We interviewed Hosna Jalil, Afghanistan’s former Deputy Minister of Women’s Affairs, on the recent developments in the county. Emphasising that the Taliban was able to rule the country for few years before the US war, she says there is still hope that Afghan people can change the course of history.
“I would be alive when we take our colours back which holds so many values and hopes and dreams replaced with the black and white flag of Taliban once again. Its difficult, we have lost everything. We are helpless but we are not hopeless. The hope is there. The hope for a different tomorrow is there.”
Hosna Jalil.
Hers is a rare story of a woman making progress in the heavily patriarchal Afghanistan. Born in 1992 in Kabul, she grew up in the small, southeastern city of Ghazni at a time when the Taliban were in control meant she was not entitled to an education.
She was fortunate in that her father used his stature within the community to normalize girls being able to attend a madrassa, or religious school. It was her only option for an education before community-based initiatives were established by international organisations.
She studied physics and majored in business and management at the American University of Afghanistan. She served as the Deputy Minister of Policy and Strategy at the Ministry of Interior Affairs and also as head of Policy and Research Directorate at the Ministry of Mines and Petroleum of AfghanistanThen she was appointed as the Deputy Minister of Policy and Plan at the Ministry of Women Affairs. Jalil was the first woman elevated to such a high-ranking position in the ministry responsible for law enforcement, in a country approaching two decades at war.
Now she is in the U.S. having high hopes about the future of Afghanistan although she is not hiding that she feels helpless at the moment: “Its difficult, we have lost everything. We are helpless but we are not hopeless. The hope is there. The hope for a different tomorrow is there.”
As SES Equality, Justice, Women Platform, we had the opportunity to talk with her, hear her experiences and her voice.
“Taliban is more brutal than what we see right now”
As she has spent part of your childhood under the Taliban rule, she has underlined multiple times that there is a misconception or a misjudgment that the Taliban as we see now will change or has changed. She lists her reasons as follows:
“Firstly, Taliban might try to well behave, although they will mess it up again. Taliban might try to well behave in some of the major cities, particularly in the areas including Kabul, in areas where people have access to media and well connected to the other parts of the world. They are trying to well behave because at this point and time, there are two reasons again. They need financial assistance from the international community, and at the same time they need the international recognition as a state. And the other reason is because they can not manage the chaos across the whole country all at once. They just want things to die down, and step by step they are going to target different areas.”
Stating that the Taliban is more brutal than what we see right now, especially when it comes to targeted killings and assassinations of loud voices, Jalil thinks that now they perform a ‘customised’ behaviour.
“They categorised their behaviour, they adopted a customised behaviour and practices in different parts of the country. Right now, if we go to another part of the country where people, particularly women, do not have access to media its exactly the same Taliban ruling regime that we have been living before 2001. So you can see the same situation: lack of access to education, limited access to health services, lack of access to justice. Food security is something that women are struggling, shelters are not there for them. Employment is gone. So whatever we have been claiming that we have achieved for a democratic republic governance, that is almost gone. And in some parts of the country which have not access to media, they don’t have much to live under Taliban. And at the same time, women have gone back to burqa. At least in my hometown, they have gone back to burqa and in many other provinces.”
“Women who were engaged in the peace process were hard negotiators”
As she specialised in the women, peace and security framework, she has strong views on what could have been done differently with regards to US’s sudden withdrawal.
She does not think that the lack of women’s existence in the peace process played a part in the current outcome, as she emphasises that although the number of women who were engaged in peace talks was few, they were the loudest:
“On the government side, we had the loudest, the most prominent women figures around the table who has not been just advocating for women’s rights. They have been advocating for minority rights, for children’s rights, for human rights, the development of the country. Its a matter of quality. I would love to see more women in terms of numbers, but the quality of the members that we had and their voices was much better than many men around that table. Lately, I heard from one of our international allies who has been engaged very much in the peace process in Doha and he was telling me that the Taliban was trying to influence the women and they did not care much about the men. It’s of course because they find women as hard negotiators.”
