There is a book I have just read on Afghanistan by a remarkable young Afghan woman. I first heard of it and her through CODEPINK: Women for Peace who recommended it and co-sponsored Joya on a book tour of the U.S. I requested Frankfort's Paul Sawyier Public Library acquire the book which they did. I now recommend this immensely informational book on the country of Afghanistan by a woman of that country who dares to speak to truth to power, including to that of our own country, the United States of America.
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A woman among warlords : the extraordinary story of an Afghan who dared to raise her voice by Malalai Joya with Derrick O'Keefe
Scribner, 2009.
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Book Review
Publishers WeeklyOne of the few women, and the youngest, to win a seat in Afghanistan's Parliament, Joya recounts in strong, uncompromising language her march to activism, from her humble origins to recognizing a burning need to bring the corrupted leaders to justice in her war-torn country. Native to the western Afghan province of Ziken, and later Farah City, Joya—a name she had to adopt in order to protect her family—grew up mostly in desperate, unsafe refugee camps in Pakistan after the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1978. With only a high school education (and one wonders how she wrote this book in English), she nonetheless became a teacher in the camps, then worked to organize underground classes for girls in Herat in defiance of Taliban edicts. Her activism grew, supporting orphanages and war victims after the Taliban fled and the U.S. began air strikes and became an armed presence; Joya is adamant in underscoring the responsibility America holds in reinstalling to power the same warlords (commanders she names in the Northern Alliance) who once tore the country apart during the civil war of the 1990s. Having won election to Parliament in 2005 at age 27—Eva Mulvad's film Enemies of Happiness documented her election—Joya was outspoken in condemning these warlords she called criminals and antiwomen, enduring the shutting off of her microphone, assassination threats and, finally, suspension from Parliament. Joya is on a dangerous, eye-opening mission to uncover truth and expose the abuse of power in Afghanistan, and her book will work powerfully in her favor. (Oct.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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From the book:
Either Obama does not want to acknowledge or he is not aware of the main problem in Afghanistan and thus he will continue the wrong policies of the past administrations. He did not even try to replace the defense secretary, Robert Gates, who has been behind the failed US.S. war in Afghanistan and Iraq. If Obama wants to do anything positive in Afghanistan or if he has genuine concern for the plight of the Afghan people, he must first strongly criticize the past mistakes of the US. government. He must criticize how the United States helped turn Afghanistan into a safe haven for fundamentalist terrorists and now helps prop up a corrupt regime and a powerful drug mafia.
If I ever do have the chance to meet President Obama, I will try to convey to him these points and tell him very clearly that the U.S. government has betrayed the Afghan People enough. I would ask that he please stop this pattern, and put an end to the ongoing crimes against my sorrowful people.
Day by day the Afghan people become more frustrated by the foreign troops and by the "warlord strategy" of the United States.
-page 209
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From a recent piece by Malalai Joya in The Daily Beast entitled, Memo to America: Stop Murdering My People:
We can no longer bear the killing of our pregnant mothers, the killing of our teenagers and young children, the killing of so many Afghan men and women. We can no longer bear these “accidents” and these “apologies” for the deaths of the innocent.
We salute the anti-war movements in the NATO countries. Here, we will struggle to our last breath to stop this war that is tearing apart our beloved Afghanistan.
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