[Marxism] Afghanistan: Malalai Joya versus Washington's warlords | Links

[Aaron]

>August 20, 2008 -- Afghanistan lives in the fear of the US-sponsored
>warlords. These hated warlords are not scared by the Taliban monster
>raising its head in the south. But ironically, they live in the fear of
>an unarmed women in her late twenties: Malalai Joya. To silence Joya's
>defiant voice, the warlords who dominate the national parliament
>suspended Joya's membership for three years in 2007. Earlier, at almost
>every parliamentary session she attended, she had her hair pulled or was
>physically attacked, and called names such as ``whore''. ``They even
>threatened me in the parliament with rape'', she says. But she neither
>toned down her criticism of the warlords (``they must be tried'') nor
>the US occupation of her country (``the 'war on terror' is a mockery'').
>Understandably, she's been declared the ``bravest woman in Afghanistan''
>and even compared with Burma's Aung Sun Suu Kyi.

Aung Sun Suu Kyi has the backing of the Western imperialist world
and its media, and only has to worry about the disciplined, centralized
Burmese state, which would have killed her years ago if it thought it
was worth the negative reaction at home and abroad. Malalai Joya,
OTOH, gets very little mention in Western media and has to fear
possible violence from any number of thugs who are only marginally
concerned with Western public opinion. I'm pretty sure the U.S.
doesn't want her killed -- it wouldn't help the "feminist" credentials
of their puppet government -- but that's no guarantee of her safety.