Muslim Women, 9/11, and the Global World (Dis)Order: A Case Study of Four Malalais

• In Event: Rethinking Development Communciation

Abstract

Since the events of 9/11 and the start of the “War on Terror”, debates pertaining to Afghan women’s rights have been reverberating globally. Particularly in the West, Afghan women have been put under the popular culture spotlight, evident in the proliferation of media such as fiction films, television programs, documentaries, books, and news that focus on their plight under repressive Islamic regimes. The resultant media attention has been critiqued by scholars from a variety of disciplines concerned with the overwhelming portrayal of women as victims, without accounting for their actual or potential agency, thereby perpetuating stereotypes of women under Islam that have gained new currency since 9/11.

Yet while this type of media continues to proliferate, little attention has been given to the cultural productions that constitute local gender subjectivities and how local institutions “talk back” to this discourse. In this presentation, I trace and contextualize the trajectory of iconic figures and their role in key historical and contemporary moments of activism and movements of reform in Afghanistan, the region, and beyond. By challenging colonial and neo-imperial interventions as well as local conservative groups, these heroes have been symbolically, literally, and often violently targeted by those same institutions. And yet despite these attempts at erasure including death, their mythic statures continue to be a force to contend with in the popular imagination as symbols of resistance, hope, and courage.

Author

• Wazhmah Osman, Temple University