Para que ninguém esqueça

Muito de falou das mulheres afegãs na sequência do 11 de Setembro de 2001. O mundo ficou horrorizado com a violência a que eram sujeitas. Obrigadas a esconder-se debaixo de uma ampla burqua azul, foram proibidas de estudar e de participar em actividades públicas pelo regime taliban. Espancadas publicamente ou apedrejadas até à morte, se ousassem afirmar-se, a estas mulheres estava reservada uma vida sombria de "fantasma" azul. Confinadas ao espaço doméstico, não perderam, contudo, a dignidade nem os sonhos e fundaram a RAWA, uma organização não governamental através da qual lutam pelos seus direitos. Com o ataque da NATO ao Afeganistão e a expulsão dos taliban de Kabul, os media internacionais deram por finda a sua missão de denúncia dos atentados a que as mulheres são sujeitas. Por breves momentos, o mundo respirou de alívio e as consciências apaziguaram-se, com umas escassas imagens de mulheres, sorridentes, a pintar as unhas e a arranjar os cabelos e de algumas raparigas que puderam voltar à escola. A opinião pública internacional contenta-se com tão pouco...
Hoje, nas reportagens sobre a guerra que lá continua, entre as forças ocupantes e grupos taliban resistentes, continuamos a vê-las, em segundo plano, ainda de burqua, na sua luta solitária. Mas já ninguém fala delas. Porquê?

What we can learn from RAWA

RAWA's approach to activism is very practical and tailored to suit the needs of their situation. Their political vision is simple, yet adheres to some basic fundamental truths such as the universality of human rights and democracy. While this may make some Western leftist ideologues scoff, it is an approach that, at the very least, works in a country like Afghanistan which has lost so much and is struggling to preserve the most basic of rights.

However, RAWA's simple political vision enables it to be flexible to situations as they arise. For example, RAWA does not denounce capitalism. Rather they call for “economic democracy.” This enables them to train women in marketable skills through their “income-generating projects.” The practical short-term goal of enabling economic independence for a poor struggling, often illiterate woman, is achieved in this manner. RAWA does not engage in micro-lending however, preferring to grant women the basic foundation they may need to start up an operation, free of charge.

RAWA's organizational structure is also quite practical, having preserved the organization for nearly two decades after Meena's death. Rather than strain to achieve some idealistic but impractical notion of absolute participatory democracy, they have instead conceived a structure that has limited hierarchy (the Leadership Council), which is outweighed by ample democracy through simple and functional elections and committee membership.

RAWA's emphasis on the collective over the individual is also a philosophy worth aspiring to. Among Western activists we have seen an increasing tendency to valorize individual figures, at the expense of collective action.

http://www.rawa.org/sonali-model.htm