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Globalizing Afghanistan GLOBALIZING AFGHANISTAN Terrorism1 War1 and the Rhetoric ofNation Building EDITED BY ZUBEDA JALALZAI & DAVID JEFFERE Duke University Press Durham & Lo11do11 2011 For my parents © 2011 Duke University Press All rights reserved Abdur Raheem e'7 Am ina Jalalzai Printed in the United States of America -ZJ on acid-free paper x Designed by Jennifer Hill Typeset in Arno Pro and Chestnut by Keystone Typesetting, Inc_ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book. AnJ.erican Encounters/Global :Interactions Contents A series edited by Gilbert M. Joseph and Emily S. Rosenberg This series aims to stimulate critical perspectives and fresh Ackno'W'ledgn1ents interpretive frameworks for scholarship on the history of the ix imposing global presence of the United States. Its primary Introduction: Globalizing Afghanistan concerns include the deployment and contestation of power, Zubeda Jalalzai & David Jefferess the construction and deconstruction of cultural and politi- cal borders, the fluid meanings of intercultural encounters, and the complex interplay between the global and the local. It's the OpiUDJ., Stupid American Encounters seeks to strengthen dialogue and col- Afghanistan, Globalization, and Drugs laboration between historians of U.S. international relations Nigel C. Gibson and area studies specialists. 31 The series encourages scholarship based on multiarchival Afghanistan in a Globalized World historical research. At the same time, it supports a recogni- A Longer View tion of the representational character of all stories about the Rodney J. Steward past and promotes critical inquiry into issues of subjectivity 51 and narrative. In the process, American Encounters strives to understand the context in which meanings related to nations, The "Afghan Beat" cultures, and political economy are continually produced, Pukhtoon Journalism and the Afghan War challenged, and reshaped. Altaf Ullah Khan 79 \'iii Contents Veiled Motives Women's Liberation and the War in Afghanistan Gwen Bergner 95 Transnational Fe:r:nin.iszn and the Woznen's Rights Agenda in A£ghanistan Maliha Chishti & Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims Ackn.o"W"ledg:zn.en.ts 117 Global Fraznes on A£ghanistan The Iranian Mediation of Afghanistan in International 11 2001 Art House Cinema after September 1 Kamran Rastegar 145 Conclusion: The Current Azna.zeznent Afghanistan, Terror, and Theory Imre Szeman We first conceptualized Globalizing Afghanistan in 2002 as the theme for 165 Rhode Island College's October Series, an annual art, film, and lecture se- ries of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. We would like to thank all of those Bibliography who helped to bring issues of globalization and Afghanistan to the fore at 187 that critical historical moment. For this opportunity I thank Rhode Island Contributors College and in particular the Rhode Island College Foundation, the School 201 of Arts and Sciences, the College Lectures Committee, the Committee on General Education, the Bannister Gallery, the Artists' Co-op, the Depart- Index ments of Arlthropology, Art, English, History, Political Science, and Sociol- 205 ogy, and the Film Studies Program for financial as well as creative support. I thank my colleagues Paola Ferrario, Carolyn Fluehr-Lobban, Richard Lob- ban, Spencer Hall, Claus Hofhansel, Donna Kelly, Laura Khoury, Marlene Lopes, Eung-Jun Min, Dan Moos, Dennis O'Malley, Katherine Rudolph- Larrea, Robert Shein, Arnritjit Singh, Claudia Springer, Bryan Steinberg, and Dave Thomas for helping to bring the series into being. For her administrative support I am greatly indebted to Bernadette Doyle. Most of all I would like to thank the dean of arts and sciences at that time, Richard Weiner, for not only supporting this October Series but for establishing the series in the first place. His tenure as dean did much to encourage faculty ll6 Cwe11 Hcrgncr of modernity suggests that \'\'estern humanist values have achieved a state of full realized. women's rights; it glosses over the neoconservative erosions ofAm encan· y women s reproductive rights in the past couple of decades for example d h ' 'an t e lack of commitment .in the U.S. to international women's rights, exemplified by the. fact .that the U.S. 1s one of only two countries not to ratify th e ,.,nomens . ConventiOn (the other is Afghanistan; "Unveiling Imperialism," 774_ 78). 2-;- Whitlock, "The Skin of the Burqa," 55· 2X Ibid., s8, 7o. 29 Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, "U.S. Supporters Wel- Transnational Fe:aninis:an come RAWA at V-Day in New York City and Washington, DC:' and the Wo:anen's Rights Agenda )0 Steve "Sharbat Gula, the 'Afghan Girl,' Holds the Image of Herself," in Afghanistan Natrona/ Geographic News, online. '' Braun, "How They Found National Geographic's 'Afghan Girl.'" Maliha Chishti e'7 Cheshmak Farlwumand-Sims 32 Fan on, A Dying Colonialism, 35-36. 