Fascinating Q&A with American woman who visited Afghanistan:
America Attacked:
Afghanistan
With Barbara Bick
Women's Rights Activist
Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2001; 2:30 p.m. EDT
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush has declared war on terrorism as the country considers new measures for homeland security. As the U.S. military gears up, the Bush administration has also emphasized that intelligence gathering will be a main component of the anti-terrorism efforts.
Barbara Bick, a Washington D.C.-based women's rights activist, will be online Tuesday, October 2, at 2:30 p.m.EDT, to discuss her experience in Afghanistan, Afghanistan women and the death of Northern Alliance's military commander Ahmed Shah Massoud.
Washington D.C.-based women's rights activist Barbara Bick, was in northern Afghanistan to witness the condition of women in the area of Afghanistan not occupied by the Taliban. She was in the outpost Khwaja Bahouddin where two terrorists -- believed to be directed by Osama bin Laden -- fatally wounded the Afghan leader.
After directing the national office of Women Strike for Peace, from 1963 until 197l, Bick was associated with the Institute for Policy Studies and was co-coordinator of the National Conference on Alternative State and Local Public Policies. For the past 12 years, she has served on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
Below is the transcript.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
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Barbara Bick: I have been a longtime opponent to the Taliban and went to Afghanistan with an Afghan-American to observe the life of women in the area that was resisting the Taliban. I am very anxious to hear what people are thinking about Afghanistan now. Before I left the U.S. before August, very few people knew about Afghanistan and the Taliban until now. I had been interested in Afghanistan since 1990 in Kabul before the Taliban came in. Before the Taliban, women were in the government and worked, ran two ministries, professors at the universities and half of the students at the universities. Some women were wearing the burqas and other women dressed with choice and were able to live free and regular lives. In 1992, the Taliban entered from the South through Pakistan and forced terrible edicts on women and forced to no longer work or go to school and forced to wear burqas. I have been opposed to the Taliban since they entered Afghanistan.
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Alexandria, Va.: Is the Northern Alliance composed of Islamic fundamentalists?
Barbara Bick: The Northern Alliance is actually made up of Mujaheddin group and had been the freedom fighters opposing the Russian invasion of Afghanistan for ten years. When the Mujaheddin conquered the area, they set up a temporary government but the seven groups began to fight amongst each other. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed and many women raped. The worst and most fundamentalist leaders was Hak Matyer and was the one who was favored by the CIA and the counterpart to the Pakistani CIA and fought the selected government and practically destroyed Kabul. When the Taliban came in at that period of chaos and promised civic order, which is why in the south was initially welcomed. The Northern Alliance is made up of the group who resisted the Taliban and went north and was recognized by the majority of the governments of the world. The President Robbani and once Vice President Massoud had a seat at the U.N. and the group that has embassies in almost thirty countries not in the U.S. The Northern Alliance is spoken in the media as a rebel group but actually the Mujaheddin government that was selected by the other groups in 1994.
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Annapolis, Md.: Thanks for taking my question.
Can you give me a profile of the Northern Alliance. I'm interested in their activities durnig the Russuan war, their religious views and their current allies.
Thanks very much.
Barbara Bick: The Northern Alliance was one of seven Mujaheddin groups that fought the Russians. They are religious. The area I traveled in the northern part of Afghanistan I saw women working and women doctors and nurses in hospitals. We visited an old girls highschools with women teachers and students (who wore traditional uniforms of black skirts and white blouses). I understand there is one medical school in the northern area where the students are both women and men. However, most women living in the area do wear burqas but they don't wear them at school or at work. But when they go out of the home and because of tradition and the general unrest of war conditions, the women wear burqas and feel protected by them in some way.
Once when I had visited the President of Northern Alliance, we walked with his wife to an orphanage. We encouraged her to not wear the burqa as an exampe to all the women and she did not wear the burqa.
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Washington, D.C.: What were the circumstances surrounding the assasination of Ahmed Sha Massoud? How did it occur and who claimed responsibility?
