Women, War And The Media
By Ammu Joseph
Did
any one notice that women were missing from the gathering to select a new
political order to replace the Taliban?
Ever since the
so-called U.S.-led/British-backed attack on Afghanistan began on 7 October, I
have been vaguely conscious of a particular anomaly in the media’s coverage of
the war. I recognised what it was while watching the 24 October report on BBC
news on the gathering of Afghan leaders in Peshawar for a discussion on the
post-war scenario in Afghanistan: there were hardly any women in any of the
reports (apart from female journalists, who have been quite conspicuous by
their presence).
Recent critiques of media coverage
of the aftermath of September 11 have dealt with a number of ethical issues
that confront the media during times of conflict: patriotism versus accuracy
and fairness, official vs. self censorship, national vs. public interest,
majority vs. minority opinion, and so on. However, little attention seems to
have been paid to the media and gender in the context of terrorism and war.
The day after I watched the
television report from Peshawar I went to the websites of the BBC and the Los
Angeles Times to see if anyone else had noticed that something was amiss. The
Indian media had barely covered the conclave. Both the BBC and the LA Times
correspondents mentioned several elements missing from the gathering of
800-1000 Afghan leaders, politicians and clerics who had come together to
discuss "a new political order to replace the Taliban."
The LA Times noted that there was no
official delegation from the exiled king, that several key former mujahideen
commanders were absent, and that there was no representative from the Northern
Alliance. The BBC’s list of "notable absentees" included representatives of the
Taliban as well.
Its report described the Taliban as
"the rulers of a land who have abused power and brutalised a nation in the
interest of an extreme vision of Islam, and terrorised and crushed Afghan
women." Yet it did not note the fact that women were conspicuous by their
absence in that major meeting which had been specially convened to discuss the
future of Afghanistan.
It seemed to me quite extraordinary
that anyone could look at that overflowing hall in Peshawar and not notice that
there was not a single woman there. Especially when everyone knows that the
women of Afghanistan, and their children, have paid the highest price for the
wars that have been raging in their country for two decades – wars that they
have had no role in waging
I was amazed that journalists covering the event did not find it remarkable that the future of a nation was being discussed without even one representative of one half of its citizenry – by all accounts more, because of all the men who have been killed in the fighting. Especially when everyone knows that the women of Afghanistan have been the most brutalised and traumatised by the Taliban regime over the past five years.