Meena Keshwar Kamal

Meena Keshwar Kamal (Pashto/Template:Langx; 27 February 1956 – 4 February 1987), commonly known as Meena, was an Afghan revolutionary political activist, women's rights activist and founder of Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), who was assassinated in 1987.

Biography

File:RAWA logo.png

Logo of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

Meena was born to an educated Kabuli Pashtun family.<ref>Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan, Timothy Nunan (2015)
"One Meena Keshwar Kamal, the daughter of educated Kabuli Pashtuns, had grown politically conscious..."</ref> In 1977, when she was a student at Kabul University,<ref name="guardian.co.uk">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> she founded Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), an organization formed to promote equality and education for women that continues to "give voice to the deprived and silenced women of Afghanistan". Despite the Saur Revolution and women's rights being placed high on the Democratic Republic's agenda,<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }} Template:Rs?</ref> Kamal felt that there was no vast changes of women's deprivation in Afghanistan.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 1979 she campaigned against the government, and organized meetings in schools to mobilize support against it, and in 1981, she launched a bilingual feminist magazine, Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message).<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Chavis2011">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Gioseffi2003">Template:Cite book</ref> She also founded Watan Schools to aid refugee children and their mothers, offering both hospitalization and the teaching of practical skills.<ref name="Gioseffi2003"/><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

At the end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government, Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris Ponamaryev, left the hall as participants cheered when Meena started waving a victory sign.<ref name="rawa.org">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>Template:Primary inline She would eventually move and base her RAWA organization in Quetta, Pakistan, in opposition to the Afghan Marxist government.

Personal life

Kamal was married, in 1976, to Afghanistan Liberation Organization leader Faiz Ahmad,<ref>Brodsky, Anne E. With all our strength : the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. New York City: Routledge, 2003. p. 54</ref> who was murdered in Peshawar, Pakistan, by agents of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar on 12 November 1986.<ref>Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, CIA Op and Homicidal Thug</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Meena was murdered less than 3 months afterwards. They had three children, whose whereabouts are unknown.

Assassination

Kamal was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan on 4 February 1987.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Reports vary as to who the assassins were, but are believed to have been agents of the Afghan Intelligence Service KHAD, the Afghan secret police.<ref name="guardian.co.uk" /><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> In May 2002, two men were hanged in Pakistan after being convicted of Kamal's murder.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Legacy

A special issue of Time magazine on 13 November 2006, included Meena among "60 Asian Heroes" and wrote: "Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women's rights movement based on the power of knowledge."<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

RAWA says of her "Meena gave 12 years of her short but brilliant life to struggle for her homeland and her people. She had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption and decadence of sell outs imposed on our women under the name of freedom and equality, finally that half of population will be awaken Template:Sic and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women's rights. The enemy was rightly shivering with fear by the love and respect that Meena was creating within the hearts of our people. They knew that within the fire of her fights all the enemies of freedom, democracy and women would be turned to ashes."<ref name="rawa.org"/>

An enduring quote from Meena states:<ref name="Gioseffi2003"/><ref name="Orr2011">Template:Cite book</ref> Template:Cquote

See also

• Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
• Taliban treatment of women

Further reading

• Template:Cite book
• Template:Cite book

External links

• RAWA's biography of Meena
• Meena, an inspiration (Time Magazine, November 13, 2006)
• More photos
• Full text of Meena's Poem "I'll Never Return"
• A song by Korean singer Hae Kyoung Ahn based on Meena's above poem
• A BiographyTemplate:Dead linkTemplate:Cbignore