Barbara Bick: I don't think anybody claimed the responsibility. Let me explain to go into the north of Afghanistan, you have to go into Tajikastan and you have to take a Northern Alliance helicopter and take a 20 min. flight into Afghanistan. You arrive at a mud village and there is an internal refugee camp and a compound that houses five rooms and offices where foreign journalists, guests, and humanitarian workers can come to visit the area controlled by the Northern Alliance.
We had left the guest house and after a trip to travel through the area, we returned to the compound and Massoud had occupied the guest house. We were not allowed in the guest house and stayed in the compound and so were the terrorists. They were posing as journalists and they had been in the area for some kind and had even interviewed President Rabbani and were allowed to interview Massoud.
The two Arab terrorists had been in the compound for two weeks waiting for a chance to interview Massoud. Asim, a young man who was with the Northern Alliances Foreign Alliance Ministry who ran the guest house and accompanied the journalists into the interview. The terrorist had a belt of explosives and a camera that had explosives. When the terrorists pulled the explosives, Asim jumped in front of Massoud to protect him. Asim was killed and others were severely burnt in the guest house.
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Washington, D.C.:
Barbara,
What was your impression of the Afgahn people? Are they a tolerant people? Do they respect human life and individual liberties? I know it's not fair to generalize but what are the pervasive attitudes? Thanks.
Barbara Bick: When I was in Kabul in 1990, I had a sense that there was a lot of respect for other people. For instance, everyone knew that I was Jewish. Afghanistan has a history of invasions from Central Asia -- for instance from Buddhists, Christians and all religions and people have existed in Afghanistan. It is only the Taliban that have imposed these terrible prejudices. The Afghan people are made up of many different tribes and ethnic backgrounds and there is a great variety of belief and custms among them.
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Mt. Rainier, Md.: It would seem that the Afghani women are caught between a rock and a hard spot -- or two kinds of devils. While the Taliban has been merciless in "disappearing" women to the back of the house, to be as unseen and unheard as a ghost, the Northern troops of Gen. Dostom have apparently been remarkably violent toward women and have a reputation for rape that exceeds the Taliban for violence. What help can we give these women, and what resources do they have in their society?
Barbara Bick: I have seen that Dostom is not in control of that area at all. He has been an off and on again commander allied with Massoud. His troops are not the troops of northern Afghanistan. There had been many women raped during the unrest.
I know that the Russians had also killed and raped. In 1990, when I was there I heard many stories the Mujaheddin who were fighting the Russians also killed and raped and heard stories of the Taliban were killing and raping. I believe in all wars, women were killed and raped. That is the condition unfortunately of war and people who have endured generations of war, especially the Afghan people. In the last month where I was in north Afghanistan, I don't believe women there were killed and raped. The women were going around safely. I was not on any battlefronts and was in the countryside occupied by the Northern Alliance.
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Charlottesville, Va.: Has the death of Ahmed Shah Massoud diminished the strength or effectiveness of the Northern Alliance?
Barbara Bick: I'm not a military person. I never spoke with the military. I can tell you that where we were, everyone around us were devastated and mourning the death of Asim. Everywhere we went in the towns and market places and villages, people respected Massoud so I expect there was enormous fear and sadness with his assassination.
Before Massoud died, he did name his successor, another young commander. I assume they will survive and resist the Taliban. They have a foreign ministry, a foreign ambassador and certainly a government and other commanders in the Northern Alliance.
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Annandale, Va.: What are the chances of a government other than the Taliban ruling Afghanistan? Given their track record, it doesn't seem the Northern Alliance is positioned to be much of an improvement. Is there hope that a just government could rule this country in the near future?
Barbara Bick: I think everything is different now that the U.S. is getting involved. What I fear is that the U.S. is again depending on Pakistan which is the basic support for the Taliban.
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Jacksonville, Fla.: Do the women of Afghanistan, to your knowledge, anticipate the overthrow of the Taliban? Are there many women who actively support the extremely fundamentalist form of Islam?
Barbara Bick: I did not travel in the area occupied by the Taliban. I know there is an organization of Afghan women called RAWA that has produced a fine film shown on television by CNN and women of the north oppose the Taliban. I know that there were many women who were educated and worked and certainly do not want to be prisoners and want their daughters to go to school. They have to oppose the Taliban and a vast majority of women and men oppose the Taliban.
