Part 2: Canada in Afghanistan – What Should Our Role Be?

Part 2: Canada in Afghanistan – What Should Our Role Be? Who Are Our Troops Struggling Against in Our Efforts to Help Afghanistan? Is this a fight worth fighting? Key Questions: What is an insurgency? Who are the Taliban?

Instructions: Who are the Taliban? • Fill in the following slides which ask questions about the Taliban in Afghanistan by clicking on the following Wikipedia link. • You will also be asked to find school appropriate photos to illustrate the information you will be asked to find. You will have to create hyperlinks to the pages where you found your photos. http://info-wars.org/2009/04/26/american-taxpayers-finance-the-taliban/

Who Are the Taliban? • 1. What does the word Taliban actually mean? • It means students in Arabic. • 2. When did they form the government of Afghanistan and who forced them from power? • They ruled from September 1996 and onwards. The Taliban regime was overthrown by Operation Enduring Freedom, after the attacks on September 11 2001. • 3. Click on the links for the following concepts and then define them in your own words: • Insurgency • Rebelling against one’s government • Guerilla War • Is a form of irregular warfare: The opponent can dress as civilians, they strike vulnerable opponents and they like to use the element of surprise. • 4. The Taliban as a social and political “movement” (group) is made up of “volunteers” from which Afghan tribe and people of what neighboring countries to Afghanistan? • The volunteers are from the Pashtun tribes, and from the neighboring countries of Pakistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Baluchistan. • 5. Where does the US government believe that the Taliban’s headquarters is (city and country).

Taliban Leadership and Organization • 1. Who is considered by many as the current “leader” of the Taliban? • Mohammed Omar • 2.This man is on the US government’s most wanted list for what 3 activities? • Sheltering Osama bin Laden • Sheltering alQaeda • Directing the Taliban insurgency • What is one of the only physical details really known about this man? • Mohammed is very tall ( about 2 m) and his missing one eye. • How did he get this physical feature? • He lost it in a battle, shrapnel got it it. • Mohammed is said to be very shy and non-talkative to foreigners. He is also the leader of a very dangerous group and is on the wanted list, so he is laying low. http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,2213419,00.html

Origins of the Taliban • What are the two competing stories about the creation of the Taliban? After the soviets agreed to cut off support for Afghanistan, the government forces decided to side with Jamiat-e Islami . At the same time GukbuddinHekmytar and Hezib-e Islami were approaching the city. They soon began to fight. This ended up in a lot of casualties. The Taliban saw the opportunity and raised up to take control of the country south of Kabul. The Taliban is a Sunni political movement that over took the government in the late 2001. • THINKING QUESTION: • Of the 2 stories a supporter would choose to believe which one? • The one that puts both sides at a weak point. The Taliban never got defeated in the first story. • Of the 2 stories an opponent would probably choose to believe which one? • A person who agrees with the defeat of the Taliban by the US.

Taliban Treatment of Women • Taliban Treatment of Women • Read the very first paragraph and then summarize the Taliban’s quotation about its reasons for harsh treatment of women below: -Their excuse it that they want their women to remain “pure”, so they have to create an environment so the women will not feel tempted. • Under the Gender Policies heading, summarize the 8 points about the treatment of women by the Taliban provided: • Woman are not allowed to be in public showing their face (with out Burqa) with our a family member • Woman can’t wear high heels because it could turn a man on • Strangers should not hear a woman’s voice, so they need to talk quiet • All ground level windows need to be painted so you can’t see a woman through it (peeping tom) • No photography or film of any woman is allowed • No word is allowed to have woman in it • Woman can’t step out onto their balconies • Woman can’t she on radio, TV, or a public gathering http://www.rawa.org/kab-jan05/burning2.jpg

Dress Code and Mobility • 1. Scroll back up the page to find the definition of “mahram”. • Mahram is an unmarriaged kin with whom sexual intercourse would be considered incestuous, a punishable taboo. • What are some other restrictions that women faced regarding moving around the cities and countryside in Afghanistan under the Taliban? (3) • Woman can’t ride bikes, or motorcycles • Woman are forbidden to ride in a taxi with out a mahram • Segregated bus services were introduced so males and females would not sit beside each other • Why would an all girls’ orphanage be practically a prison under this system? • Dress code stuff: • What is the name for the traditional outfit that women had to wear in Taliban Afghanistan? • The women have to wear a loose fitting burqa, so their face’s and bodies are hidden. • What was the main reason for this strict control of women's’ dress? • So other men could not look at the woman, and the women could stay pure. The woman would not be flaunting their figures around. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/womens-basic-health-needs-unmet-in-afghanistan-38020.html

