Models and Realities of Afghan Womanhood: A Retrospective and Prospects 1 Carol Mann In order to conceptualise what human rights can signify for women in the dominantly rural society that is Afghanistan, it is necessary to understand the models and stereotypes available to them in recent history and how these have been reworked in every day life. Theirs is not an isolated situation occurring in a vacuum; it has to be understood in relation to the developments in the Indian sub-continent from the British Raj onwards as well as the spread of present-day Islamism. In the context of what may well be Asia’s most tribal and patriarchal society, the resistance to Western modernization is unique in a country which could have been, alongside Turkey, at the avantgarde of progressive Muslim nations as early as in the 1920s. All efforts by reformist kings from the early 20th century onwards were doomed and when the communist government attempted to introduce an egalitarian society and implement women’s rights after the April revolution of 1978, acute civil strife ensued. This generated full-scale war when their Soviet allies came to the rescue and the US, through their assistance to fundamentalist groups, turned this into the last conflagration of the Cold War. The defeat of positive reform in Afghanistan has produced a unique form of reactionary modernity, not regression to some kind of archaic past. Contrary to most centralized nations where the most enduring transformations emerge from the capital and then affect the rest of the nation, the opposite here has taken place, because the state is as weak as the rural tribal population is strong. The situation experienced by Afghan women since the fall of the pro-Soviet government is the result of the hard line Islamic radicalisation and the exacerbation of traditional patriarchal practice in refugee camps situated in Pakistan over the past twenty-five years. This push from the periphery to the centre is the single most difficult challenge facing President Karzai today, quite in keeping with the problems that Afghan rulers have always had to face. The main difference is that, because of the hold of worldwide Islamism today, the oppression of women through a fundamentalist application of Sharia is increasingly seen as a valid option to Human Rights principles. To improve matters, this situation has to be addressed globally, and encompass simultaneously health, education and empowerment at a workable rhythm taking into consideration religion and customs, as well as encourage truly democratic political alternatives where women are involved at every level. This paper examines three developments presented in chronological order with reference to the present situation. First, we examine the spectrum of contradictory models and stereotypes taken from religion and politics that have moulded perceptions of women in Afghan society. Many of the social configurations defining the rural Afghan population are duplicated on both sides of the Durand line, a most porous and artificial frontier inhabited by the 22 million strong population known as Pathan on the Pakistani side and Pashtun on the Afghan. Second, we explore how fundamentalism triumphed over the progressive forces. The refugee camps provided laboratory conditions to experiment social forms of women’s repression and provided 1 Paper prepared for the Gender Equality and Development Section, Social and Human Sciences Sector, UNESCO, July 2005, as part of the programmatic work on “the role of culture and social institutions”. 1