By Abdul Saboor Sitiez

The Taliban leader’s recent decree banning women and girls from health education has inflicted another deep wound on women and the entire Afghan society. Once again making Afghan women and their fate the headlines of the world. The recent decree is so unacceptable in today’s world that everyone is asking themselves why the Taliban are so anti-women. Does this behavior of the Taliban has a purely religious and Islamic basis? In that case, why is this not the case in other Islamic countries with women, and why have some mullahs in Afghanistan also opposed this order? To find the answer to this question, we must look at the issue of women in Afghanistan from another perspective, which is the politicization of women’s bodies in Afghanistan.

There are many social phenomena that have the talent and capacity to be politicized, and this is not at all a coincidence. Just as the issue of Jews and race in the West became the biggest political issue in fascist ideology or the issue of production and capital became the main topic of political disputes in the world today, in the same way, in Islamic countries, the female body has long been politicized. At the same time, Westerners, despite their experience in the Middle Ages, are currently alien to such things and view this dispute about the female body with astonishment and sometimes with a hint of surprise.

One of the most susceptible options for politicization in Islamic countries and Afghanistan from the past to the present has been the female body. A hundred years ago, during the region of Amanullah Khan, following the law of revealing the veil, the female body, the female identity, and the female femininity became political by his order because instead of patiently and strategically working culturally and sustainably to elevate the status of women and their access to human and equal rights, and by laying the groundwork step by step and expanding universal education to provide for the presence of women in social spheres, he took radical political action and by pointing a finger at women’s clothing, for the first time his wife, Queen Soraya, daughter of Mahmud Tarzi, appeared without a veil for the first time, without introduction and suddenly, in a political gathering with the presence of officials, and then in public places. Following this, he issued a royal order that other women, at least the women of government officials, should follow Queen Soraya.

This royal order was issued suddenly, royally, and by order from the top down, without any kind of mental or giving women the right to choose. The crux of the matter was that such an order had been issued by a king who had the title of Ghazi and had declared jihad against the British. It is enough to put these two orders of Amanullah Khan (the fatwa of jihad and the unveiling of the veil) together to realize that the king himself was mentally and behaviorally. 

Contradictory, and his understanding of social issues was extremely superficial and his style of governance was extremely royal, without having the power and authority of a real king and dominating all matters and situations in every way.

This was precisely why his rule did not last long. The opposing faction, namely the religious believers and clerics, were not so naive as not to understand this game and the trick behind Amanullah Khan’s political view of the female body. Therefore, with the same card that Amanullah Khan played, namely focusing on the female body and highlighting the issue of hijab in a completely traditional and religious society, they prepared the social and cultural ground for Amanullah’s downfall by issuing a religious fatwa and granting the title of Servant of the Religion of the Messenger of Allah to Amir Habibullah Kalakani, they drove Amanullah Khan not only from power but also from the country.

During Habibullah Kalakani’s region, one of the main elements in the stated and unstated policies of his nine-month rule was the female body. I emphasize that it is not the woman herself but the female body, meaning her sexuality and physicality.

Consider this ruling by Habibullah Kalakani regarding the body of a woman: “I revoked the decree of the Sadr, which he had issued. I banned the going out of the country of women and adult girls without the permission of their guardians and the school of occultism. I did not consider it permissible to send the girls abroad, which he had sent abroad, because it was a disgrace to the nation, and I summoned them and forbade them from sending them again.”

In this way, the female body, which had previously been politicized, became even more politicized, and the same role that had been defined for it earlier, during the time of Amanullah Khan, was then assumed in reverse.

Just as the liberated female gender was considered the spirit of modernity during the time of Amanullah Khan, the covered female body was then considered the spirit of religion and Sharia and became the main symbol of Islamic society.

Nader Khan continued the conservative policy of Habibullah Khan. The situation was the same in the early days of Zahir Shah’s rule when the main authority was in the hands of his uncles, but in the last decade of his rule, which became known as the decade of democracy, the women’s movement in Afghanistan took a turn. Women went to school and university and began learning foreign languages, and of course, the presence of Queen Humaira as a leading woman at court was not without influence.

The attitude of the Zahir Shah government, or more cautiously, the ruling secular government, was that in a modern state, all citizens are free and woman must also be free, and the condition for this was the return of ownership of women’s bodies to themselves. During the era of Zahir Shah, when social conditions had been somewhat prepared and relatively continuous political stability had made his authority more certain, and society was somewhat more prepared to accept reforms, women’s independent physicality was supported by law and political rule, taking the content of modernity to the innermost parts of society. Women legally and legally enjoyed the right to choose their clothing. This law was implemented to some extent in the cities.

In addition to women’s access to school and university and ultimately enjoying knowledge, insight, and expertise in political positions, they also rose to the level of ministers and despite the limited facilities and serious obstacles that still existed, they demonstrated their competence and worthiness for social and political presence.

After the 7th Saur coup the people’s democratic party came to power, the issue of women’s bodies was also discussed and took on a different form. In my opinion, this was also the golden age for women.

The understanding that can be reached with this historical perspective is that what has made the female body the main arena of political competition and tension in Afghanistan for more than a century, and why her face and body are sometimes covered by religious decree and sometimes by royal order or revolutionary decree, is not and is not only the implementation of Islamic law and Sharia, but also the hijab and restriction of the female body. Part of the resistance against modernity and perceived or pretended modernity; a modernity that turns the female body into a non-religious, non-spiritual, non-mystical issue and, in a word, secular.

But is the female body really so important in the system of traditions and the religious world that it needs to be so politicized and even impose a huge political cost on the world of politics for it? There is no doubt that the answer to this question is negative. The female body, not the woman herself is not that important, but when it becomes a symbol of resistance, it becomes important and ultimately a means of self-expression. If we took closely at the Taliban’s propaganda of the hijab, its symbolic aspect is emphasized more than its actual content.

This historical trend over the past hundred years shows that there has been only one fundamental and fundamental conflict in Afghanistan, and that is the conflict between religious belief and secularism. The war and struggle is over modernity, and all other disputes and conflicts are secondary. The front line of this ongoing battle has always been the women’s body. Therefore, after a change of regime, the first place that always changes is the woman’s body and as a result, the entire life of the woman, if one side wins, the woman returns to life, and if the other side wins, the woman is imprisoned again.

Until we look at the issue of women in Afghanistan from this perspective, we will not understand the secret of this flight. But it seems that politicizing the female body has caused more headaches and costs than benefits for all parties to the flight. The law on revealing the hijab damaged the secular movement, just as the Taliban’s excessive and extreme emphasis on women’s modesty is now leading them to greater international isolation day by day, and a broader national resistance is taking shape, especially from women themselves, within Afghanistan.

The important point is that women at different levels have realized that the fight over the female body has become a political tool and that the predominantly male politicians in Afghanistan do not have a truly serious and deep belief in women’s equal rights in all legal and social fields. If we look at the slogans and behaviors of Afghan women protesters during the nine months of Taliban rule, we realize that they are trying to remove the female body as sacrificial meat from the scene of male politics and not pay attention to women’s main issues.

The slogan “Bread, work, Freedom” or the constant emphasis on opening girl’s schools, precisely shows that this time, more than ever, women want to put forward their fundamental, feminist demands. They want to save the female body from political controversy so that they can free the female soul from that mire in which it is trapped.

Abdul Saboor Sitez is a writer and expert on International Relations. His articles have appeared in publications, such as: Hasht - e - Subh, Etilaat Roz, Subh - e - Kabul, Afghan Women's Voices, Zan - e Rooz.

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The article does not reflect the official opinion of the AISS.