Reblogging this as a future essay when I have the capacity.
Are the perpetrators men or the Taliban? Perhaps these da’wah bros are so insecure about their own and their brethren’s masculinity, and unwilling to admit complicity in state violence because of the perceived sweeping statement against men in particular. I mean, if you have the energy to not-all-men state violence against women, then you should have the answer or justification for why it is only against women and what exactly you have done to prevent state violence. When blatant misogyny becomes a proper policy, then these men’s mental gymnastics to disassociate themselves from the state apparatus are only that, mental gymnastics, nothing more and nothing less.
HOWEVER, at the same time, this is something we should tread carefully on. What’s happening in Iran started from the West’s paternalistic rubbish and the Iranian diaspora being imperial agents; it doesn’t mean state violence doesn’t exist there. The violence is real; the instrumentalisation of that violence for imperial ends is also real. Both are true simultaneously. Everyone engaging in this conversation carries a responsibility to know what they are consenting to. With that in mind, speaking for Afghan women now requires answering: toward what end, through whose infrastructure, and who benefits from this particular framing reaching this particular audience at this particular moment.
Afghan women, all Muslim women, WE deserve more than allies who speak for us and think that’s enough solidarity. Speaking for Afghan women is the bare minimum. Any Zionist American disinformation agency, Gulf state with its petrodollar interests, the Russian state, any external power structures that historically had a hand in atrocities in Afghanistan can very well pay many of you to SPEAK FOR AFGHAN WOMEN. What they won’t be doing is disclosing the motive behind speaking up.
So tell me, what about Afghan women’s liberation do you imagine when speaking up for them, through whose infrastructure, and who benefits from this particular framing reaching a wider audience at this particular moment?
Don’t project the reality where Muslims are a minority onto the discourse either. That framing is irrelevant. Muslims are the dominant group in Afghanistan. Use your class analysis. Deconstruct that latent Orientalism that latches onto your leftism while you’re at it.
#Afghanistan #politics #Iran #Taliban #imperialism #paternalism #Muslimwomen #Muslima #womensrights #zionism #misogyny
