Den bestialske lemlestingen av den 46 år gamle skolelæreren Mohammed Halim er et varsel: Taliban og den ekstreme islamismen representerer en kontrarevolusjon, med en voldskultur som minner om Røde Khmer.
Da tenker jeg ikke på antall drepte, skjønt det vil også bli høyt hvis de får anledning. Det er mer det faktum at en religiøs bevegelse anno 2006 dreper skolelærere fordi de underviser jenter. Det sier mye om hva slags krefter vi står over for. Det finnes de som bagatelliserer denne brutaliteten, som Rød Valgallianse og Klassekampen.
Det er ved å gå inn i enkeltskjebner som dette at man til fulle forstår hva Taliban står for. Det er slaveri og formørkelse. Anno 2006.
Artikkelen er skrevet av Kim Sengupta i New Zealand Herald. Den samme Sengupta skriver drivende godt om et annet mord: på den kvinnelige aktivisten Safia Amajan. Hun var godt oppe i årene, men det forhindret ikke Taliban i å likvidere henne. Det var i september. Amajan var svært effektiv i å opprette skoler for jenter, og Taliban hatet henne for det.
With the return of the Taleban, as the “war on terror” moved on to Iraq, aid workers - foreign and Afghan, men and women - were intimidated into leaving the region.
Ms Amajan was one of the few who refused to flee.
“She was very brave. She was also very hard-working,” her secretary, Abdullah Khan, said.
“She was always trying her best to improve education for women.”
As well as defying the Taleban, Ms Amajan made the mistake of being successful in what she was doing.
In Kandahar alone she had opened six schools where a thousand women had learnt how to make and then sell their goods at the market.
She was also instrumental in setting up tailoring schools for women, with some of the products making their way to markets in the West.
At the official end of the Afghan war, America’s first lady, Laura Bush, was among those who declared that one of the most important achievements of overthrowing the Taleban was emancipation of women.
However, since then female social workers and teachers have been maimed and killed, girls’ schools shut down and female workers forced to give up their jobs.
The few women out in the streets in Kandahar and other places in the south are covered in burqas.
A report by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission spoke of the “systematic andviolent campaign” directed against women.
Eksempler som dette burde vise med all tydelighet hva kampen handler om. Men selv NATO-land nøler. Det er som om man ikke helt tør se dimensjonene, for med det følger forpliktelsene. Men når afghanske jenter drepes på norsk jord fordi de velger friheten fra vold, burde sammenhengen være tydelig.
Dette er en kamp det ikke går an å løpe fra.
Human rights groups point out, however, that the battle for women’s rights is in severe danger of being lost.
There are now entire provinces where there is no girls’ education; of the 300 schools shut or burnt down, the majority were for girls.
The death rate at childbirth is the second highest in the world, and the number of women who have committed suicide, 2_kommentarly through self-immolation, has risen by 30 per cent in two years.
