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Meena Keshwar Kamal: Why she kicks ass

• An Afghan woman who gave her life fighting for women’s rights. In Kabul, 1977, when she was just 19, Meena founded an organization called RAWA , (The Revolutionary Association of the Woman of Afghanistan). 
• RAWA is an organization that strives to “give voice to the deprived and silenced women of Afghanistan.” In 1981 she launched a bi-lingual feminist magazine called Payam-e-Zan, which exposed the criminal activities of fundamentalist groups.
• RAWA says of her “Meena gave 12 years of her short but brilliant life to struggle for her homeland and her people. She had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption and decadence of sell outs imposed on our women under the name of freedom and equality, finally that half of population will be awaken and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women’s rights. The enemy was rightly shivering with fear by the love and respect that Meena was creating within the hearts of our people. They knew that within the fire of her fights all the enemies of freedom, democracy and women would be turned to ashes.”
• Kamal was married to Afghanistan Liberation Organization leader Faiz Ahmad, who himself was assassinated by agents of Hekmatyar on November 12, 1986. They have three children, whose whereabouts are unknown.
• Time Magazine on November 13, 2006, wrote that “Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women’s rights movement based on the power of knowledge.”
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