With fund-raising for Afghan relief running at a fever pitch,
especially for the women and children deemed most at risk in the
Taliban’s clutches, it behooves us to take a step back and ask
where all this money is going.
Much of the money intended to help the women of Afghanistan
has been steered toward a group called the
Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan, or RAWA, which
describes itself as an apolitical organization providing
humanitarian services, primarily to refugees in Pakistan.
Eleanor Smeal — President of the left-wing Feminist Majority
— testified before the U.S. Senate on October 11 that her group
has formed more than 800 teams across America to help Afghan
women.
“These teams — which include girl scout troops, community
organizations, classrooms, and groups of family, friends, and
co-workers — are organizing petition drives and raising funds to
support schools and clinics run by Afghan women in Pakistan for
refugees," she said.
Much of it, apparently, is going to RAWA.
RAWA has emerged as the most prominent anti-Taliban voice for
women's rights. Its web site has rightfully horrified the public
with compelling stories, photos, videos and audio documentation
on the brutal oppression of women under the Taliban.
Two facts about RAWA emerge from its Web site.
First, that the agency has done heroic and much-needed work.
For example, it established the Malalai hospital for refugee
Afghan women and children in 1986 in Quetta, Pakistan. The
hospital is now run by the
Afghan Women's Mission.
Second, unlike relief organizations such as the Red Cross,
RAWA is not, as it claims, apolitical. Politics, in fact, are at
the root of RAWA. Its Web site describes it as "an independent
political/social organization of Afghan women fighting for human
rights and for social justice." During the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan, RAWA became active in the resistance movement and
in 1981, the group’s founder and martyr, Meena, represented the
resistance at the French Socialist Party Congress.
RAWA's stated goals include: the struggle against
fundamentalists "and their foreign masters," "freedom,
democracy, peace and women's rights in Afghanistan," and, "an
elected secularist government based on democratic values."
The words seem simple enough, but in fact may mean something
very different than what most Westerners would expect.
Some of RAWA's political goals are explicitly stated. UN
forces, the group says, should disarm warring groups and occupy
Afghanistan during a "transition" period after which a
government "based on democratic values and comprised of neutral
personalities" would be established.
Other political goals can be discerned from RAWA's
activities. For example, at its 2000 celebration of
International Women's Day, one of RAWA's featured speakers was
Afzal Shah Khamosh, the heads of Pakistan’s openly Communist
Mazdoor Kissan Party.
In the fast-moving world of Islamic politics, such a
connection may mean little and might be easily explained. But
few people are asking RAWA difficult or probing questions. Even
professional skeptics — that is, journalists — have done only
softball interviews and articles in venues ranging from New York
Times Magazine to Court TV.
So RAWA remains something of a mystery, with only a Web site
for a public face because of the group's understandable fear of
retaliation from the Taliban. Its representatives commonly use
false names, even when giving interviews in America. RAWA has no
street address, only a P.O. Box in Pakistan to which donations
can be sent. Such concealment may be prudent but it also is a
barrier to accountability.
It is time for RAWA to become more open, for its own sake and
for the sake of its donors. Its politics and any underlying
ideology should be posted in a manner that eliminates oft-abused
terms such as "democracy" or "revolutionary." The Web site
should address specific questions posed by visitors.
For example, does RAWA favor the private ownership of guns
for women in Afghanistan to defend themselves? What does RAWA
mean when it says "women in our closed society...have their own
sex preferences" and that it wants to publish magazines on
"taboo subjects?" Which taboos will be discussed? And what
safeguards of financial accountability exist for the donations
pouring in? Can money be earmarked for hospitals or is it all
going into one big pot to be used for magazines on “taboo
subjects?”
RAWA's past accomplishments deserve applause but it needs to
open up a little more, especially now that it is becoming part
of American politics. On April 28th, it participated in a
protest rally in front of the White House along with the
Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Committee of Women
for a Democratic Iran. An organization that holds protest
rallies while asking for American dollars should expect to
answer some probing questions.
