March
22, 2002
"A
Great Occasion and a Great Moment": MHC's Women's Activism
Conference
|
Sphere
of Influence, 1990–1992
Doug and Mike Starn
|
Discussion at the
March 7–8 conference, Afghanistan and Beyond: Women's
Activism In Times of War, inevitably turned to the burqa.
One woman panelist from Afghanistan called it a "disgusting
shroud." Another Afghan panelist put it in the context of
poverty, saying, "We can't take the burqa off because we
don't have proper clothes." Yet another Afghan woman, this
one speaking in a documentary filmed just weeks ago, voiced her
message to the world: "We need educational and economic opportunities.
Our problem is not the burqa." Summing up the burqa issue,
Roxanne Euben, associate professor of political science at Wellesley
College, said, "Since September 11, a single piece of clothing
has taken center stage. In a swell of belated concern, the burqa
has become a visual shorthand for women's suffering in Afghanistan."
Sponsored by the Five
College Women's Studies Research Center, the Weissman Center for
Leadership, and the "Crossing Borders: Rethinking Area Studies"
initiative funded by the Ford Foundation, Afghanistan and Beyond
brought together international panelists to address women's rights
in Afghanistan and transnational women's activism. According to
organizer Amrita Basu, director of the Five College Women's Studies
Research Center, the conference evolved from conversations triggered
by the events and aftermath of September 11. Basu's comments prefaced
the March 7 keynote address, "The Dilemmas of Women's Human
Rights: Afghanistan and Beyond," by Radhika Coomaraswamy,
United Nations special rapporteur on violence against women for
the United Nations Human Rights Commission.
Coomaraswamy began
by recounting a 1999 visit to Afghanistan: "When I asked
the minister of justice about the Taliban's policies on domestic
violence, he replied, 'Our daughters are well brought up. They
don't beat their husbands.'" Coomaraswamy smiled as the audience
laughed in disbelief. She then reminded her listeners of the ways
that anecdote represented the women's human rights debate in Afghanistan.
For the next hour, Coomaraswamy spoke passionately about the timelessness
of human rights, Afghan women's heroic acts of resistance, the
West's contributions to the rise of fundamentalism, and the role
Afghan women must play in the rebuilding of their country, themes
that recurred throughout the next day's plenary sessions. Following
the keynote lecture, a group of twenty students joined Coomaraswamy
and three other panelists for a discussion about the role of women's
activism on college campuses and about the relation between women's
rights and human rights.
The first session,
"Women and Activism in Afghanistan," was moderated by
journalist Nafisa Hoodbhoy. Among the panelists were two Afghan
women who represented the continuum of women's rights groups in
Afghanistan. Sahar Saba spoke on behalf of the Revolutionary Association
of the Women in Afghanistan (RAWA), an independent political/social
organization founded in 1977, and the only women's organization
remaining active during Taliban rule. Despite the urgency of the
work to be done in Afghanistan, Saba said she wanted to be part
of the conference so the world would know that what's happening
in Afghanistan differs from media depictions. "Women in Afghanistan
are still in the chains of fundamentalism," said Saba. "They
are not free; they are not liberated. The Northern Alliance are
in ways like brothers to the Taliban. They have the same mentality.
The world may forget the crimes of their 1992–1996 rule,
but we cannot. This is what we want the world to know."
Fahima Vorgetts, who
was involved in the Women's Democratic Organization, that country's
first formal women's rights group, in the 1960s, agreed. "We
do not call the Northern Alliance jihadis. We call them terrorists,"
she said. In outlining the progress made by Afghan women during
the past century, Vorgetts noted that unlike the United States
Constitution, Afghanistan's 1963 constitution offered men and
women equal rights. She then described her recent trip to Kabul,
the first after fleeing Afghanistan twenty-three years ago. "For
days and days, I was crying. What happened to my beautiful Afghanistan?"
Vorgetts asked. She answered her own question, explaining how
her country became a battlefield for two superpowers after the
Soviet invasion.
The panelists, who
also included Amita Kulkarni, a program assistant with the Women
and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Kennedy School
of Government, agreed that the dominance of fundamentalist religion
in Afghanistan—despite the overthrow of the Taliban—is
the primary obstacle to women's rights. The second plenary focused
on transnational women's activism. Moderated by Ali Mirsepassi,
professor of sociology and Near Eastern studies at Hampshire College,
the panelists were Valentine Moghadam, a native of Iran who directs
women's studies at Illinois State University; Zoya Hasan, professor
of political science at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University;
Simona Sharoni, executive director of the Consortium on Peace
Research, Education, and Development and the Peace Studies Association;
and Marie-Aimee Helie Lucas, an Algerian anthropologist and sociologist
who founded Women Living under Muslim Law. In her comments, Lucas
called for solidarity, differentiating it from aid, which she
described as a one-way process that always has a cost. "Solidarity
is a two-way process recognizing the fact that we are bound together.
What we gain and lose affects women worldwide," she said.
The final plenary,
moderated by Lucas Wilson, MHC associate professor of African
American studies, addressed democracy in times of war. Sunera
Thobani, assistant professor of women's studies at the University
of British Columbia, described the experience of being denounced
by Canada's prime minister for her public stance against the United
States military action—and Canada's support of it—and
how that silenced other women activists. Mervat F. Hatem, a professor
of political science at Howard University, focused her comments
on post–September 11 threats to American civil rights, as
evidenced by the unconstitutional detention of Arab Americans
and legislation such as the USA Patriot Act. Acknowledging the
speakers who preceded her, Shahla Haeri, director of women's studies
at Boston University and the final panelist, hailed the conference
itself as "the beginning of a transnational alliance—a
great occasion and a great moment."
That sentiment was
echoed in closing remarks by Lorna Peterson, executive director
of Five Colleges, Inc. Karen Remmler, codirector of the Weissman
Center for Leadership, then invited panelists and audience members
to prolong the moment at a postconference discussion led by Shamshad
Sheikh, MHC Muslim student adviser. Its title, most appropriately,
was "Where Do We Go from Here?" In summing up the forum,
Remmler thanked the panelists for making the journey to South
Hadley and said, "This has been a rare and unique occasion
for all involved. Many of the participants have been speaking
publicly around the world about the current situation in Afghanistan,
but this was the first time that so many distinguished activists/scholars
gathered in one place." Remmler and Basu hope to bring many
of the participants back to campus next year for a follow-up forum.
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