You have to try to build up a power base from scratch, knowing that you have no resources other than your dedication and sense of purpose, while your adversary is armed to the teeth and rolling in money. At the present juncture in time, fighting fundamentalism is fighting for women's rights and human rights. While the fundamentalists hold guns at the heads of Afghan people, fair and free democratic elections are unthinkable. It is for this reason that RAWA believes that United Nations efforts to bring about peace in Afghanistan by bringing fundamentalist groups together and making them see reason are an exercise in futility. We believe that the coming together of present warring groupings in Afghanistan will be the greatest catastrophe for the agonized people of our country.
Reconciliation can only spell more terror, more crime and more tyranny for the people.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan RAWA is a women's organization, but our agenda is not to fight for legalized abortion or equal pay for equal work. The harsh realities of our society bring home to us the understanding that in order to be able to fight for women's rights, we first of all have to fight for the existence and the integrity of our people whose existence and nationality are direly threatened. In spite of the silence and being a spectator, fortunately there are still organizations that are interested in the situation in Afghanistan, and in the situation of women's rights and human rights. Somehow or other, they show their solidarity with the people and women who have been deprived of their basic rights. The Internet, the tool that has turned the world into a global village, has helped us to spread the word to the Western world.