She says that the collapse of the country can not be related to the lower representation of women in the peace processes because it is beyond expectation that Taliban change its ideology.
“We can not change Taliban and their ideology. They try to convince their family states, including Pakistan, their fighters on the ground, their financial supporters, that is what puts them together. That is the center of gravity for them. All of a sudden, we expect Taliban to change their ideology when they take over. Of course that will not happen. So if we have been expecting Taliban’s takeover, it is not practical at all to expect for them to give more space to women, to respect their basic rights. That’s beyond the expectation.”
“It is not about the peace negotiation between the Afghan government and the Taliban. The Afghan government’s peace negotiators had hard time to talk to Taliban even. Taliban have not been ready to talk to them. Taliban even have not been considering talking to them around the table. They have never been serious about it. ”
“The US was rushing to get deal done”
According to Jalil, the deal between the US and the Taliban could have change the situation today and the deal has been closed too soon:
“The deal was between the Taliban and the US government on two terms. Part of that was to make sure that Afghanistan is not used as a safe haven for terrorists and that they would not threaten the US national interest of course. And to make sure Taliban would not attack them again. But what is the mechanism to make sure Afghanistan is not used as a terrorist safe haven? One of the major factors to make sure is to have a more inclusive government. Afghanistan has two very different worlds. Inside Afghanistan, when you enter you will find two very different worlds. The north and the south. The conservative and the modern ones. To make sure that we don’t have again the civil war, which again paves the way for terrorist activities, we need to make sure we have a more independent state which does not heavily rely on Pakistan. But right now, we don’t have it. So we needed to make sure that we have a state, which can manage itself politically. But the US was rushing to get this deal done.”
“The US and the European countries changed their position on women’s rights”
Jalil says that the position of the US and other European countries regarding Afghanistan had changed immensely over the years, especially on women’s rights:
“They kept convincing their nation and their tax payers of all these countries, that they need to make sure human rights and women rights are not violated in Afghanistan. Most of them somehow justified their presence in Afghanistan that way. Of course there were so many other aspects of it but women’s rights and human rights have been one of the very major outcome they been expecting. But then all of a sudden they all changed their statement like they have never been there for women’s rights or the human rights.”
“At the end, I can not say that they haven’t been helping the Afghan government or they haven’t had in mind a more inclusive government. They have been pushing for more inclusive government where we could give space for Taliban. But we had shortcomings from the government side. It was so difficult for everyone to give space to a group we have been fighting for 20 years. Yes it is difficult to manage, it is difficult to convince the nation and the security forces.”
“The Taliban should not be recognised internationally”
For her, what international actor should do, as she is referring to the states, is to make sure that they force Taliban to have a more inclusive government and they do not change the current laws:
I do not want that the Taliban regime is recognised internationally. It is an embarrassment for the whole world if we are going to have a state like that. They need to either make sure that they force Taliban to have a more inclusive government and they do not change the laws in a sense that they take away all the core values in terms of the human rights or women’s rights, children’s rights or minority rights or equal citizenship approach, they do not take that away from the laws and they don’t bring back their emirates laws. So that’s why I do not want the international community to recognise the Taliban and I don’t recommend something like that because it’s going to have harsher consequences later.
Although she does not want international recognition for the Taliban, she thinks that the humanitarian assistance on the ground is crucial:
“That is something which is very immediately needed. The recommendation that I would have for the feminist organisations mainly or it can be any citizen of any country across the world, one voice matters. and all these drops makes an ocean.”
“Let me be very bold here. We do have many different states across the world. The do use human rights, women’s rights or children’s rights as a legitimacy means for themselves. They don’t mean it. They are not genuine about it. Yes politics is dirty but it has its own values. If we respect those values, we can also do politics with values. You can hardly find states that are not pushed on the human rights or women’s rights. Who cares about it? It’s a war of resources and a war of power. When human rights and women’s rights do not have much space in that package. It just legitimises war, it just legitimises competition for power. I would tell all the feminist organisations and all the citizens, first that, one voice matters. Second, they need to push their governments no matter what, no matter where they are. Their government can play a role and they can play a role in their own government, changing their government’s policies and practices.”
