Last night, Afghan activist politician Malalai Joya approached the increasingly grim topic of U.S.-occupied Afghanistan, roundly criticizing all the major players.
Speaking to a packed house at Capitol Hill’s First Baptist Church, Joya critiqued everything from the foreign presence in her native land to the fundamentalist warlords.
“Peace doesn’t come by the barrel of a gun or the occupation of foreign countries,” Joya told the largely receptive audience. She followed up her denouncement of the American-led occupation with a scathing attack against her reactionary critics, both the radical right and the status quo government.
Then she even savaged the do-gooders from international Non-Governmental Organizations.
“Most of the NGOs in Afghanistan are corrupt,” Joya said. “They build schools with cheap materials, you come back a year later and you can even recognize [the place]. But the mainstream media never even report it.”
Photo Dan Miller
Joya was elected to represent Farah Province in the Afghan national assembly at the ripe old age of twenty-eight. She gained international recognition by publicly denouncing the warlords and drug smugglers that riddle Hamid Karzai’s government.
Such honesty won her few friends. In 2007, two years after the beginning of her term, Joya’s colleagues in the assembly suspended her from duty. To date, four attempts have been made on her life. A burly bodyguard stayed by her side for most of the night.
Organized by Peace Action Washington, the event drew a crowd whose politics were well to the left of center (a passing mention of Dennis Kucinich was warmly applauded). Seeking autographs, they eagerly thronged Joya after her talk, clutching copies of her memoir A Woman Among Warlords, despite her appeals to “forget me, support my people.”
Joya’s next stop will be in Bellingham at Western Washington university, noon.
