Remembering the Plight of Afghan Women

by Lisa Ann Pierce, WAMM

Dear Friend,

I do not know you -- you live on the opposite side of the world from me -- but it seems our lives are inextricably linked.

On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, my nation experienced, firsthand, the ravages of war. Hijackers, who may or may not have had any connection to your country, took over four U.S. passenger airplanes. They used these planes as weapons of unforeseen destruction, crashing them into the World Trade Center in New York City; the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.; and a field in rural Pennsylvania. Thousands are missing or dead.

The president of my nation called this week's attack "the first war of the 21st century." Never mind that U.S. military forces bombed Iraq just two days before. Never mind that your nation of Afghanistan has been at civil war for most of my lifetime. We are so unaccustomed to the violence that you have known.

With the people of my country, I am grieving. We have lost loved ones, we have lost symbols, and we have lost our sense of safety and security. Sadly, even as we cross unwilling over this threshold in our nation's history, our naiveté, our narrow worldview, and our amnesia for history remain intact.

The president of my nation points a finger of blame toward your nation's government and its resident guest, Osama bin Laden. Few, however, remember that our own Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) trained and funded bin Laden in our cold war against the Soviet Union. Few remember -- or ever knew -- that when our CIA sent guns to Afghan rebels through Pakistan, the trucks returned to Pakistan full of opium, forever shifting the economy of your country -- now one of the world's largest suppliers of opium.

Few remember that our nation, full of fear of communism, willingly destabilized your nation at all costs, paving the way to the civil war that catapulted the Taliban into power. As we in the West cry with outrage at your oppression as a woman in Afghan society, we too easily forget the role our own government played in the destruction of a country in which you still enjoyed some semblance of human rights.

As I imagine you in your nation, hidden behind windows painted dark, hidden behind your heavy burqa, hidden behind a history of covert and overt war, I know that your memory is far stronger than ours.

In grief and in anger, our minds are stripped of all memory, save that of the images of airplanes colliding, jet fuel exploding, smoke rising, buildings collapsing, people fleeing, a nation grieving. We have little memory left for your civil war, our CIA's covert operations, or the myriad ways in which our nation's foreign policy and economic dominance have alienated people across the planet.

With raw and naked grief, my people are turning to nationalism and vengeance -- some even to racist hatred. We hang American flags and spew phrases like, "An eye for an eye," and, "What goes around comes around." Unfortunately, we see ourselves as the victims ready to take retribution. We fail to understand that we are both perpetrator and victim, stuck in a deadly cycle of vengeance. I fear that we will fail to understand this deadly cycle until it is far too late. As someone once said, "An eye for an eye until all are blind."

Soon my government will act out of the American fervor, striking a malicious blow that they will, no doubt, term "justice." They will do so in the name of all Americans . . . in my name. But remember this: I stand by you and all the innocent civilians of Afghanistan.

I am writing to you to tell you that I have withdrawn my consent for this violence. I am writing to tell you that I know many U.S. citizens who are crying out, "No more!" Along with me, they do not want to see more innocent civilians suffer violent and unnecessary deaths--not here, not in your homeland, not anywhere.

Still, in my fearful heart, I know that my nation is preparing a military strike that will, no doubt, redouble the suffering in your already war-torn country. My government will wield a vengeance that will mirror not only the violence, but the immorality of the attack we have suffered.

I pray that you and your loved ones survive. And I pledge to you that I will remember.

This commentary is reprinted with permission from The Minnesota Women's Press, where it was first published in Vol. 17, No. 14, September 26-October 9, 2001. For more information about The Minnesota Women's Press and other articles about Sept. 11, go to www.womenspress.com.