Employment and Education • Were women allowed to work at all under the Taliban rules (tricky question)? • On September 30, 1996 the woman were banned from the work place, except in the health department females were allowed to stay. • What industries were particularly hit hard by the Taliban’s work policies for women? Pick 2. • About 25% of government employees were female, so when the women were banned from the work place the government felt the impact. • Elementary education was also effected, many of the teachers were female. • Were women allowed to be educated under Taliban law? What age did they have to stop going to school? • Yes girls were allowed to be educated, they recognized it as their Islamic duty. The only catch was that girls were only allowed to go to school up to age eight. • Find the quote that illustrates that the Taliban actually thought that they had increased women’s rights in Afghanistan. • no other country has given women the rights we have given them. We have given women the rights that God and His Messenger have instructed, that is to stay in their homes and to gain religious instruction in hijab”.

Health Care and Forced Confinement • Give 2 reasons it was really tough for women to receive health care when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan. • Woman were not allowed to be treated by a male doctor unless accompanied by a male chaperone, this lead to women being untreated. • In June 1998, the Taliban banned woman from attending general hospitals in the capital. This meant that there was one hospital in Kabul the women could still go to. • A study done in 1991 concluded that roughly what percentage of Afghan women they surveyed were showing signs of mental distress and depression? • 97% of woman showed signs. • Describe 3 other cultural prohibitions that were imposed on women or about women if Taliban ruled Afghanistan • Beauty salons were closed, nail polish and make-up were prohibited • Woman could no longer participate in sports • Woman could not laugh loud

Punishments for Breaking Taliban Laws • Read the information about the types of punishments women (and men) were subjected to in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s rule and summarize 2 extreme examples below: • An afghan girl named Bibi Aisha was promised to a new family through a tribal method called baad. When she escaped because of being abused, she was caught and punished. Her ears and nose were cut off and she was left for dead in the mountains. She managed to survive. • You get the tips of your thumbs cut off if you are caught wearing nail polish. • Who is the woman in the photo on this part of the web-page? • Zarmina. • What is happening to her? • She is being executed, publically. • Where is it happening? • At the Ghazi Sports Stadium • What crime is she accused of? • Killing her abusive husband • What happened to her for 3 years before this event? • She was imprisoned for three years and extensively tortured • What organization took the film this photo is a screenshot from? • The Revolutionary Association of the women of Afghanistan http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/21/talks-taliban-come-price-women/

Women’s Resistance to the Taliban • Explain what the Golden Needle Sewing School was. • It was an underground school for women in Heart, Afghanistan. Woman would come to visit the school about three times a week, ostensibly to sew, but instead the women would be given lectures told from professors of literature from Heart University. • How did women “sneak in” 2 details. • The woman would have bags full of materials and scissors, but underneath they would hide their notebooks and pens. • Children playing outside would alert the women inside if the religious police were approaching. • Why was the area that this school was in one of the most oppressed by the Taliban? 2 reasons. • It was a cultured city and it was mostly Shi’a (both which the Taliban opposed) • What is RAWA? • The revolutionary association of the woman of Afghanistan: it helps promote woman’s rights and secular democracy • Who was the founder of RAWA and what happened to her? • Meena Keshwar Kamal was the founder and she was assassinated in February 1987 for her political activities. • What does RAWA work for? 3 main things. • To involve the woman of Afghanistan in political and social activities • Woman to have human rights • Multilateral disarmament

Now that you know … • Write a personal reaction on this slide (3-4 sentences) in which you express your opinion about the treatment of women in Afghanistan by the Taliban. How does it make you feel? Why? • I think the women in Afghanistan are being treated worst then animals. A fly on the wall seems to have more rights then a woman there. It is allowed to sit in the sun, does not have to be completely wrapped up and is not owned by someone else. It is sickening what the society thinks is right for their women. When 97% of woman are showing signs of mental stress and depression, you know things are not right. You know that what is being brought upon these women is right. The most sickening thing is it is the 21th century and there are still human out their suffering this. To me this is utterly discussing.

Do we … • As citizens of a country in which we are relatively free, safe, and equal do we have the responsibility to help places like Afghanistan become more like us? Why or why not? Explain your answer in 3 – 4 sentences. • I believe that we should help other nations like Afghanistan to a certain extent. We should help the citizens that are in need of extreme change. If the majority of the people want help or a way out then yes, but we also need to learn from our history. The natives did not want help and we pushed our ways on them, and some of them are still mad. We should push our ways only when extreme measurements call for it. In my opinion I believe that this is an extreme situation and some of our methods in our society should be used in Afghanistan.

Part 2: Canada in Afghanistan – What Should Our Role Be?