In
order to understand what happened to Malala Yousafzai, I had to find out why
the Taliban wanted to have her killed.
What was it the angered them so much about a young girl who just wanted
the right to an education?
I’m
ashamed to say that I've heard about the Taliban through the years, as we all
have, and we know that they have done many terrible things, but I never really
researched anything about them; specifically why they decided to take away
woman’s rights. To understand what
happened and why, I did a little research and came up with this…
There
was a time when the Afghanistan women had the same rights as men. It began in 1899-1901 when Queen Soraya
Tarzi became one of the most influential women in the Muslim world. She helped her husband, King Amanullah, try
to modernize Afghanistan and together they worked hard for woman’s rights and
freedoms. There was major resistance
from the conservative tribal leaders.
They organized and fought against the freedoms King Amanullah put in
place for woman. From 1929-1933,
Mohammad Nadir Shah took power and succumbed to the tribal leaders. Mohammad Daoud Khan took Presidency from
1973-1978, and encouraged woman’s rights, but most rural areas remained
backwards and woman continued to be oppressed with no equal rights. Then the
Soviet invasion happened, and then civil war broke out. The Mujahideen took Kabul and liberated Afghanistan from the
Communists and the Mujahideen formed an Islamic State. Despite all of the
chaos, women were still allowed to work, and get an education under the
Mujahideen government of Burhanuddi
Rabbani. In fact, before the Taliban took over Kabul, about half
of the working population was women. They were employed as teachers,
doctors, as well as in other professional occupations.
During this time of
turmoil, Mullah Omar started his movement
with less than 50 armed madrassah students, known as the Taliban. They fought against the rampant corruption that had emerged in the civil war period and were initially welcomed by Afghans weary of being ruled by the warlords. Reportedly, in early 1994, Omar led 30 men armed
with 16 rifles to free youths who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord,
hanging the local commander from a tank gun barrel. The youths were two young
girls. His movement gained momentum through the year, and he quickly gathered
recruits from Islamic schools. By November 1994, Omar's movement managed to
capture the whole of Kandahar Province.
Then the Taliban took
over Afghanistan in
September 1996. They immediately
imposed restrictions on Afghan woman. They were forbidden to
work, leave the house without a male escort, not allowed to seek medical help
from a male doctor, and forced to cover themselves from head to toe, even
covering their eyes. Women who were doctors and teachers before, suddenly were
forced to be beggars and even prostitutes in order to feed their
families. During the rule of the Taliban, women were treated worse than
in any other time or by any other society.
The Taliban ended,
for all practical purposes, education for girls. Since 1998, girls over the age
of eight have been prohibited from attending school. , The Taliban jailed and
then deported a female foreign aid worker who had promoted home-based work for
women and home schools for girls.
The shooting of Malala Yousafzai,
demonstrates the
Taliban’s resistance to girls’ education. She was only 11 when she wrote in a
BBC blog about the Taliban decree against girls attending school in her home
area, Swat Valley. Taliban gunmen boarded her school bus and shot her in the
head Oct. 9 2012.
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