LETTER TO MERYL STREEP ON BEHALF OF AFGHAN WOMEN AND ALL THE WOMEN IN THE WORLD  

On 23^rd of September 2024, Meryl Streep made a speech at the UN meeting on women’s rights in Afghanistan. She said: 

“The women in Afghanistan received the right to vote in 1919. The way that this culture and this society is upended is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world. (…) Today in Kabul, a female cat has more freedom than a woman.  A cat may sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face. She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban. A bird may sing but a girl may not, and a woman may not in public. This is extraordinary. This is the suppression of the natural law. Taliban stripping women and girls off their freedom of education, employment, movement and expression, they have effectively incarcerated half of their population. As Taliban call themselves Sunni, the Sunni Community has a special responsibility in some way to intervene on behalf of their women and girls. I believe that the International Community as a whole if they came together could affect change in Afghanistan stop the slow suffocation of an entire half of the population who is incarcerated. We’re about to watch a very short version of a documentary film called “The Sharp Edge of Peace”. It’s directed by Roya Sadat and produced by Leslie Thomas. It gives us a glimpse of the incredible courage and the tireless commitment of 4 Afghan women leaders, the only women who sat face to face with the Taliban during peace talks in 2020. It’s one of the greatest honours of my life to have the privilege to be here with these extraordinary women. They encourage us and they remind us that a distorted fundamentalist fear of the future can upend a civilization from inside.” 

This is my response to Meryl Streep, on behalf of Afghan women and women all over the world: 

If today we, the women have same freedom as a female cat in Turkey, we owe it to the Laicism. Turkish constitution Article 2 says: The Republic of Turkey is a democratic, secular and social state governed by the rule of law; bearing in mind the concepts of public peace, national solidarity and justice; respecting human rights; loyal to the nationalism of Atatürk and based on the fundamental tenets set forth in the Preamble. 

Women’s right to vote and to stand as a candidate is given us, the Turkish women, on 5 December 1934, earlier than many countries of the world. If we can be educated equally as men and women in Türkiye, we owe this to Laicism and the ‘Tevhid-i Tedrisat Kanunu– The Law of Unified Education’. We can go to primary schools, secondary schools, high-schools and universities as well as men do. If you ask help for the Sunni Muslim community in the world to help for Afghan women, they only watch from a distance. Waiting for the Sunni men to intervene Afghanistan about not only women’s rights but only humans’ right violation is being naive in the lightest words. 

The power that must intervene is human rights organisations, and all the non-governmental organisations fighting for women’s rights. 

So, if we weren’t ruled by a secular constitution, we wouldn’t be able to go to school. The world is ruled by men who only think their well-beings. As Thatcher said: “If you want something said ask a man, if you want something done ask a woman.” we, women, must stand up for our rights, keep what’s ours and must seek justice for the oppressed women living wherever in the world.