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Baltimore, Md.: What was the general view by women of the United States when you left Afghanistan?
Barbara Bick: I think they probably had envied me.
For humanitarian aid, there is an organization run by the U.N. called the World Food Program. There has been a three year severe drought in Afghanistan and food is very scarce. Driving through the north, we passed miles of fields of dirt and sand and many dried up rivers. We also saw schools and teachers who were paid by food by the World Food Program. The workers on the road were also paid with packets of grain by the World Food Program. The Unicef office had worked with the Taliban in the South but could not set schools up because girls were not allowed to go to school and boys had to go to religious schools. In the north, Unicef had more than 300 schools set up. There was also a school for refugee children set up by Acted donated by the Turkish people. I saw no aid from the U.S.
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Austin, Tex.: There are many, many women who wish badly to do something to assist the women of Afghanistan, and the women who have escaped into Pakistan. Do you have any suggestions?
Barbara Bick: I work with another organization of Afghan women called NEGAR Support for the Women of Afghanistan. It was founded by a remarkable Afghan French woman. This organization brought together over 300 Afghan women from refugee camps and Europe and met last summer and drafted a Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women. The declaration has four sections and based on the U.N. charter, the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, Beijing conference for women and the Afghan constitution of 1964 and 1977. We trying to get 5 million signatures in support of the declaration. This was before what had happened recently and I assume we will continue. If you want to get in touch with this organization, you can email negarusa@hotmail.com.
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College Park, Md.: If the U.S. successfully dislodges the Taliban control over Afghanistan and istalls a new government in place, then how much support would it have from the common Afghans?. What are the chances of the new government being liberal/futuristic?
Barbara Bick: I do believe that there has to be a kind of coalition government with the help of international observers. I do not think or hope that the Taliban is not included in any coalition. I think that the Northern Alliance should play an important role in the coalitian but not the only ones.
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Alexandria, Va.: How could you not see any aid from the U.S! The U.S. is THE largest donor of humanitarian aid to Afghanistan. I'm afraid your comment about not seeing any U.S. aid gives entirely the wrong impression.
Barbara Bick: Let me tell you that the aid has gone into the area occupied by the Taliban and the U.S. is not the largest donor and the aid offered is grain for the refugee camps. The aid has not gone to the Northern Alliance. The U.S. government will agree with me on this.
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Burke, Va.: Ms. Bick,
With all of the emigration from Afghanistan, I'm concerned about those who are left behind. Since the Taliban does not allow women to work, is there any type of governmental or social safety net for elderly/single women? Who takes care of them, financially and physically?
Barbara Bick: There are two areas. 80% of Afghanistan is controlled by Taliban. There are no safety nets other than family members who live in poverty helping each other. In the north, there is not such a terrible problem because families are in tact and although life is very difficult, there is no starvation. Women can work and there are supports for women. You have to understand that the entire country is at war.
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Washington D.C.: Ms. Bick,
How can we secure justice for the WTC attacks, and for the abuses of the Taliban, without going to war? If millions of already suffering Afghanis starve to death this winter because the U.S. wants to act tough - how will that help secure women's rights in Afghanistan. The most fundamental of all human rights is the right to live. Whether the Taliban are still around in six months or not, dead people can't enjoy "freedom." Is war the answer?
Barbara Bick: I think there has to be a strategy to get at the terrorist network but I don't think bombing the cities of Afghanistan will do anything against the terrorist. I think we have to put the pressure on Pakistan to stop giving money, arms and their own young people to the Taliban. But no, I don't think that bombing innocent civilians will help.
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Cottage City, Md.: Deering drew a cartoon for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, showing the aghast scholars of the Taliban being threatened "Give us Osama, or WE'LL SEND YOUR WOMEN TO COLLEGE!" What an excellent idea -- forget bin Laden (or don't), let's develop a woman's college in Afghanistan with international support and create the teachers, nurses, doctors that this country needs so badly, and give these women a real edge.
