This is Malalai Joya’s speech at the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan.
This is a young woman, in a land where women were little more than chattels (and today are little better than chattels), who called for the prosecution of the Afghan war lords, in a gathering they were a part of.
These same war lords who were previously indirectly responsible for the Taliban coming to power.
Because, compared to them the Taliban were an improvement. They were a more secure order.
It’s hard to imagine a regime that the Taliban could be an improvement of.
Suffice to say it involved capricious and regular crushing of people under tanks as a form of entertainment. OK, that doesn’t suffice in of itself, but you can image why people wanted change…
This is Malalai Joya’s speech at the Loya Jirga.
Can you imagine the courage it took to make it, the real dedication to her humanitarian and kind beliefs?
We come from societies that worship, habituate, and apologise Men With Guns; but if there is one thing that must be axiomatic in the search for justice, and freedom, it is this: that those who are willing to stand up for it, without the cowardly retreat into gunpowder and testosterone-originated force, or any other brute domination of others, are the braver.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLC1KBrwbck[/youtube]