Raising My Voice by Malalai Joya

Malalai Joya has survived five assassination attempts, she taught in secret girls schools under the noses of the Taliban, risking life and limb daily, she ran Hamoon Health Centre opening in 2003 even as a governor’s representative told her ‘Open your clinic, but we will not guarantee your security’. However at the opening ceremony many Afghans attended, telling Malalai ‘The people will guarantee your security’, this is a recurring theme in her book, the resilience of Afghan society against the Taliban, the warlords and the occupiers. The US/NATO forces did not try to establish democracy they turned to those with existing networks of power- warlords (power maintained like the invaders through overwhelming violence, perhaps this is why they see them as legitimate partners, it should also be noted these are all overwhelmingly male institutions trading power). They swapped one tyranny for another. It’s hardly a cause worth our troops dying for and as Joya lays out in the course of her book the other purported reasons- to stop terrorist attacks in the West by destroying safe havens in the region or to free the women of Afghanistan from murderous oppression- are little more than cover for a very old game of power, geopolitics and resources. What began as a furious lashing out by the US in response to 9/11 has become a toehold to remake the entire region into something more to Washington and international capital’s liking (and yes that does include the hundreds of billions from narcotics). Even if the stated aims were sincere the means to achieve them are shown to be thoroughly counter productive, as she writes: The Afghan people are not terrorists we are the victims of terrorism… what we really need is an invasion of hospitals, clinics and schools for boys and girls. Ricky B, Ten Percent.

Afghanistan’s not the only place in need of such an invasion.