The struggles of Afghan women are a career building opportunity for people like Malala who speak to a harm that appeals to the white liberal ear. Getting her to comment on anything else is like squeezing water from a rock. Just stfu.
So many experts here on Afghanistan. How’d your certainty in the plight of Afghan women work out for you? I thought you were saving Afghan women from Afghan men circa 2001? Not that successful I see? Maybe stfu and revise your assessment.
Here’s some analysis on the politics of violence in Afghanistan since some of you want to insist that the point I’m making is denying women’s realities or to speak of Afghan women is not already politically loaded & nor does it address the issue.
aljazeera.com
aljazeera.com
Anyone who just wants to speak about Afghan woman as subjects denied rights with no engagement with Afghan history has learnt nothing from the war & its terrible toll on the country. Your orientalist hot takes do nothing for Afghan women who still live these realities -
- and your hatred for the Taliban does nothing. It just feeds the anti-knowledge on Afghanistan & the politicisation of women’s issues more to feed a reactionary politics on both sides. Afghan women deserve more than western care politics - we are done with it.
And yes it is absolutely orientalist to speak of Afghanistan through the lens of dangerous Afghan men and oppressed Afghan women. These are racist categories that are mobilised in ways to obfuscate & decontextualise, deny structural violence & responsibility.
The replies to my tweets are worrying me at the state of education in the west - poor critical thinking (but she got shot!) , lack of reading comprehension (you support the Taliban!) and a large dose of racism (Afghanistan is only relevant via gendered violence).
More required reading for the “but she got shot!” & “you support the Taliban” zombies:
“Mainstreaming” gender, forced handshakes, and colonial violence in Afghanistan.”
adimagazine.com
“Mainstreaming” gender, forced handshakes, and colonial violence in Afghanistan.”
adimagazine.com
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