Afghans Work Together to Rebuild Civil Society

An Interview with Sima Wali, CEO of Refugee Women in Development

[Editor's Note:  This story first ran on the Washington File November 5, 2001.]

By Susan Domowitz
Washington File Staff Writer 

Washington -- Empowering ordinary Afghans and providing them with the necessary skills to
rebuild grassroots civil society will be the key to rebuilding Afghanistan, according to Sima Wali,
an Afghan-American woman who directs Refugee Women in Development, Inc. (RefWID), a
non-profit organization helping women in conflict areas.

In a recent interview with the Washington File, Wali said Afghan women face "the most
oppressed situation for women anywhere in the world." But she said Afghan women and men
are working together to keep civil society alive in Afghanistan and in the refugee camps in
neighboring countries, to prepare for the day when they can reclaim and rebuild their country. 

Wali called the Afghans she works with "the neglected cadre of civil society," the silent majority
of Afghans whose voices are not heard in the West.

"These are the silent majority, the unheard voices in the Afghan community, the people who are
currently rebuilding the shattered lives of traumatized women, the elderly, the handicapped and
land-mine victims, and they're doing it at grave risk to themselves.  Against all odds, they form
institutions, they form organizations, with no assistance from the international community. This
is a group of people who have already demonstrated remarkable leadership and ability. They
are our link to democratic-minded civic institutions in Afghanistan. They are our hope for
Afghanistan," Wali said.

Describing the grassroots efforts of these Afghan women and men who have decided to take
matters into their own hands, Wali said, "They provide major services in their communities.
They run the institutions that provide education, health, social services, and they also conduct
human rights work. They work across ethnic, gender and sectarian affiliations. And their voices
must be included in the peace process, in the reconstruction dialogue."

Wali said her organization tries to ensure that the Afghan refugees she works with are
committed to an eventual return to Afghanistan. "We have not had a central government for
almost 22 years, but we have these community-based activists, who are providing these
services. Afghanistan desperately needs people like that."

Wali told about meeting with Afghan tribal elders in remote areas who "ferociously defend the
rights of women." One elderly man told her, "Afghan society is like a bird with two wings. If one
wing is cut off, then society will not be able to function." 

Because women, under Taliban rule, are prohibited from working, Afghan men have taken on
the responsibility to provide assistance to women, to be their counterparts in civil society
initiatives. Wali told about a training session for Afghan community leaders that she did last
year in Peshawar, Pakistan which had been planned with gender-segregated training sessions,
to conform to local tradition. But the women and their male escorts, coming from Afghanistan
for the training session, said they preferred to train together, because they did their work in
partnership in order to be effective. 

Entire communities -- men and women -- inside Afghanistan support the clandestine schools
that provide skills training, secular education, and even English classes for their children, says
Wali. Although these schools are forbidden by the Taliban, members of the community offer
their homes for holding classes, and if the Taliban close down one center, the community opens
another one nearby. This indomitable spirit, the commitment to volunteerism, and the hunger
for education are hallmarks of Afghans' homegrown civil society initiatives.

Turning to a post-Taliban Afghanistan, Wali said Afghan women's aspirations in the dialogue for
peace must be taken seriously. Afghan women, she says, will definitely demand a seat at the
table for discussions about rebuilding Afghanistan. What's needed, Wali says, is long-term help
-- a sort of Afghan "Marshall Plan" -- for Afghanistan. The help of the United Nations will be
needed, too, Wali says. "We are absolutely sick of the war; we have had enough."

"For the past 22 years," Wali said, "the story in Afghanistan has been about empowerment, but
it has been the empowerment of the Communists, and then the empowerment of the
mujahideen, and now unfortunately the empowerment of the Taliban, the warriors. But nowhere
in this history has the empowerment of the Afghan people taken place. The international
community must empower war-affected Afghans. It's time to finance Afghan-led efforts to
promote and the rebuilding of institutions. You have to rebuild Afghanistan with the help of
Afghans. So I would like to see a peaceful, tolerant Afghan society in which democracy and its
institutions are functional, a society which respects the rights of all -- men and women."