Barbara Bick: I think that's wonderful. In fact, before the Taliban when I was in Kabul in 1990, there was a university training women to be doctors, lawyers, administrators and everything else. There is a new medical school teaching men and women to be doctors. That is what is needed. You are absolutely right. We need to free women to go to work and be trained. That will not happen under the rule of the Taliban.
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Rockville, Md.: I just want to thank you for all your work and efforts in helping the women of Afghanistan. Thank you for speaking out and educating people about the human rights disaster in my country. I was born in Afghanistan but raised in the U.S. My family left in 1979 when I was barely a year old. I know how lucky I am, but I have so much family who ended up growing up there and it's so sad to see how different our lives are and how it has affected who we are today.
Barbara Bick: Thank you.
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Downtown, D.C.: Can you comment on this quote from a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, as printed in an article today in Salon.com: "We condemn the cooperation of the United States with the Northern Alliance. This is another nightmare for our people -- the Northern Alliance are the second Taliban. The Northern Alliance are hypocrites: They say they are for democracy and human rights, but we can't forget the black experience we had with them. Seventy-year-old grandmothers were raped during their rule, thousands of girls were raped, thousands were killed and tortured. They are the first government that started this tragedy in Afghanistan."
Barbara Bick: I do not understand why RAWA is so opposed to the Northern Alliance. I was in their territory and traveled freely around and saw no evidence of discrimination against women. I spoke with wonderful young men who work for the Northern Alliance Ministry and they are humane and intelligent and have suffered from the Taliban. I know during the period when the Mujaheddin were fighting among themselves there was much chaos and women were raped and killed. That cannot be soley blamed on the Northern Alliance.
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Washington, D.C.: Having seen the terrain over there first hand, does the thought of sending American men (and women) over there horrify you?
Barbara Bick: Men and women should go there to be humanitarian workers. But I don't think we should send women and men to fight in Afghanistan. The way you fight terrorists is not by invading the country. The way you fight the Taliban is by taking away the support by Pakistan -- where they no longer have weapons and Pakistani soldiers fighting under the banner of the Taliban.
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Greenbelt, Md.: What is the Northern Alliance's position towards the status of women?
Barbara Bick: The women in the north go to school and are workers, teachers, lawyers and other professional.
What we did not like was that many women still wear the burqa but that is not forced on them. We constantly talked that women should feel free to walk around without any head covering. Muslim women want and are accustomed to wearing a shall or scarf over their head but not the burqa.
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Claremont, Calif.: What is your impression of the equality of women within the teachings of Islam?
Barbara Bick: I'm not an Islamic scholar but there are many Islamic scholars that say that women are precious and equal to men. I've heard enough Islamic scholars that there is nothing in the Koran that women are not equal to men.
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Pit Pa: Do many women from inside the Taliban territory manage to escape to the north?
Barbara Bick: I don't have the figures but I know there are some 2 1/2 to 3 million refugees outside of Afghanistan in camps in Pakistan and Iran. I went to a refugee camp of internal refugees escaping the Taliban into the north. I'm sure there are several thousand people but I do not have any figures on that.
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washingtonpost.com: What is your opinion of the speculation that bin Laden was involved in the death of Massoud?
Barbara Bick: Everybody that understands what this terrorist network is that the bin Laden Taliban alliance orchestrated the murder of Massoud, the biggest opposition leader in Afghanistan against the Taliban and the timing was precisely on Sept. 9th and the attack on N.Y. and Washington were two days later.
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washingtonpost.com: From your personal experience, what are your feelings with regard to the U.S. going into war with Afghanistan?
Barbara Bick: I worry about it a lot and worry for American men and women. It would be terrible to go to war there. I also worry about the people in Afghanistan as well. We must do whatever is necessary to break up the terrorist network. Like the President has said, this will take a long time. But invasion of Afghanistan is not how to do it. From my two trips, 12 years apart into Afghanistan, I really admire the people there so much. They have endured so many horrors including the famine and I think any invasion is terrible. We would not be getting into the terrorist networks and destroy them [by an invasion].
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Barbara Bick: I really wish that people would learn more about Afghanistan and I wish that people would understand how really bad the Taliban is for men also. All real education about the world today including science and understanding other cultures is being totally denied inside the Taliban occupied areas of Afghanistan.
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