July 10—Hundreds of women organized and armed themselves and marched in the streets of northern and central Afghanistan. They are determined to resist the Taliban religious fascists, who are gaining ground as US imperialism withdraws in defeat from its 20-year war and occupation.
In Taliban-controlled areas, women are forced at gunpoint to cover themselves with the restrictive burqa. The Taliban kicks women out of jobs and public life.
“I don’t want the country under the control of people who treat women the way they do,” said a young woman journalist. “We took up the guns to show if we have to fight, we will.”
“Many more [of us] were ready to go to the battlefields,” declared another marcher.
The fight against traditional sexist oppression and gender segregation advanced in Afghanistan in the 20th century through the 1970s.
But these gains quickly disappeared amidst the Soviet occupation, the coups and the civil wars from 1979-1996. The low point was under Taliban rule (1996-2001).
But things didn’t get much better during the US occupation. If Chinese and Pakistani capitalists move into the current vacuum – extending the “Belt and Road Initiative” – the masses of Afghan women and men are unlikely to benefit, either.
Neither the US government nor its Afghan puppet politicians dared to organize women to fight, even as they lost to the Taliban on the battlefield.
Now that armed women are organizing themselves, will their fight be for “democratic rights”? Or will they see that capitalism (whether secular or religious) is the material basis of sexism? Can we find ways to convince some that their armed struggle must be for communist revolution?