If it weren’t for congressional delegations (CODELs) and all the good they do, we’d never know that, according to this piece in Time, “Afghanistan’s Success Will Be Measured By Women’s Progress.” Which is true. Except for concerns about security, the possible collapse of the artificial economy, the ongoing uncertainty surrounding the international community’s willingness to support that economy, and the corruption giving said international community pause.
Rep. Niki Tsongas (Mass.) greets deployed mothers from the 187th Fighter Wing, Montgomery, Ala. during their visit to Afghanistan May 12, 2014. Tsongas is a member of annual Mother’s Day congressional delegation that visits Afghanistan to check the well-being and quality of life of American and Afghan women serving in the military. (U.S. Air Force photo by Master Sgt. Cohen A. Young)
If not for the CODEL that came to Afghanistan last month, we’d never have the benefit of the kind of wisdom that can only come from Congress:
Afghan women know the fight is far from over. But every time a young girl reads a book in public, a woman walks out of a voting booth or a female journalist pens a story critical of the government, the country continues to move forward – and the rest of the world moves with them.
All of which is fantastic, except that:
Reading: Much of the country, to include the majority of the security forces, is still illiterate. So it’s great that a young girl’s reading somewhere, but she’s already in the minority: she can read. Afghanistan’s facing a tremendous challenge in providing enough teachers and supplies to keep all these schools running the Americans have built over the years.
Journalism: Afghanistan’s government has actively moved to counter journalistic freedoms, regardless of gender. But since a female journalist sounds like something Americans would find adorable, let’s focus on that, and not that journalist’s freedom of speech.
Voting: Afghans want to believe in democracy, but they continue to mistrust a system still rife with corruption. That voting booth is a powerful image, but unless the Afghan government is held accountable, it’s meaningless.
So Afghanistan’s got its problems. And fixing all the things for the ladies has never been a high priority for the international community in Afghanistan.
“Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities There’s no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down.” — Unname Official, March 2011
This is one of my favorite quotes from the intervention here post 9/11. It’s one of the rare times when an official acknowledges that the things that can make democracies pretty don’t figure much into the calculus of foreign policy. In its blatant honesty, it puts the lie to all the altruistic notions about the foreign presence in Afghanistan.
What’s happening in Afghanistan isn’t about its people. Which, unless you’re Hobby Lobby, includes women. It’s about reducing the threat of Al Qaeda and preventing the resurgence of the Taliban. Since they’re pretty much Al Qaeda but with better turbans.
The “pet rocks” comment underscores the fact that the White House cares about the plight of women only when not doing so makes for bad press. That so long as the issue stays off the campaign trail, politicians won’t deal with it. And that’s not just an Afghan problem.
We also must remember that gender inequality, violence against women and the need to reverse patriarchal societal mindsets are not unique to Afghanistan. Recent months have seen the kidnapping of more than three hundred girls by an extremist group in Nigeria, mass sexual assault during a rally in Cairo and reports of brutal rape and murder of women in impoverished regions of India. Continued support of Afghan women would be a powerful symbol, an international reaffirmation to human rights the world over. America’s diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan must remain focused on protecting the rights of women and girls.
The fact is that plenty of other countries have abysmal records when it comes to womens’ rights, and the US still deals with them. The only reason the CODEL’s raising the issue is because the Americans are here with a whole lot of guns and money. And they’re hoping to make gender issues in Afghanistan a “powerful symbol,” a “reaffirmation to human rights the world over.”
I’d submit that a more powerful symbol would be not aiding militaries in countries where public sexual assault is epidemic. Or continuing security cooperation with countries where patriarchy isn’t just cultural, it’s mandated by law. Or not having a Supreme Court that keeps wanting to set the gender clock back a decade or 12.
[Tweet “Make Americans care, Afghans: discover oil. Or open a Hobby Lobby.”]Make Americans care, Afghans: discover oil. Or open a Hobby Lobby. Then we could ignore all the lady problems. But what about real, measurable progress made by Afghan women?
We met with Afghan women Parliamentarians, who passionately asserted their ability to lead. Each of them symbolized the gains made by Afghan women and girls over the past decade.
Having women in parliament is the kind of “metric” we can cling to in a war that’s less about progress and more about deadlines. But as Joshua Foust and Melinda Haring pointed out in 2012, this isn’t a reliable indicator of progress.
In the end, party, not gender, is where the focus should be. Yet the NGO community, including donor governments, wrongly focuses almost exclusively on increasing the number of women in parliament regardless of their party affiliation. That focus doesn’t make sense if the goal is to improve democratic governance around the world.
In Afghanistan right now the presidential election underscores the thinking of many young Afghans: they see this as just more of the same, and of those I’ve spoken to, at least half of them didn’t vote for that reason. And these are college-educated millenials, the generation that’s going to be the first that could see real change in Afghanistan. So getting elected by a system many Afghans see as corrupt does nothing to advance the cause of gender rights: those women in parliament are part of the problem, not the solution.
I know: it’s a CODEL, and a CODEL that was here for Mother’s Day, so this is the obligatory op-ed showing the world that they care about lady problems. But like so many others, they offer platitudes without acknowledging the daunting challenges still facing Afghanistan and its women.
Gender issues should be one of the things America focuses on when it drafts foreign policy anywhere. Women should figure into the calculus, both overseas and closer to the homeland. For too long state actors from Washington to Windhoek have put gender issues on the sideline for the sake of political pragmatism. If people like Tsongas and her colleagues thought as much about real change as they do about re-election, maybe we’d have fewer insufferable PR pieces, and more progress on issues that matter.