Privileged Reflections
On seeing and hearing Sohaila, from RAWA, today; under the auspices of women’s and student’s activist organizations in Australia:
“When the time came for me to go on stage, after Oprah Winfrey had read [Eve Ensler’s poem] ‘Under the Burqa’; all the lights went off save for one that was aimed directly at me. I had been asked to wear my burqa, and the light streamed in through the mesh in front of my face and brought tears to my eyes. A group of singers was singing an American chant, a melody full of grief, and I was to walk as slowly as possible …. I had to climb some steps, but because of the burqa and the tears in my eyes, which wet the fabric and made it cling to my skin, I had to be helped up the stairs.
Slowly, very slowly, Oprah lifted the burqa off me and let it fall to the stage.”
– Zoya, with John Follain & Rita Cristofari, Zoya’s Story: An Afghan Woman’s Struggle for Freedom, Harper Collins, New York, 2002. Qtd. by Gillian Whitlock in ‘The Skin of the Burqa: Recent Life Narratives from Afghanistan’.
Thanks for the essay. So, I gather it felt like attending a strip show?
Comment by s0metim3s — 7/26/2007 @ 9:46 pm
A little … though not in the good way!
No doubt because I\’ve been reading Whitlock\’s \’Soft Weapons\’, I was particularly thinking of the way in which RAWA is consumed by western feminists. The woman who \’brought Sohaila out here\’ (her words), for example, had much to say yesterday about \’how many wonderful opportunities Sohaila has had because of RAWA\’, and that\’s why we (mostly young white women students) should support them, such as by purchasing some handicrafts made by Afghan widows. There was something a bit World Vision (of life under the burqa) about it. Whereas Sohaila (not her real name, because if the Afghan government finds out she is part of RAWA she will be killed) emphasised things like the AU government\’s collaboration with the US and the impact that is having on Afghan women, particularly after 20 years of war.
As Whitlock suggests, \”RAWA … maneuver[s] to pursue their needs and interests and to accomodate and respect what can be dramatically different investments by feminist activists in the West.\” (p.66).
Comment by ana — 7/27/2007 @ 11:34 am
Hi Ana
A bizarre thing happened: the RAWA speaker you mention here came into my department at the University of Queensland and I didn’t realise this was on. I was really interested to hear about your experiences of the presentation. The RAWA situation is hard to assess - you get it with the ‘bit World Vision’ comment. My sense is that the RAWA reps do take opportunities to speak from another perspective.
The description of the Oprah incident is from ‘Zoya’s Story’ by the way, not ‘Latifa’.
It is weird to write a book then have it go into space and not know what is happening, so your comment is really rewarding for this writer. Thanks
Comment by Gillian Whitlock — 8/4/2007 @ 5:53 pm
My pleasure! I’m so glad you found it rewarding. Cyberspace is a random place isn’t it ….
Re my bad referencing …. how embarassing. Please find it now corrected!
Comment by ana — 8/6/2007 @ 9:18 am
[…] Particularly since the NT intervention lurched onto the public scene last year, I feel the urge to keep up the critique of government and non-government ‘helping’ regimes. I’ve quoted it before, and I’ll quote it now: “the judgement ‘good’ was not invented by those to whom goodness was shown!” (Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morality). […]
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