Interesting-sounding book about RAWA

One day in the spring of 2000 in her dining room in Baltimore’s Hunting Ridge, Brodsky heard visitors from Afghanistan tell of their secret efforts to run schools for girls.

The women were visiting Baltimore to speak at the Feminist Expo, and they were invited to stay at her house by her then-partner. Listening to their stories, Brodsky realized they were the first revolutionary women she’d ever met, the first example of people she’d read about in her suburban youth. There she was, with these young women who were risking their lives because of what they believed in, and she was moved to join them.

She has met many members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women in Afghanistan (RAWA) since that day. They are women who fight with words and deeds for equal rights in Afghanistan.

Photographs after the American bombing of Kabul that toppled the Taliban government showed women in the Afghan capital shedding their required burqas, the veil covering all but a woman’s eyes. Coverage of the bombing at the time showed women freed by the same campaign to capture Osama bin Laden. The U.S. war against terrorism moved on to Iraq, but the battle for women in Afghanistan is hardly over. Last week, another school for girls in rural Logar province was set afire and the doors padlocked. Many women continue to wear the veil for their own safety and, for many, the dream of education remains dim.

This summer, Brod- sky returned to Afghanistan and saw malls, shops and warlords’ houses under construction. The roads were less rutted but still unpaved. Teachers earn $30 a month, far less than their $100 monthly rent, and unemployed lawyers drove taxis. One of the most positive things she saw was that everyone seemed to be taking a class; she saw even a guard in front of a store reading a book.

The changes are superficial, she says women told her. The colors of the leaves may change, they said, but the roots of the tree still needed to be fertilized.

Before the war, 90 percent of women in Afghanistan wore the traditional covering garb. Now 70 percent wear it. The people in charge are no better than the hated Taliban, Brodsky says, only different. A new report by Human Rights Watch said increased violence by gunmen and warlords against girls and women, especially in southeast Afghanistan, is endangering gains made under the new government.

The response of RAWA women is hopeful pessimism. “They are uncompromising in their values and stand and continue to see the benefit of working one school, one person at a time,” she says.

“They all say they will not see it in their lifetimes,” she says.