My Evening With Malalai Joya and What It Says About Democracy
This evening, controversial author, politician and activist Malalai Joya spoke at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Based upon the atmosphere in the buildup to the event as well as the number of people walking out during Joya’s emotionally charged talk, the organizers of the event at the National Press Club had little idea what they were getting themselves into.
Ms. Joya’s fast-paced assault of facts against what she called the U.S. “occupation” of Afghanistan and the role she believes the United States is playing in sustaining the Taliban and warlords were obviously controversial and even laughable to some people in the room. Those expecting to hear ‘the bravest woman in Afghanistan,’ were probably more incensed by seeing a woman from Afghanistan railing against the United States and NATO as opposed to a tearful diatribe about oppression and burqas. In fact, Ms. Joya referred to the burqas as something that gives Afghan women freedom from the over-arching fear in the war-torn nation.
“They [United States] pushed us from the frying pan to the fire”
Much of Ms. Joya’s talk had to do with the violence and destruction brought on by what she called Afghanistan’s two enemies – the ‘occupation’ forces in the sky and the Taliban on land. To Ms. Joya both go hand in hand. In fact, Ms. Joya asserted that under the guise of women’s rights, human rights, and democracy, the United States ‘occupied’ Afghanistan to further its financial, political, and regional interests. To Ms. Joya, the United States must continue to fuel the Taliban and warlords in order to keep the ‘occupation’ going and use Afghanistan’s geography as a tool to sway regional politics and extract economic resources from the region.
“Misogynist warlords are photocopies of the Taliban”
Many people in the room were outraged at Joya’s blunt and repetitive words, but what a polemic figure like Malalai Joya proves is that democracy means that you must be willing to listen to those with whom you find yourself in diametric ideological opposition. In reality, Ms. Joya was not saying anything other revolutionaries before her haven’t, but as I stated earlier, perhaps the mostly older white audience at the National Press Club weren’t ready to hear a woman from Afghanistan calling the Israeli state criminal and accusing the United States of aiding and abetting the Taliban.
“Democracy never comes by cluster bombs”
At the same time however, Ms. Joya could do well to go through some media training because no matter how impassioned and truthful (at times) her argument may have been, few audiences in Washington, D.C. would be willing to sit through a speech where the speaker repeatedly equates the United States with international terrorist groups like the Taliban with little historical or political context behind it.
“This election was the most ridiculous and fraudulent in the world”
In fact, from the very beginning Ms. Joya began hurling pointed accusation after pointed accusation without a clear structure, order, or context to her speech so that she was constantly re-stating herself while simultaneously confusing and infuriating those members of the audience who were unfamiliar the history of the United States, Afghanistan, Russia, Iran, and Pakistan. Ms. Joya had very good points (at times) that could have done a lot to change the United States’ perceptions of the situation in Afghanistan, but her message was lost in the barrage of inflammatory accusations.
“It’s not important whose voting, it’s important whose counting…the ballot box is in the hands of the mafia”
As certain members of the audience grew more frustrated and enraged Ms. Joya, who finds Dr. Abdullah Abdullah to be an irrelevant appeaser, and sees no possibility of civil war following a U.S. troop withdrawal, became a model of what a real democracy in Afghanistan could lead to. A 29 year old (median age in Afghanistan is 17.6 years) impassioned, provocative young woman barely educated past the twelfth grade (12.6% of women over 15 are literate and 28.1% of overall population over 15 are literate) speaking boldly and loudly about injustice and conspiracy without an understanding of how to ground her arguments in fact, history and politics.
Download audio of speech here.
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