Jalil also emphasizes the to protect the media in Afghanistan:
“If we want to protect women in Afghanistan, we need to protect the media. That has become the strength of women right now. We are talking about the peaceful resistance that is what keeps women more forward. So we need to protect the media if we want to protect women in Afghanistan. Even if we would go with the worst case scenario where Taliban would ban the media, disconnect Afghanistan with the rest of the world, we need to make sure that Afghan women are not forgotten once again during the Taliban regime. ”
“Turkey can convince them that the constitution in Afghanistan does not conflict with Islamic values”
She has high hopes for Turkey to play a crucial role to ease the situation and protect women’s rights in Afghanistan since the government in Turkey has an ‘Islamic hat’:
“I do believe Taliban would be open to have a discussion with Turkey. If we do a comparison, they will be open to talk to Turkey much better than China. The role of Turkey as a government can be in the current situation right now is to make sure that Taliban creates a more inclusive government, gives space to other parts of the country like religious minorities, ethnic minorities, all those other tribes. But the major concern is the women’s inclusion and women’s rights. Turkey can push these agendas in the talks with the Taliban right now. At the same time, they can also push for protection of the laws. They need to make sure that in terms of the laws which protect women’s rights, which protects human rights, which protects minorities. To protect human rights, we need to make sure that the laws are not replaced. Turkey can play a major role in this. Turkey has its Islamic hat, that’s something we share together with the public and with the Taliban as well. Taliban might claim that some of the laws are imported from the West. We don’t have any laws which go against Islamic values. Turkey can convince them that the constitution in Afghanistan does not conflict with Islamic values. That can happen now. ”
“But if the Taliban shifts to ruling regime, then I recommend that the Turkish government should not recognize them, because then we will lose the leverage of having international community’s engagement in Afghanistan later. Part of the reason that we had the coalition which easily got the approval from all the countries to enter Afghanistan was because it was not a legitimate state.”
She has also a message for women activists in Turkey about what they can do to be in solidarity with Afghan women and to protect their rights:
“Women activists can also play a role regarding the situation in Afghanistan. They can push their values through their government. And the beneficiaries are going to be the women of Afghanistan. It’s an indirect support to the Afghan government, very strong and strategic one. So they can make sure that their government remain engaged with the whole politics in Afghanistan and women’s rights in Afghanistan remain as a major component in Turkish government’s basket. Because they can talk to Taliban about anything, that can be about politics, security, but at the same time it can be about the economy. Women’s rights activists in Turkey need to make sure that women’s rights hold equal value in the talks with the Taliban.”
Being an Afghan woman in the diaspora: “We are helpless but we are not hopeless”
Jalil concludes with hopeful words about the future of Afghanistan and how she will continue to fight for what she believes in:
“Afghanistan is not just a piece of land for us. It’s not just a country for us. We have been living with proud and dignity holding our heads high. It is our identity. That was something we have been defining ourselves, with that word ‘Afghan’. And we took the pride. Future plan for me personally would be this. The last thing I can do in this world to give up on my country and the reason is because then I would give up on my identity. But at the end of day, we lost this game at this point and time. But we lost a round of the game. The game is not over yet. What makes me hopeful is that, when we look back at the pre-2001, Taliban could rule the country just for few years. Things changed again. I have to re-emphasize to myself that we are going to change it back. I might be young, I might be old, I might have grey hair, I might have white hair, or it might be my kids and my future generation, they are going to bring the change. We do not have the option to give up on our identity.
We will keep fighting for it, we will keep fighting for our identity, We will keep fighting for the day that we bring the change, and we wont give up. It might take time, it might take a lot of patience, and a lot of passion too. It may take generations but we are going to make it happen. That’s not us. And I would be alive when we take our colours back which holds so many values and hopes and dreams replaced with the black and white flag of Taliban once again. And it will fly in the skies. Its difficult, we have lost everything. We are helpless but we are not hopeless. The hope is there. The hope for a different tomorrow is there.”