The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) celebrated the 8th of March, the International Women's Day in Afghanistan. This gathering took place amidst the Taliban's attempts to ban women's activities through threats, pressure, and suppression, aiming to silence their voices of protest and crush their fighting spirit. Nevertheless, our resilient women have played a significant role in the fight against fascism and fundamentalism with courage and awareness.
The event commenced with expressions of gratitude towards the girls, women, and mothers who attended despite the snowfall and other logistic difficulties. A poem was recited at the beginning of the program:
We fight against tyranny and darkness,
Hand in hand, we march towards victory.
Until every soul tastes freedom's sweetness,
We chant the anthem of liberation.
We despise the forced veils that shroud our faces,
Punches and acid on our faces, in the dominion of slavery
We must rebel against this poverty, oppression and discrimination
We build an equal world together
Be a woman and arise like a woman
Get up and run hard
Be a woman and revolt powerfully!
The hall was decorated with various slogans and images related to the struggle and sacrifice of women in Afghanistan and the world. The presenter said at the beginning of her speech:
"The 8th of March is a symbol of global solidarity of oppressed women around the world, and an opportunity to renew the pact to fight for liberation and equality. Painfully in our land, those reactionary and anti-democratic forces are governing which consider women as the main enemy and have concentrated all their treacherous actions and policies by imposing restrictions, restraints and intimidation on women. These days, the wave of repression, imprisonment and torture by the furious thugs of CIA and ISI trained Taliban and especially the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, has covered the whole country. These religious and fascists monsters have learned from their predecessors that in order to keep a society closed and backward, limit the women, who are one of the main pillars of the revolution, to be housewives, cut their flying feather, and shattered their prodigious thoughts and dreams."
Later, the performance of the anthem by the young members of RAWA, called Arise Women, which has the message of uprising against violence and oppression, was welcomed and liked a lot by the participants.
Zarlasht a representative of (RAWA) spoke in detail about the policies, activities and future of work and stated:
"While congratulating International Women's Day to the suffering, justice-seeking and fighting sisters of the world, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan believes that March 8th is the day of calling for justice, equality and renewing the promise to organize a serious and unified women's movement to eradicate oppression and discrimination in a patriarchal society. So, lets not allow reactionary forces and imperialism to make this auspicious day meaningless and empty of its militant and revolutionary content and change it to a day of only exchanging flowers and expressing false love to women in order to hide their misogynistic nature behind it.
Commemorating the International Women's Day has a much higher value for us, because our suffering women are more than any other region of the world under the suffocation and crushing terror of the Taliban fundamentalist criminals. Afghan women are deprived of their basic rights, which are freedom, education, and work, and choice of clothing and Hijab."
Analyzing the current situation and the treacherous role of Western governments, she noted:
"The US and its allies have not recognized the Taliban officially but secretly they are seeking to strengthen and support them, and by backing them, they are trying to prevent the collapse of the Emirate of killers. Although the United States and NATO troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan, the interventions and evil games of the Western countries to turn Afghanistan into a center of terrorism are still actively continuing, and in the last two or three years, ISIS and other terrorist gangs have been freely organizing themselves.
Islamic terrorism and imperialism are two sides of the same coin. For decades, the United States has supported and nourished the fundamentalists Mujahdeen, Taliban, ISIS as a tactic to impose its colonial and predatory policies in Afghanistan and continue dominating the region. For this purpose always kept them armed them to the teeth, and after twenty year of blood-shed, with open and secret financial and diplomatic support and ties, it keeps the disgraced Taliban regime running.
The wish and efforts of the West and the United Nations is to form an ‘inclusive government’. What they mean by all-‘inclusive’ is nothing but to accommodate a number of pro US/NATO intellectuals and trusted Jihadists in the Taliban administration, which of course will not bring the slightest change in the nature of their ignorance and crime of the current rulers.
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The anti-human policies of the aggressor government of the US prove the constant claim of RAWA that this government is at war with the people of Afghanistan and at peace with criminals. The shameful and blood-stained history of the US shows that it has always supported the most hated regimes, elements and institutions and has conspired to overthrow governments and popular movements. The White House doesn't care how the government works in Afghanistan and what our people die for. Zalmi Khalilzad clearly stated that ‘the US is satisfied with the Taliban’ and bluntly said that if girls are not allowed to go to school, it is the problem of the people of Afghanistan, not the United States! The most important fact for the US and CIA is that a puppet and dependent regime is established totally under their control so they can threaten Russia, China, Iran and other rivals with peace of mind."
Zarlasht appealed to the grieved men and women to break the atmosphere of hopelessness and despair and prepare themselves for the continuous and wining battle:
"We must know that without gaining awareness and fighting with our own arms, it is not possible to see well-being and success or to witness the slightest improvement in our devastating situation.
Once again, on the occasion of International Women's Day, we call on all the women of Afghanistan that liberation from the clutches of imperialism and their jihadist and Taliban clowns, as well as the traditions of the patriarchal society, is only possible with our own mobilization and struggle. It is impossible to end domestic violence, sexual assault, abuse and violence against women by holding seminars discussions with NGO’s. Getting rid of the pains and miseries that plague the people, especially us women, is only possible by joining a movement made up of all the ethnics and regional groups of Afghanistan against fundamentalism and occupation....
At a time when the women of Afghanistan are burnt in the fire of captivity and enmity and are captured in the clutches of the monster of fundamentalism, RAWA declared his solidarity with them with fiery greetings to the women fighting in Iran, Palestine, Kurdistan, Tunisia, India and all over the world. We learns from their bravery and steadfastness."
With the re-establishment of the Taliban, a large number of male and female intellectuals left for West, but RAWA remained next to its people and as part of its commitment to continue to work and organize in the most difficult conditions. During the event, the recent pictures and videos of political activities and agitations programs of RAWA, distribution of food to the needy, health team services in the most remote areas, providing relief packages in emergency situations, establishing underground literacy and political courses, were shown.
Paying tribute to the memory of the revolutionary women and the uprising of the Women, Life, Freedom in Iran, a poem titling "Spring is coming on the way" by Marzia Ahmadi Oskuee, one of the famous martyrs of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedai Guerrillasn and a short film on Sepideh Qolian, an Iranian protesters who created an epic in the terrible prisons of the corrupt and bloodthirsty regime of Iran, was presented.
RAWA is proud to be in touch with several activists and progressive movements and organizations in the world since its establishment and has always enjoyed their solidarity, consensus and political support. The majority of these forces have collected donations and helped us with their commitment and initiatives such as selling handicrafts and food items, etc. Like past this year also, on the occasion of 8th of March, we received many messages of solidarity, and Mursal shared a selection of them with the guests.
Even in the worst conditions, the foreign supporters of RAWA with bravery and courage stood by us and against the policies of their war-mongering and bloodthirsty governments in defense of our oppressed masses. This year, on behalf of foreign supporters, a group of them participated in our gathering and expressed their solidarity and cooperation.
At the end of the program, all the participants stood and sang along the anthem named Khorshid e Azadi (The Sun of Freedom) based on the famous song The People United Will Never Be Defeated! by Victor Jara, an assassinated revolutionary singer from Chile.
