and documented fundamentalist atrocities by using
cameras hidden under their clothes. The title caught my eye first: With All Our Strength.
Then the subtitle: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. (2003,
Routledge) Although I am not an activist or a focused feminist, the words evoked
in me sympathy and curiosity. So I borrowed it from the library. Anne E.
Brodsky is an activist and a focused feminist and also an assistant professor in
the psychology department at the Women's Studies Program at the University
of Maryland Baltimore County. As the first writer allowed into RAWA to interview
the members, she has written the inside story of this totally female underground
organization, which has struggled secretly for 26 years to free and empower the
women of Afghanistan.
Brodsky describes how members of RAWA have concealed
their identities even to each other, for security, have run orphanages and
schools, given medical aid, and documented fundamentalist atrocities by using
cameras hidden under their clothes.
Although the book describes many examples of the
terrible oppression suffered by these women, it also explains in great detail
how RAWA is organized and why it has survived through conditions of extreme
physical danger to all members. The cultural bias against women, increased by
fundamentalist regimes, serves ironically as protection for RAWA members.
Afghanistan men in general do not believe that women
are smart enough or brave enough to organize, avoid discovery, and accomplish
what RAWA has done.
The rigid requirements of dress and behavior for
women conceal their identities from their many enemies. And a growing male
support system – fathers, husbands, brothers of members, although men are not
accepted as members – increases RAWA's opportunities to serve women. Women
committed to working for RAWA often sacrifice their family life, their comfort,
even their own autonomy because each member obeys the decisions made by the
smaller groups within the organization and goes where she is sent to do what she
is trained to do.
The primary purpose of RAWA is education: literacy,
history, psychology, language studies. But physical needs come first because a
hungry woman or an ill or injured woman cannot learn until she is fed and
healed. Survival is the first step. Then education.
Since most Afghans live in the same village, and once
married, the same houses all their lives, RAWA members in their work often break
this pattern. Brodsky found that most members had worked in both Afghanistan and
Pakistan, had lived in at least three geographic regions, and multiple houses in
a year, often for security.
The appeal of RAWA to all women comes from its
insistence on truth and trust and its constant actions of kindness and caring.
The organization offers hope and a way to work for their own freedom and the
freedom of all Afghan women.
One RAWA member said, "The world owes it to
Afghan women to look at their trouble and agony and also their courage and
resistance during the worst nightmare in history. The world hasn't fully
comprehended the depth of the fanaticism of the Taliban and Osama."
Brodsky believes that the model of RAWA should
jump-start many other groups who have more resources, freedom, and
opportunities. She says we should use the example of RAWA to make a difference
in our own communities and those we should care about worldwide. This is a
sobering, even haunting book. It is dense with interviews and somewhat
repetitious, but its effect accumulates over the pages. When I finished it, I
wanted to send money. I didn't. My resources commit me to helping those at hand.
Nevertheless it was worth reading.
For readers who want to help, tax-deductible
contributions for RAWA can be made payable to "SEE/Afghan Women's Mission (RAWA)
and sent to
Afghan's Women's Mission, 260 South Lake Avenue, PMB 165, Pasadena, CA
91101. E-mail is info@afghanwomensmission.org and their website is
another source of information, www.afghanwomensmission.org