«Women's issues in the recent afghan revolutionary movements »

Abstract

The progress and regress of women's rights in the course of Afghanistan's modern history has had a direct correlation with the dynamics of power politics in that country. From the modernization efforts of King Aman Allah and his reformist wazir, Mahmoud Tarzi in the 1920's, to the modernist and letist ideologues of the 1960's, women's legal status and rights to acquire an education and participate in the national economy constituted an important part of Afghan political rhetoric. With the Soviet invasion of 1979 and the emergence of Islamist resistance parties in the 1980's, women's issues became, more than ever, a dominant feature of political demagoguery. During that time, as in the short period in 1929 when Habib Allah Kalakani led a reactionary revolution, the slogans and religious decrees were issued against women's education and female participation in public life. In short, whether in favor or against women's rights, various ideological and revolutionary movements in Afghanistan have used the issue as a focal point in their political discourse.