What a shame, Meryl Streep!

Meryl Streep’s speech at the UN, comparing Afghan women to a cat or a squirrel, highlighting how they have more freedom and consideration than a woman in Kabul today, was certainly more effective than a thousand detailed explanations of the Taliban laws against women that women’s rights organizations strive to do wherever and whenever possible in an attempt to explain to the international civil community how terribly unbearable the segregation to which the Taliban subject Afghan women and girls is. A splendid example of communication skills, a simple but effective way of spreading information, which strikes the imagination and sensitivity of ordinary people – and perhaps even of the accustomed insiders.

A capacity for synthesis and incisiveness that we activists who work closely with Afghan women often lack, overwhelmed as we are by the desire to tell in as much detail as possible the torture, physical and psychological, that women are forced to face on a daily basis, trying to pour as many stories as possible into the few narrow spaces of communication that are granted to us by the mainstream media and official politics, in an attempt to give a voice to the forgotten Afghan women to compensate them for all their deprivations.

A cleverly constructed speech, that of Meryl Streep, probably prepared by skilled communication experts… but lacking real contact with the Afghan population and women, a speech written and delivered far from the reality and political history of Afghanistan.

Because if Meryl Streep and her PRs had a better understanding of what the women who, having remained in Afghanistan or forced to flee the country, are still fighting a daily battle of resistance against fundamentalists and corrupt politicians – a battle that was already underway during the previous republic – think and ask for, they would know that the leaders cited in the speech as champions of freedom and the rights of Afghan women and representatives of their battles are instead considered traitors of their interests.

And they were not felt to be representative even when they were in Afghanistan, precisely because, being leaders in the republican government, governed by corrupt and incompetent former warlords, they enjoyed the benefits, personal and family, that came from their positions of power. For this reason, they were contested during their political office by groups of citizens and activists who accused them of corruption or collusion with fundamentalist parties.

Even their willingness to participate in the 2020 Doha talks aimed at bringing the Taliban back to power is not considered a merit: not only were they simply used as a banner of democracy and equality without having any real political weight, they were simple wallpaper. But even recently, on the occasion of the 3rd Doha Conference, they were contested because they favored an agreement with the Taliban, an agreement that, with official or de facto recognition, would bring them back to power in an impossible inclusive government.

So, what a pity, Meryl Streep… You didn’t realize that, while you were spending yourself on that splendid exclusive stage that is the UN with the worthy and certainly heartfelt intention of giving impetus to the defense of the rights of Afghan women so ignominiously trampled upon, you were actually supporting the policy of powerful states that, putting democratic principles and women’s rights in the background, prefer to resign themselves to the fundamentalist Taliban regime, accepting it as a factual reality, in order to normalize international politics and economics as soon as possible, and in the meantime they cleanse their conscience in front of the world by inviting important and famous women to their international parades who can intercept the sensitivity and attention of public opinion while real politics operates elsewhere.