SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This book is intended to counter the often inaccurate and misleading impressions put about by the media and politicians in the west when they talk about Afghanistan and Afghan women in particular. It is a contribution to the global peace movement and the struggle of millions of people against the continuation of the wars and conflicts orchestrated by George W Bush, Tony Blair and Condoleezza Rice. It is also a challenge to western feminists who do not try to understand women in Muslim majority societies and cultures, and who today do not take a stand against the misogynistic culture of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism that promotes western superiority and the imperial strategy of 'saving Afghan and Muslim women'. This passive stance has allowed their ideas to be hijacked by the particularly aggressive new imperialism of the twentieth-first century, which has successfully manipulated their ideas for its own economic and political power-seeking. I include in this discussion the current reactivation of Islamophobia, fear of Islam: Afghan women in the West alongside other practising Muslim women have been the victims of this contemporary racist discourse. The future of women's rights in Afghanistan does not just depend on challenging local male domination, but also on challenging imperial domination.