For a woman to be a high ranking police chief in Afghanistan is in fact a profound statement and considerable gain for women. So it is a statement that the Taliban assassinated one of the top female police officers in the country. An anti-woman statement.
The police officer, Malalai Kakar, who was in her mid-40s with six children, was an iconic figure among women's groups in Afghanistan and abroad. Often profiled in the Afghan and foreign news media, she was one of the leading totems for the wider freedoms gained by women when the Taliban, with their repressive policies toward women, were ousted from power by an American-led coalition in 2001.
Ms. Kakar, with the rank of captain, was head of Kandahar's department of crimes against women. She joined the police in the city in 1982, following in the footsteps of her father and brothers, but was forced out after the Taliban captured Kandahar in the mid-1990s and barred all women from working.She was the first female police officer in the country to return to work after the Taliban were ousted. Her commitment was particularly notable for the fact that it took place in Kandahar, which became the headquarters for the Taliban soon after the movement was formed in the early 1990s.
I would like to note that although this is problematic, I don't think an increase in military intervention will help the lived conditions of women in Afghanistan. Now is the time to listen to the women's groups of Afghanistan and find ways we can work in coalition with them. I have yet to see either candidate echo any sentiment such as that, but we can always hope and fight for it. Please post other resources in comments.
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I don't have any resources to add, but I wanted to say how very tragic this is, but how proud I am that Officer Kakar continued to dedicate herself so selfless and fearlessly to maintaining peace & justice. I hope that all the work she has done will not have been in vain.
"I would like to note that although this is problematic, I don't think an increase in military intervention will help the lived conditions of women in Afghanistan. Now is the time to listen to the women's groups of Afghanistan and find ways we can work in coalition with them."
Can't we do both? Coalition with women's groups in Afghanistan sounds like a great idea for rebuilding the country/society along less depraved lines, but it doesn't help with and is easily obliterated by chaos and murder. Education is the key to the future, but it's no real good if you let the school burn down.
aleks,
i think the point is that the chaos and murder is not necessary put in check by funding questionable military factions in the country (like the northern alliance). i think we can do both, but we've chosen the strategically expedient route of partnering with human rights abusers in order to dominate the battlefield and this has undermined the work of groups, like RAWA, who actually want a more secular, democratic and just governance.
further, things are made difficult by RAWA's willingness to be critical of the US's actions in Afghanistan, having opposed the invasion in response to 9/11 from the beginning, which makes US government representatives unwilling to look past pride in order to work with this very driven group.
we've seen other similar compromises of objectives, say, with the execution of Abdul Haq, who was at once a willful leader of resistance against both the Soviets and the Taliban, but who was in a poor political position to receive support from the US (he was a proponent of a united Afghanistan - a threat to US-allied Pakistan, he opposed the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, etc.)
can we do both? i think it would require putting the objective of a stable Afghanistan before protecting our pride and short-term victories. however, if we actually want long-term success, it's more important we pursue the goals of developing social benefits and political transparency than that we overpower whoever our enemy happens to be at the time. otherwise, new enemies (and old ones) will just keep popping up, demanding our military commitment.
This is horrible that this courageous young woman was killed.
However, this story underscores the issue in America and in the world of the fact that we are mass promoting women to a place where they can and do dictate orders to men. That's emasculating and belittling to men.
maggie1,
that was a joke, right? 'cos this isn't really a funny story, but, okay.
I know that it's not intentional and was probably just overlooked as the "Quick Hits" are a series of regular postings, but isn't the title, "Quick Hit: Top Female Afghani police assassinated" maybe a tad insensitive?
Anyway, she was one brave woman. I remember reading an article about her and she constantly received death threats. She accepted that what she was doing carried the very real risk of losing her life to her cause.