As Afghanistan prepares for this Thursday's presidential election, tension is rising and attacks have increased by 50 percent in the past 10 days. Meanwhile, NATO spokespeople and some observers in the US, anxious to demonstrate that Obama's policy of war escalation is generating results, are making "optimistic" predictions about the election outcome.
In an op-ed published today, MADRE Policy and Communications Director Yifat Susskind put forward a stark reality: there is little hope for democracy in Afghanistan, as long as women's rights continue to be bargained away by Afghan and US policymakers.
By the time the first ballot is cast in Afghanistan's August 20 election, hopes for a democratic outcome will already be dead. The Obama Administration is billing Afghanistan's second Parliamentary election in 30 years as a milestone in that country's march towards democracy. But there can be no democracy in a place where half the population is considered the property of the other half. That's why some of Afghanistan's toughest, most tenacious pro-democracy activists are women. They understand that democracy is more than a procedural election; women's rights and genuine democracy are interdependent.
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These women are all part of the beleaguered but vibrant Afghan women's movement that confronts both US air strikes and Taliban death threats to secure food, housing, healthcare and education for women and their families, defend women's shelters, hold peace demonstrations, demand women's full participation in public life and fight for interpretations of Islam that support women's rights. No foreign military occupation is going to do this. The US may be able to produce an election in Afghanistan on August 20, but it can't produce a society based on human rights. It's the women of Afghanistan who will secure their own rights and enable genuine democracy in the process.
Over at the Feminist Peace Network, blogger Lucinda Marshall has also been following developments in the lead-up to the Afghan elections. She shows that, even if women do manage to register to vote, they may never make it to a polling station. She also reveals yet another example of Afghan women's rights falling by the wayside when competing US priorities arise.
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