A Discussion With Anne Brodsky

Author of the book With All Our Strength, which chronicles the experiences of Afghan women, Brodsky recently  said: "Nearly five years after the Bush administration's self-proclaimed 'liberation' of Afghanistan, one would expect a world of improvement in a country touted as the model for Iraq. Unfortunately, last month, during my fifth trip to Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, one sees instead a country in which luxury hotels, armor-plated Landrovers of international organizations, and Pakistan-inspired private palaces built to launder drug money substitute for the necessary peace, security, rule of law, and economic development that would benefit the populace. Where girls and women continue to be forced and sold into marriage, and where a recent UNIFEM report finds that violence against women is widespread and continues with impunity.

"The window of opportunity for freedom and democracy, opened nearly five years ago, has instead been filled with continued violence, graft, and the largest opium crop in Afghanistan's history, equal to 50 percent of the country's legal GDP. This drug trade feeds, among others, the coffers of the warlords who grabbed 60 percent of the seats in parliament and the ever-strengthening Taliban resurgence. The result is a country where the people, who have never stopped struggling to build a better life after the Taliban, are losing hope as they find themselves more and more mired in poverty, suicide bombings, rising fear, school burnings that keep children, particularly girls, from education, fundamentalist backlash, and a growing resentment and lack of faith in Western intervention and in the very values that the West claimed to espouse during the routing of the Taliban." Brodsky is director of gender and women's studies at the University of Maryland in Baltimore County.

Shahram Vahdany -  When was the last time you were in Afghanistan?

Anne Brodsky- In July and August of this year.

SV - How many times have you been to Afghanistan?

AB - I've been in Afghanistan five times and I've been to Pakistan and working with Afghan refugees an additional, three times.

SV - Were you there during the Taliban regime?

AB - I was in Pakistan during that time and the people I was working with really stressed that it was too dangerous, so the first time I was there was during the summer of 2002.

SV - But you went to Pakistan during the Taliban but you were in contact with Afghans?

AB - Yes.

SV - What do you see or hear in the difference between how the Taliban operated and what you see now. What is the difference in Afghanistan in general?

AB - Well in general it's true that alot of the restrictions that the Taliban had in place particularly for women but also for men, are no longer legally sanctioned, so women are no longer legally kept from being in school or work or leaving the house without a close male relative. But in practice, in many parts of the country not much has actually changed after the Taliban in terms of those restrictions on women because of security issues, because of the power that remains in the hands of people who think like the Taliban, or perhaps people who still are Taliban. So, that's one thing that's superficially changed but at the same time really not changed. The other thing that's really gone the reverse direction than we would, all around the world, have hope for is that security is much worse. And this was particularly true this trip. Other trips I'd always heard a little bit of this concern.  Two years ago when I was there last time people were beginning to say you know this is more dangerous than it was under Taliban, but this last trip everyone was saying “as awful as the Taliban were, there was security and there's just no security from the, you know, the suicide bombings in Kabul and elsewhere and all the other continuing violence.  And suicide bombing is not part of Afghan culture, has never been a part of Afghanistan . In addition, there’s military violence, school burnings, attacks on people who speak out; everyone's afraid.

SV - What is the role of the Northern Alliance in this situation.

AB - Well, that is indeed a good question. There's alot of people who have reasons to want the current government to not succeed in the way that it's configured. The warlords that are in the government, some of whom are northern alliance, some of whom are from other Jihadi factions have reasons to gum up the process. It's not just seeing that their own conservative laws etc. are passed, it's that thye can also keep themselves from being punished for past crimes and just kind of make sure that things don't move in a progressive manner that someone like President Karzai might like to see at some level. When I was there they were talking about the riots in Kabul in May, the story that everyone was telling was that, yes, a military convoy had lost control, people blame the US military for driving much too fast, for being reckless, for not caring about civilians and so, when that truck crashed and killed civilians and crashed into civilians cars in a pretty populated area, people were angry, they came out, they started protesting against that vehicle, and then someone opened fire and it was unclear who opened fire but that caused the riot to escalate at that point, but, from there when it spread throughout the city that was a planned event and most people blame the Northern Alliance for that and say it was just agitators who were waiting for an opportunity to cause problems. Throughout the city, the reports were that people had maps and slogans and things that were already to go, that there were text messages sent out telling people where to go, and that police officers took off their uniforms and joined in as well, which of course, doesn't give much hope for law and order and protection.

SV - Doesn't the Northern Alliance operate as a paramilitary for the government?   

AB - I didn't hear proof of that, but what people talk about is that they still do have a great deal of power. In every official and non-official building in Kabul where there is a picture of Karzai, there is a picture of Massoud. People talk about how they need to dress so that they can sort have pass for being Northern Alliance and won't get hassled so much on the street if they're a driver. There's alot of power still among the Panshiris in terms of who has land, who has jobs, who has opportunity. It's less clear what they're doing militarily, from the people I was talking to at least.