Awareness, organization, struggle: No other way for women’s emancipation!
- Category: Party Documents
- Written by Solidarity Party of Afghanistan
- Published: Friday, 07 March 2014
March 8, International Women’s Day, marks women’s struggle and solidarity all over the world to assert their trampled rights in the face of the shackles imposed upon them by male dominance, tyrant regimes and the capitalist system. March 8 is the day that heralds the overthrow of inhuman institutions and revolt against inequalities which reduce the exalted position of women to that of baby-producing machines and instruments for satiating the carnal passions of men, and allows the most horrendous of crimes to be perpetrated against women. March 8 pays homage to, and renews our covenant with the blood of the likes of Nahid, Wajiha, Meena, Rosa Luxemburg, Leyla Qasim, Shirin Alam Holi, Zoya, Marzieh Oskoi, Tania and countless other women worldwide. These champions of women’s emancipation proved by their resistance, legendary struggle and the shedding of their blood that women can fight side by side with men for a society devoid of oppression and injustice, and that there is no other way for emancipation from bondage and misery.
Our country is devoid of independence and freedom, and is trampled underfoot by the barbaric raids of the occupiers and their vile minions; therefore, women’s rights and human rights in general have no place in our society. In a country which has been rendered bereft of independence, talking about democracy and justice is demagoguery. Consequently, we cannot congratulate our shackled women on this day, as it will be a hollow formality –what individuals and entities of our dollar-obsessed officialdom are doing. When the absolute majority of our women spend their lives in abject misery, and at each moment the most horrendous crimes are committed against them and the most demeaning indignities are heaped upon them, this day can only be commemorated by renewing our vow to intensify the struggle for securing women’s rights, and by exposing and expelling all forms of misogyny and its perpetrators.
We believe that in the present situation, US and NATO occupiers are vilely betraying our people and particularly our women by supporting misogynist warlords and Karzai’s corrupt mafia government, and secretly backing the Taliban thugs, Gulbuddin’s repugnant party and other reactionary forces. The US and NATO continue to shamefully exploit the suffering of our women by insisting that Afghans should acquiesce to the presence of permanent US/NATO military bases in Afghanistan, otherwise women’s rights will have no defenders! With the cries of pain and anguish of the likes of Sahar Gul, Bashira, Sitara, Amina, Gul Bibi, Shakila, Noor Bibi and many others of our sisters, broken in body, heart and spirit, still ringing in our ears from different parts of the country, the US and its minions continue to use women as bargaining chips in their nefarious dealings towards achieving their infernal objectives, while at the same time buttressing the very perpetrators of women’s miseries and humiliation.
Establishment of a Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the activities of hundreds of NGOs and women’s civil society organizations, the symbolic appointment of women to parliament and government posts, and disparate regulations and superficial measures, none of these can bring the smallest of positive changes for our women. If such “efforts” had been effective, Afghanistan today would have been a paradise for women. But the blatant lies of the Afghan government and its foreign masters are no secrets and all and sundry know that our homeland is a burning inferno for women very much like before, during the Taliban reign of ignorance and criminality.
Awareness, organization and struggle are the essential elements for the emancipation of women. Unless women themselves are mobilized to enter the political arena and fight for their rights, no fundamental change in their situation and no ascertainment of a status worthy of them in society can be expected. In no country of the world has the government voluntarily accorded rights to women. Indeed, it has always been women themselves who, with their coordinated struggles, have forced governments to accept their just demands.
In the ongoing circus of presidential elections, the candidates who shout loudest for women’s rights are those whose backgrounds are replete with ignominy and criminality against women. A couple of them even have women as running mates in order to snare the votes of half the population of the country. There are those among the candidates who do not even consider women as human beings and are not ready to allow the sun and the moon to catch a glimpse of their wives’ faces, but now emit strings of beautiful, fascinating words about “women’s rights” from their mouths to hoodwink half the nation. From the herd of presidential candidates, most of those who stand out are those who have shamefully failed the background check of history and have been agents of crime, corruption and devastation during the past three decades of destruction and thirteen years of occupation. But even the most unaware and unenlightened of our masses have found through past experience that the next president has been already selected by the White House and now only has to go through a scandalous show of “democratic elections” in order to be proclaimed the winner and be crowned and installed in the presidential palace. In the midst of this circus, the antics of a wretched group of so-called intellectuals are really entertaining who have been paid huge sums of money to beat the election campaign drums and lick the blood and filth clean off the faces of the despicable candidates.
We believe that it is impossible for our women or for our nation to attain their most fundamental rights or other lofty values through plaintive wailing and begging from foreigners. It is only through struggle against foreigners and fundamentalists in the context of a democratic society based on secularism that the hands of misogynist and corrupt merchants of religion can be kept off politics and women can have a status equal to men and play a worthy role in the progress and prosperity of their country.
On the occasion of March 8, the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan (SPA) salutes all glorious women of the world who, side by side with men, are in the forefront of the fight for emancipation and freedom. The SPA humbly learns from their indomitable example. We once again call upon all people-serving individuals and organizations to realize that in the current situation our captive country is in need of the sacrifice, courage and perseverance of her noble and stalwart children. We must turn the heat up on traitors to the nation and lackeys of the US, Iran and Pakistan who are driving our country towards the abyss of doom and destruction. It will be thus that we will have paid our historic debt to our motherland and fulfilled our national duty.
Sisters, no one will help you unless you yourselves rise up for your rights!
Solidarity Party of Afghanistan (SPA)
8 March 2014
Kabul
