter how many women
leaders are killed, new ones will emerge because we have tasted liberty and
nothing could be a substitute to it.
·
The
status quo scenario
The second scenario is a status
quo scenario which implies a stalemate with durable disorder, contested
elections in 2014, and a continuation of present or more intensified levels of
conflict. The legitimacy of the government in
Within such scenario, the
agenda of development, democracy and women’s rights will be held hostage in a
situation of status quo – unable to progress or move forward. The seeds of solidarity within the women’s
movement could be ruined by ethnic politics which, from the very beginning, has
been stronger and more valuable to society than sisterhood and solidarity
around women’s advancement. In such a
scenario, it will be increasingly difficult for government and women NGOs to
reach out to women who need economic and social services in remote areas. As
threats to the Kabul-based government intensify, it will be more and more
difficult for international agencies that support women’s projects to operate
in the country. Life will therefore be more difficult and punishing for Afghan
women throughout the country and nothing much could be done about it.
·
The negative scenario
The third
is the negative scenario, a more fearsome situation of State collapse within an
intensified regionalized civil war. This will return the country to a
scenario similar to the 1990s with open war between and among different
contending power holders with direct and indirect involvement of different
neighboring countries.
This is
a scenario of chaos which none of us would even want to think about. Women have
already experienced how to live in a situation like this, where life expectancy
regresses back to 44 years and nobody dares to worry about getting old. Eyes of women never get dry, widows are
created every day, and every minute brings a chance to be an orphan. This is a very depressing scenario and I beg
your indulgence to allow me to digress to the next scenario.
·
The developmental scenario
I would like to call the fourth
scenario the developmental scenario even if others call it a donor-desired
scenario. This scenario implies a developmental and partially democratic state
that serves as the basis for a unified and peaceful country. One that develops
democratic governance, fights corruption, and grants the female population the
same rights and opportunities as men.
This is the ultimate goal of the international development cooperation.
The international community remains committed to this goal and this is a
scenario that women and majority of Afghans hope for.
Within such scenario, women may
still continue to experience oppression, violence, and denial of rights, especially
in remote areas of the country. But activism for women’s empowerment and gender
equality has a better chance of flourishing in this scenario. The international
community will also be in a better position to continue assisting gender
equality initiatives, and push for the implementation of laws and policies that
protect women’s rights. Women leaders and activists will multiply, the women’s
movement will blossom to the fullest, and all these will form the basis of an
enduring, inter-generational change on the status of women in
HOW DO WE GET THERE?
But faced with these four
scenarios, where do we go from here?
I do not have the answers
myself. But this forum would be a big
success to me if we could collectively take a stand to choose the scenario that
we want to happen and frame together our actions around it. From my own opinion
as a woman, it is clear that the developmental scenario will bring out the best
results, not only for women, but for the entire country. We need to give peace,
development, democracy and women’s rights a chance to improve our lives. And we
need to say “enough!” to the leadership of people who foster oligarchy and
treat our nation as a playground of their own selfish interests.
The challenge, however, is how
do we influence the current political scene to be able to sway the Afghan
scenario towards a developmental scenario?
I think that the peace process has opened a floodgate for many powerful
factions to assert their own interests in the leadership of the country. It is
like a feisty scramble for the great bacon.
So, while we only have the government today to bleed our coffers dry, we
see a future situation where every powerful faction cooperates with each other
to collectively squeeze every drop of resources that are meant for our people.
They will not be stealing only our peoples’ money, but also the money that
taxpayers of many countries of the world worked hard for. This is why we are in this together.
So, let me share with you three
things that I have in mind. First, I think it is important for us to offer an
alternative. If all the major players in the current political field are
oligarchs, we could be assured that our country will go nowhere but to the
hands of the oligarchs. To me,
therefore, the biggest battlefront is the election. We should be able to put up
a candidate who will be overwhelmingly supported by the Afghan people no matter
in which part of the world they live. We need to create a different version of
people power to turn the table against the oligarchs by mustering an
overwhelming victory for a peoples’
Presidential candidate who is backed by the general population in the 2014
national election. Maybe we need to pick out and bring back a brilliant,
charismatic, visionary and principled from the many Afghans living abroad
-- put him or her in the President’s
seat and help him or her use the tremendous natural resources underneath our
desert to give our country an economic miracle.
And to do this, we should be
able to consolidate the votes of the youth, the women, the disabled, the
elderlies and the ordinary citizens who are tired of being pawns and victims of
the problems created by our oligarch leaders.
Our people had suffered long enough and it should not be impossible to
sway votes and protect the integrity of the election through a silent
revolution in the 2014 polls. To me, a good leader and a great people together
is the best antidote to the messy situation that we are in.
My second idea is for us to
strengthen international lobbying to tie up international aids with human
rights agenda. We saw this work during the past 12 years. When the international community put their
foot forward in favor of women’s rights, incredible positive things happened.
We ratified the UN Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination
against Women (CEDAW) without any reservation; we enshrined women’s rights in
the Constitution; we positioned gender equality as a cross cutting agenda of
the Afghan National Development Strategy; we adopted an EVAW decree; we brought
women in public offices and put Afghanistan in the top 30 countries of the
world with the highest representation of women in the Parliament; we put women
in local councils; we won women’s right to get inside the mosque and practice
their freedom to worship; and many more.
These are not little achievements, and we Afghan women know that without
the help of the international community, we will not be able to achieve that
much. In short, the international community should use the power of aid to
influence the political scene of
My third idea is to help the women’s movement in
These are only a few thoughts to steer our collective
thinking today. And before I close, let me take this opportunity to endorse
gender equality as an axial theme of the post Millennium Development Goal
agenda. I know that my government will
make no statement about it but this is what women of
CONCLUSION
As I close, let me just say that it has given me
enormous hope and strength to find other people miles away from
I thank Dr. Sattar Sirat, President of Unity and
Freedom Movement of Afghanistan for inviting me here, the organizers of this
forum, and you ladies and gentlemen for hearing the voice of ordinary Afghans
in this important gathering of brilliant and caring minds.
Rest assured that I will bring back all the beautiful
feelings and powerful ideas that you will share today and will keep you posted
on the significant developments in