On Thursday morning, even as President Putin declared war on Ukraine, I was speaking with two Afghan women friends. These were work-related conversations but how could they not talk about the reality that is uppermost in their mind, omnipresent in their day.
Both were
lucky enough to have left and to have their immediate family with them. But
with reprisals on the rise, what of their extended family, and in our part of
the world, there is really little difference in the intensity of our caring for
second cousins and the mother-in-law of your cousin’s daughter?
More immediately, they were fearful for and heartbroken about their friends and colleagues—other women human rights defenders—who have been disappeared in recent weeks.
Read more:
· Afghanistan: US envoy says Taliban detained 29 women and their families, Economic Times, February 14, 2022.
· Emma Graham-Harrison, Taliban have detained 29 women and their families in Kabul, says US envoy, The Guardian, February 12, 2022.
· Six women’s rights activists still missing in Afghanistan, UN News, February 1, 2022.
They are
hearing that the women are being tortured to give out names and other
information. They are also therefore, fearful of reprisals directed at others
in their circle. They are afraid of being targeted abroad. They are furious at
the silence around what is happening.
The
abductions have made it even riskier to speak out—impossible within Afghanistan
and increasingly difficult outside. And if a cloak of fearful silence falls, we
have permission to ignore what the Taliban are doing and they have impunity.
When
Afghans are facing hunger and repression at home or evacuated and stranded in
other countries, unable to immediately find livelihoods, the decision to freeze
Afghan assets and redistribute them among others makes no sense.
Read more:
· Charlie Savage, Spurning Demand by the Taliban, Biden Moves to Split $7 Billion in Frozen Afghan Funds, New York Times, February 11, 2022.
· Charli Carpenter, A Better Use of Frozen Afghan Funds, Foreign Policy, February 18, 2022.
Afghans who
are now refugees abroad are among the luckiest few, because they are alive and
relatively safe. However, refugee life is not easy. You leave your home, your
land and your community to end up in places where you are dependent, for a long
time, on the charity of others. You may have assets at home, or at least,
savings or a pension fund, or land that will feed you. Suddenly, everything
given to you is already more than you can ask for. What happens if you fall
sick? In many of our countries, someone will find you a doctor. In some of the
advanced industrial countries, finding a doctor takes several months and if you
have no insurance, it can be too expensive—especially if, as a refugee, you
also haven’t found a job yet that will feed your family.
Warsan Shire wrote “no one leaves home unless/ home is the mouth of a shark.” No one. Anywhere.
This week, my brave Afghan friends sounded so defeated, worried
and tired. And I listened to them, unable to do anything other than listen. I
preach when I teach, about global citizenship, about our interbeing and about
claiming and exercising agency, but really, am I also not trying to convince myself?
Yes, I can write, but the men who decide read the men who think they decide.
The rest of us are shouting into a void.
The world is worried about Ukraine. So am I. War is just wrong.
But we run global politics like a scorched earth policy. Decide, or least state, that something is wrong. Go to war. Get bored, get tired, get distracted, get real,
get out. In the meanwhile, we have reduced places to rubble and lives to PTSD.
We have theorised the disdain for discussion and listening as ‘securitisation’—if
something is a security issue, we allocate more resources to it and limit
access to information. This is what is. The theory ends up justifying the
practice. So we either learn to ask no questions or cannot remember whom to
ask. No one is listening anyway.
On Thursday, through my conversations, the song in my head was Enya’s recording of “How can I keep from singing?” The rest of the song is unrelated but as my friends’ worries go unheard, how can I keep from singing?
The world’s attention is focused on Ukraine. And because our
attention spans are so shrunken, this means that everything, including
improbably the pandemic and its miseries, have begun to fall off our radar. How
can I keep from singing?
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