With All Our Strength
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

by Anne E. Brodsky

Area: Women's Studies Publisher: Routledge Pub Date: 04/2003 Pages: 320 pages Size: 6 x 9 ISBN: 0415934923 Edition: First

Cloth $25.00 (USA) $38.00 (CAN)

About the Book

The members of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) have risked life and limb daily to help their tortured sisters in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 1977.
With All Our Strength is the inside story of this women-led underground organization and their fight for the rights of Afghan women. Anne Brodsky, the first writer given in-depth access to visit and interview their members and operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, shines light on the gruesome, often tragic, lives of Afghan women under some of the most brutal sexist oppression in the world.
A skilled interviewer, observer, and writer, Brodsky chronicles how RAWA members, whose identities have been concealed in order to survive, have run schools and orphanages, supplied medical care in secret, and covertly documented fundamentalist atrocities against Afghan women through cameras hidden in their clothes. Since the toppling of the Taliban, RAWA continues its important work, helping women survive not only the aftermath of years of abuse, but broken families, poverty, and the many discriminations that still exist.
An impassioned, riveting account of RAWA's twenty-six year struggle to build empowerment, hope, and resistance among the girls and women of Afghanistan, With All Our Strength is a paean to the resilience of Afghan women and a model for women's rights organizations around the world.

Reviews

" Heavily sprinkled with perceptive interviews.."
– -Publishers Weekly

" [G]roundbreaking..The first writer with in-depth access to RAWA, Brodsky writes a passionate narrative...[S]tands out as a lone and important study of a remarkable organization.."
– -Publishers Weekly

" A ring side view of RAWA, the extraordinary women's movement that is as doggedly committed to democracy as it is to dreaming of another, better world.."
– -Arundhati Roy

" WITH ALL OUR STRENGTH is the first political history of Afghanistan told through women's eyes. Afghan women have always been depicted as the victims of war and mass destruction, but Brodsky shows us that real and powerful women live behind the veil and she has given them a voice and a history. This is the story of those defiant Afghan women who never succumbed or surrendered to extremism or despair and who want nothing more than to build peace and democracy in their county. A powerful story.."
– --Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban and Jihad

" Anne Brodsky goes behind the headlines to look closely at a unique organization that according to popular stereotypes of Afghan women should not exist. RAWA is a militant, secular, feminist, pro-democracy movement run by women. Brodsky shows us how ordinary women, including those who are illiterate and who have experienced traumatic violence, can become powerful agents of social and political change. Combining scholarship with empathy, Brodsky produces a fascinating book.."
– --Katha Pollitt

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Table of Contents

Foreword from RAWA
Acknowledgements
" I'll Never Return"
Introduction
1. "I've Learned the Song of Freedom" Joining the Movement
2. "I Am the Woman Who Has Awoken" Meena and the Founding of RAWA
3. "With All My Strength I'm with You on the Path of My Land's Liberation" RAWA's History and Continued Resistance
4. "I've Opened the Closed Doors of Ignorance" Education is Revolution
5. "My Voice has Mingled with Thousands of Arisen Women" Running the Movement
6. "Oh Compatriot, Oh Brother" Male Supporters
7. "I've Been Reborn Amidst Epics of Resistance and Courage" The RAWA Life
8. "I've Found My Path and Will Never Return" The Movement Continues
Glossary
Notes
Reference
Index