Joya to the World . . . .

Since my friend was singing in the pre-show choir for Malalai Joya's Vancouver book tour kick-off, I walked up the hill to her performance this evening.

I had previously heard Ms. Joya on a PBS program in the US, but to hear her story live in person was very moving. It is something I would recommend to anyone that has the opportunity to attend one of her appearances on this tour.

Be advised that neither bush, harper nor obama are positively portrayed. The woman knows where the real element of change for her country lies: Within it's people.

In answer to a question from an Afghani-Canadian woman in the crowd:

"What will happen to Afghanistan if all the foreign troops leave?"

was:

"The Afghani people will work it out. Slowly, they will begin to see that democracy and equal rights for all people, genders, religions is the thing to do. It won't be easy. It won't be fast. But it will happen. Having foreign troops there only more firmly entrenches the Taliban and the war lords in power. Make them leave, and the situation will slowly begin to change."

I'm thinking the military/industrial/congressional complex would not like her answer.

The Lady Alison has the details of the tour . . . .

(Cross-posted from Moved to Vancouver)

Afghanistan's big election day

For a cheerful look at the Afghan election, here's the BBC :

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his Western allies have pronounced the country's election a success, after voting passed off largely peacefully
... including a helpful vid explaining how the indelible ink used to mark the index finger of people who have already voted won't wash off for four to five days. The UN rep said so.

Or you could try the rather more dour Guardian :

Presidential poll day sees low turnout amid bombings, fraud claims and 'indelible' finger markings that wash off
... wherein a voter turns up half an hour after casting his ballot with his finger washed clean.

A week ago a BBC reporter bought several ballots cheaply at a local market and reported that most Afghan women would not be voting as the country was short over a thousand female scrutineers to search those women who had not already been forbidden to vote by their families and husbands. Rural elders were also advised that things would go badly for them if people in their villages did not vote as instructed and ballot boxes were delivered to polling stations pre-stuffed.

Two days ago Democracy Now carried the news that a warlord reputedly responsible for the "death by container" of 2000 supposed Taliban who had foolishly surrendered to Afghan and ISAF forces in 2001 had returned to Afghanistan to rally support for Karzai :

Eight Years After Orchestrating Massacre at Dasht-e-Leili, Afghan Warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum Returns to Afghanistan to Campaign for Karzai

Reuters :

"My coming back will help peace and stability," he [Dostrum] said. "I want to sit with my American friends and make a plan so that within two or three years, we will secure all of Afghanistan."

Asked what type of job he would like if Karzai was to be re-elected, he said he was not interested in working as a cabinet minister, but would be interested in a security-related role. He said he had repeatedly turned down offers to be one of Karzai's two
vice presidents.

"I have a lot of experience dealing with terrorism and if Karzai wants it, or our international friends who are battling terrorism want, I am prepared to work. Other than this, I'm not interested in becoming this or that minister," he said.

Questioned about the massacre at Dasht-e-Leili, the investigation of which has been repeatedly derailed by the Bush administration as witnesses continue to be killed off, Dostrum said :

"The United States of America, international friends, they should put together a group, a strong commission, to ask the truth," he said. "It wasn't just General Dostum."

Don't be fooled by this facade of democracy : Malalai Joya

"We Afghans know that this election will change nothing and it is only part of a show of democracy put on by and for the West, to legitimize its future puppet in Afghanistan. It seems we are doomed to see the continuation of this failed, mafia-like corrupt government for another term.

Democracy will never come to Afghanistan through the barrel of a gun, or from the cluster bombs dropped by foreign forces. The struggle will be long and difficult, but the values of real democracy, human rights and women's rights will only be won by the Afghan people themselves.

So do not be fooled by this façade of democracy. Your governments in the West that claim to be bringing democracy to Afghanistan ignore public opinion in their own countries, where growing numbers are against the war. President Obama in particular needs to understand that the change Afghans believe in does not include more troops and a ramped up war. "

Joya notes Karzai has passed the now infamous law allowing Shia women to be starved for disobedience to their husbands and quotes Human Rights Watch :

"Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists in the August 20 election."

It's almost enough to make you long to be back in the days of Josee Verner's platitudes about the little girls in their little schoolhouses and Steve's bloviating about his important place on the world stage :

"I can tell you it's certainly engaged our military," the Prime Minister told CBC. "It's, I think, made them a better military notwithstanding — and maybe in some way because of — the casualties."

Harper added that Canada's current role in Afghanistan is "certainly raising Canada's leadership role, once again, in the United Nations and in the world community.".

.

Malalai Joya...

By Alison

"After 9/11, unfortunately the United States and its allies like Canada pushed us from the frying pan into the fire, by putting in power the Northern Alliance criminals and warlords. As long as they follow this wrong policy, the situation in Afghanistan will become more disastrous.

Canada should not continue its current policy until 2011. Canada should act independently of the United States and find an alternative policy if they really want to be an honest friend of the Afghan people and improve this catastrophic situation.

Today, in the name of bringing human rights, women's rights and democracy, our country has been occupied.

You cannot bring values like democracy and human rights by supporting the sworn enemies of these values."

Continued at Rabble

There were tens of us...

I hate protest rallies.

I hate the boring repetitive speeches, the completely off-topic signs from supporters of other causes, the waiting, the not high enough numbers, and the songs dear god the songs!

But I'm going.
After I wrote something about Afghanistan a couple of years ago, I got a message from RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan - not a personal message, a reprinted one I think.

It died with my old pooter but this is the part I remember :

"Thank you for your interest in our country and our fight for freedom.
Last week we held a protest outside the Ministry of Vice and Virtue.
There were tens of us. We are hopeful."

It was that "There were tens of us. We are hopeful."
I have to go every time now.

We can do it with hope.
We can do it without hope.
It only matters that we do it.

Oct. 27 Day of Action - Events across Canada

Cross-posted at Creekside

Malalai Joya ousted

Malalai Joya has been suspended from the lower house of the Afghan parliament.

Not for calling for war crimes trials against both the Taliban and our allies, the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, which the western media prefers to call the Northern Alliance.

Not for referring to Karzai as a U.S. puppet and her fellow MPs as drug lords and war criminals, specifically the vice president, named by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal; the minister of water and power; the anti-corruption chief, a convicted drug trafficker who served time in a Nevada state prison; the deputy interior minister in charge of the anti-drug effort, a famous drug-trafficker; the chief of staff of the Afghan army, also named by Human Rights Watch as a war criminal; and various senators and advisors to Hamid Karzai.

Not for speaking out against the increasing violence towards women and children as perpetrated by the Afghan state.

Not for her speaking engagements abroad, in which she argues that "Afghans are deeply fed-up with the current situation and every day that passes they turn against the government, the foreign troops and the warlords, and the Taliban make use of this resentment to increase their influence amongst the commom people."

Not even for calling the US-installed Afghan government a "B52 democracy".

No, Malalai Joya has been ousted for referring to parliament on national television as "a zoo", or in some other translations, as "a stable of animals".

That, apparently, was just too much for them.

On her return to Afghanistan after visiting Canada in September last year, Joya was at pains to explain to her countrymen that support for the US invasion of Afghanistan was not the fault of the Canadian and American people.

"I didn't realize how much they don't know," she said. "Their government lies to them, and the media."

(cross-posted at Creekside).