One of the four women who participated in negotiations with the Taliban promotes a listening and work reintegration project for the younger generations in Kabul
“Afghan women as protagonists with a voice and not just as victims”. Fatima Gailani was a peace negotiator in Doha with the Taliban and now she sees her country reduced to a thousand pieces, with the middle class suffering from hunger and the younger generations with a future black of poverty and very little education, very different from what she and her brothers dreamed in the 1970s. She comes from an influential religious family with ties to the former Afghan monarchy. She studied Persian literature, Islamic studies and Islamic law, and grew up in peace under King Zahir Shah, the last monarch of Kabul, who sixty years ago initiated reforms to create opportunities for women to participate in public life.
Gailani was only 24 years old when Afghanistan plunged into chaos: since the conflict over communist and Islamist ideals broke out, culminating in the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1979, Gailani lived through all the chapters of the explosion of violence that developed. . From the war of the Islamic mujahideen against the Red Army, largely supported by the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, to the fratricidal power struggles between the mujahideen after the humiliated Soviet troops withdrew in the spring of 1989. the rise of the radical Taliban, who founded an emirate in 1996, the overthrow of the Taliban regime by the Americans and their allies following the 9/11 attacks, the fight of the Taliban against Western intervention.
Today she is 68 and two years ago one of the four women involved in the peace talks returned from retirement to be present in Doha for the negotiations. Failed, and we know how she went to Kabul. From the Italian Pavilion to the Dubai Expo, Fatima Gailani launches her appeal to the international community: “The biggest mistake, of the American Republicans, was to withdraw the soldiers and allow the institutions in Afghanistan to be dismantled. This left ground for the Taliban. It was an illusion of the Americans who returned respecting the conquests made in the country ”. And she continued: “Young people have changed – she explains. My generation had more education, we don’t accept going back. Afghan women asked to vote before Switzerland, with the king being important. I will not throw in the towel allowing Afghan women to be forgotten in general silence ”. And she tells of her family experience: “My brothers and cousins left school to fight for our country. We knew what education, holidays were, we experienced what a superpower invading your country means and we raised our voices ”.
In support of her, Loredana Teodorescu, president of Women in international security Italy, leader of the Italian project of the Task Force for Afghan women with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The idea is to support Afghan women in the work they are doing and also to review the image of Afghan women,” explained Teodorescu on the sidelines of the forum. “Surely there is a serious situation, but we must also talk about all those women who are instead playing an important role in the diplomatic and political sphere”, like Fatima Gailani. “We want to support the work they are doing through a task force, bringing together many women mediation experts, and with a mentoring program. We really want to understand what their needs are. Now the international community is very focused on Afghanistan, everyone is there. we ask what we can do, and we must ask them “, continues Teodorescu. Her goal is to bring together women mediators who have a strong experience in Afghanistan from many countries and bring them together around a virtual table. “We need to listen to more than 16 million women in the country in Afghanistan” to help them, said Fatima Gailani. “We have to ask them how they see things and how we can help them. Education is certainly a road, but also work,” she concluded.
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