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I decided to work with these women because out of all the women’s groups working in Afghanistan, this one seems the most interested in secularism: the division between religion and state. Other groups compromise on this issue, largely saying that Afghanistan should be a religious state: that Islamic laws should govern the country. Who gets to interpret these Islamic laws is a mystery. None of the ruling powers seem interested in Islamic law except to use it as a tool for their own power. They certainly don’t’ care much about what Islamic law says about women: women instead are relegated to second class citizenship, with few rights.This has more to do with tradition than religion. Inheritance, marriage and divorce laws favor men even though a re-reading of these laws in the Koran, shows them to be in favor of women. Rawa claim very strongly that the state and religious law should be separate and that religion be a private matter, up to the individual, and that all religions be tolerated and allowed.

Rawa’s stated aims are to achieve full democracy, secularism and human rights for all in Afghanistan: concepts that make them truly “revolutionary’ in Afghan eyes. They are very vocal, very organized, and very political. Indeed, because they vociferously state that they are political, they have received criticism from various camps: other Afghan women’s groups, international aid groups and potential aid donors all state that RAWA are too ‘radical’; that they should stay out of politics and concentrate on humanitarian work, (as if humanitarianism doesn't have an ideology!). Rawa claim that humanitarian work only treats the symptom and not the cause: Rawa wants to remove the cause of women’s oppression and therefore they say they have to be political.

They use their limited resources to maximum effect and are innovative and imaginative in political and humanitarian activities. They work to empower themselves and other women, and men, by placing a great emphasis on education. They help with providing basic medical care, nurse training, handicraft courses, and have started self-generating income projects, such as chicken farms, carpet-weaving so that people may try to sustain themselves instead of depending on aid

.A brief timeline:
1977: RAWA founded by Meena, a young student at Kabul University. At this time they wanted to gain more rights for women. Published a magazine called Payam-E-Zan or Message for Women

1979: Soviets invaded, Rawa turns to resist the occupiers

1989: Meena and her husband were killed by Hekmatyr forces – a fundamentalist warlord favored by the US and Pakistan, the most brutal, and repressive.

1992: Rawa goes underground and decries the fundamentalists who are now in power.

1996: Rawa fights against Taliban and fundamentalists. Open home-based schools in Pk and Af. – in secret. Also help women escape from Af. to safety in Pk, provide for orphans, clinics, schools, etc.

Present: Still against fundamentalism in all forms.

The denunciation by RAWA of all Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan has taken on enormous significance. In December 2001 with the demise of the Taliban, an interim government was formed. RAWA was adamant that no fundamentalists be included, and that full scale de-weaponization be enforced. (In fact all the women I spoke to, educated or uneducated, said de-weaponization was first and foremost the most important thing to happen. The men basically laughed at this idea.). Rawa said that the Northern Alliance, whom the US backed in the fight against the Taliban, were fighting for power during 1992-96, the period of Afghanistans’ greatest chaos and instability. They are made up of hardline fundmentalists, so Rawa opposed their inclusion in the new government.

Other aid groups criticized RAWA for being too negative and uncompromising in their stance, saying that this time the government was being watched by the world, therefore violence would not erupt, and that the new government should be given a chance.

However, this government is made up largely of the same people who were in power from the era of 1992-1996. Dostum is in Mazar, Ishmael Khan in Herat, and the progeny of Rabbani who head the Northern Alliance are in Kabul. Their philosophy against women has not changed: they are fundamentalists and anti-women by nature.

In the months since then, RAWA’s fears seems to be coming true: there are increasing reports of random and orchestrated violence and in-fighting, security has not been established, women are still afraid to take off their burqas for fear of being raped, abducted, or killed. As RAWA states, the Northern Alliance leaders may have cut their hair and now wear western suits, but inside their minds are the same: they are anti-democratic, anti-woman and anti-human rights.