Imperialist Hypocrisy and the Taliban Oppression of Women

Osama, the award-winning film from Afghanistan--the story of a young girl whose life is destroyed by the extreme oppression of women under the Taliban--has occasioned another display of world class hypocrisy from the fundamentalists occupying the White House. The Bush regime has embraced the film and its director, attempting to pass off the U.S. as the defender of women's rights in Afghanistan.

In reality, under U.S. occupation, the women of Afghanistan are still subjected to the brutal oppression of sharia, the enforcement of religious restrictions as law--both officially under the Karzai government and unofficially at the hands of religious police, organized fundamentalist thugs, and patriarchal family relations. Change has affected only a very few women in the capital, Kabul, while millions of women throughout the country are being forced to wear the burka and are subjected to terrible punishments for violating religious law. As the article "Afghanistan: Women vs. the American Occupation Government" (RW #1188, February 23, 2003) pointed out, the whole history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan since the 1970s has unleashed the very forces that brought the Taliban to power, and the oppression of women is now being re-enforced in new and old ways under U.S. occupation.

This article by RCP Chairman Bob Avakian--on the problem of imperialist hypocrisy, religious fundamentalism, and the need for a radical rupture to achieve the emanicpation of women--was written in October 2001. It is available online at rwor.org.