33 Nelson, "The AI-Mehdi Army Protests the Occupation in Iraq," New York Times, 4 April. 2004, sec. A, published with the caption ''A Show of Strength in Baghdad: Iraq1 women who belong to a Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, marched yesterday m a Baghdad neighborhood to protest the U.S. occupation oflraq. The march also drew thousands of other protesters:· .l4 Human Rights Watch, ''Afghanistan." 35 Human Rights Watch, "Women and Elections in Afghanistan." Globalization has invariably contributed to reconfiguring the international political landscape by enabling international nonstate actors to exert greater influence and decision-making capacities within the domestic af- fairs of states. New methods and systems of governance have emerged to transcend borders, linking states and nonstate actors in complex and inter- dependent relationships, from the supranational to the local level. 1 In Afghanistan new patterns of authority and power are taking form, mani- fested by the unprecedented growth and entrenchment of international actors (donor governments, multinationals, the UN, the World Bank, and international NG os) operating in the country to pick up where the state has ostensibly left off. These international networks are constructed as the long-awaited "corrective" to decades of conflict in Afghanistan and the former belligerent state practices of the Taliban government. Neoliberal marketization alongside immediate political democratization are the domi- nant blueprints for postconflict recovery in Afghanistan, entailing an exter- nally directed reordering and restructuring of the Afghan state. Integrally part of this new international apparatus is the transnational feminist move- ment advocating for gender reform as a sociopolitical corrective to the history of exclusion and oppression endured by Afghan women. Although 118 Chislzti and Lu·lwzmwnd-\i111s Transnational Feminism in Afghanistan 119 women's organizations based in Europe and North America have p er- tarians have publicly questioned the intentions and strategies of the Af- sistently increased international attention to the plight of Afghan women han government and foreign powers operating in the country1particularly since the 1990S1 advancing the rights of Afghan women is by no account the failed agenda to improve the lives and livelihoods of women. original and exclusive domain of transnational feminist networks. In con- The challenge for national and transnational feminist networks is to trast1 the vast and impressive Afghan women's movement is only recently connect to the very material1 complex1 and multifaceted lives of women in receiving more scholarly attention. Although the Afghan women's move- Af. hanistan1 while at the same time ensuring that national and foreign g d ' . h ment in the post-Tali ban era is still in its infancy1 the Afghanistan context interests hold true to their commitments on a vancing women s ng ts. reveals a diverse and extensive network of Afghan women's resistanc e/ This essay examines the intersections between the transnational feminist organizing/ public participation1 and political activism. 2 a paratus and the Afghan women's movement in terms of political/ socio- P c d 1.. Since the fall of the Taliban many have sought to structurally improve cultural1 religious1 and ideological contexts that imorm gen er po 1tiCs m the situation of women and girls across many parts of Afghanistan. Al- Afghanistan. We define transnational feminism as the spectrum of actors/ though not exhaustive and most certainly fraught with tension1 many in- instruments1 policies1 and programs that bring gender issues into the fore- roads have nevertheless been made; there are new institutional instru- front of politics and society in Afghanistan that have either been formu- ments to facilitate and support women's rights1 such as the Ministry of lated or supported by those located in the West1 often within a Western Women's Affairs1 the Gender Advisory Group1 and the Office of the State liberal feminist discourse. We distinguish transnational feminism from the Minister for Women; 3 increased attendance of girls in schools; improve- Afghan women's movement. Many Afghan women and Afghan women's ments in formal-sector female employment; and a burgeoning of nonprofit organizations are1 however, part of the transnational feminist apparatus, women-centered organizations. Most significant perhaps are legal and gov- which consists of the gender policies and programs alongside individual ernance reforms pertaining to women's rights as well as constitutional consultants, advisors, international women's rights NGOs, international provisions
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