Closing Of Girls' Schools In Afghanistan, The

Off Our Backs, Nov 1996 by Morris, Bonnie J.

The Closing Of Girls' Schools In Afghanistan

Since the spring of 1995, when they first swept through rural Afghanistan on a mission of Islamic revolution, the radical Taliban movement has made female illiteracy its business. This popular front of militia and students has now seized control of Kabul, instituting religious reforms so unyielding in their interpretation of the Koran that all schools for girls have been shut down. Thus education has become, in Afghanistan, a privilege of gender.

Reports from troubled Kabul confirm mixed reactions to the Taliban takeover of Afghani government. Many citizens openly celebrate the arrival of the Taliban, welcoming the students' brand of religious law as a moral solution to the chaotic warring which has plagued their country for two decades. They point to lowered prices, the return of electricity, and restored order as much-needed improvements made possible by the new Taliban regime. However, the cost of such gains is steep for women and girls: virtual house arrest, with urban working women forced out of their jobs and female education halted until it can be re-established "in a manner consistent with Islamic beliefs."

This ban on female education in the name of peace and order should send out bells of alarm to the global community. When violent conditions and/or poverty routinely impede the schooling of children -- as in the West Bank and Gaza, where schools for Palestinian children were closed by Israeli authorities throughout the intifada years -- educators across cultures usually protest, citing human rights and the cost of illiteracy to future generations. Indeed, in our own District of Columbia, the closing of schools and related delays due to fire code violations has been a news theme for months, a shameful reminder of academic inequity mere blocks from the White House. However, when Middle Eastern schools are closed to girls alone, with a religious rationale offered by those empowered to halt female education, the global community falls silent. While the District of Columbia sends home its school children because school buildings are unfit, the Taliban in Afghanistan have closed down perfectly fine schools rather than see girls educated.

As a women's studies professor concerned about the global human rights of girls, I risk the familiar charge that I and other academics are forcibly exporting feminist politics, contributing to a western cultural tyranny which disrespects others' spiritual heritage. However, the issue here is not abortion, or birth control, or rape and adultery laws, or any of the complex issues associated with "feminist" debate over adult women's rights. We're talking, now, about little girls learning to read and write.

We fear intervening in others' interpretations of gender roles, and of late we grudgingly accept the monstrosity of sex discrimination as a private matter in the delicate peace process between nations. Put simply, violations of men's rights are political; violations of women's rights are a "local" and cultural business. Yet I suspect that if any nation dismantled schools for 50% of its children because of, say, antipathy toward their racial or ethnic group, there would be an international outcry. Protests would be held, letters written, news conferences scheduled, sanctions proposed. Matters of ethnic discrimination still stir the global conscience, yet religious fundamentalism's steady assault on female freedom continues unabated.

Afghanistan is only the most recent example. But it is an extreme example of the price girls pay for being born female. And it is a wake-up call to those who remain squeamish about protesting abuses by self-styled religious leaders. Men and women of any nation who stand by and watch as their daughters lose basic rights of literacy may find, eventually, that peace without freedom is no peace at all.

Photo (Afghan girls in veils)