This is adapted from a chat conversation I had with a friend of mine in December. Obviously, the message in the title of this post is relative to where the country was politically 10-20 years ago and where it is now. Women are present in the parliament even if they were included initially only as tokens for gender equality, they have staked their claim in the legislature and will not give it up without a fight.
At the time of this chat, I was neck-deep in research about Rwanda's post-conflict development and security and the role women's political participation has played in the country's thus far stable and ongoing progress. The paper was my final assignment for an amazing class I took about conflict and reconstruction using Afghanistan as a case study, but which featured no specific discussion of women's roles and rights in post-2001 Afghanistan. My paper was my effort to bring women and security into the conversation about long-term peace and development in post-conflict areas.
At the time of this chat, I was neck-deep in research about Rwanda's post-conflict development and security and the role women's political participation has played in the country's thus far stable and ongoing progress. The paper was my final assignment for an amazing class I took about conflict and reconstruction using Afghanistan as a case study, but which featured no specific discussion of women's roles and rights in post-2001 Afghanistan. My paper was my effort to bring women and security into the conversation about long-term peace and development in post-conflict areas.
Friend: To a certain extent, isn't Afghanistan kind of an exceptional conflict?
Me: It is, but it isn't. It's had like every version of conflict around. So, if you look at the history and the pockets of conflict, it's useful for studying other types of conflict, though I think it's mostly a lesson of "what not to do"... Like see what we did in Afghanistan? Now do the opposite.
EXCEPT... incredibly... how they've incorporated women politically...
The fact that there is a woman who has already announced her intention to run for president in 2014 is amazing...
even if nothing else happens
even if she doesn't run
even if she doesn't win
even if she turns out to be a big fraud and corrupt and horrible (which I don't think she is, she's pretty inspiring).
The fact that it would even be conceivable for a woman to joke about running for president of Afghanistan considering where the country was 10 years ago and what most Afghan women's daily lives look like today...
It's like going from the Declaration of Independence to landing on the moon in a decade instead of two centuries.
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