Malalai Joya's Pointless Tour to The U.S

Malalai Joya is currently touring the United States and I am a bit confused at what she hopes to accomplish here. She speaks poorly of the U.S, NATO, International Communities, and everyone in Afghanistan. She sometimes appears to be a feminist, sometimes a politician, and sometimes a human rights activist. Some believe that she fails to fulfill all these roles, but rather wants to be the center of attention.

She does not have a clear agenda as to when she wants the NATO troops out of Afghanistan. She also demands US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a demand she shares with the Taliban. If NATO troops leave Afghanistan Joya would not have chance to speak out like now.

Here what she says:

“The Afghan people are squashed between three enemies: the Taliban, warlords, and occupation forces.”

She always rants and raves about government, the Taliban, NATO forces and warlords which are all pointless. Warlords have no power anymore; they were devastated and disarmed four years ago. They have no voice in the Afghan public domain, and if they do, they have no influence.

Joya is ignorantly supporting the Taliban right now because their demands match hers. The Taliban asks U.S forces withdrawal as well.

Here is another pointless claim of hers:

“The reason they refused to give me a visa, I think, is because I exposed the wrong policies of your government, and I talk about the reality of the so-called ‘war on terror,’ and I talk about the war crimes your government is committing in the name of the American people,” said Joya. “These are the reasons they are afraid of me and do not let me enter the U.S.”

I don't know who would be naïve enough to believe that she correctly understands the situation in Afghanistan. Joya is living in her own hysterical, and sometimes paranoid, world that she created from the Afghan public sphere. She has little voice in the country, even among women. Her typical speech always descends into a rant against the government, tribal leaders and foreign forces that often get her into trouble.

While representing her country, she portrays a very bad image of Afghanistan and, more specifically, Afghan women. She believes that the situation women are in today is worse than than their situation was under the Taliban. I disagree. She ignores the fact of hundreds of thousands of girls going to school today and thousands of women employed by numerous government and NGOs since 2002.

I would suggest instead of repeating everything that she used to say five years ago, she should come up with an idea. She can raise money for building schools for girls; she can be a good feminist and work specifically for women’s rights. She can raise money for widows and homeless women, who are now in despair. Malalai Joya must understand that she has not left room for herself in Afghanistan because she's always in fight with quite everyone in power there.