Fawzia Koofi

:00:02. > :00:12.World which was closed after the phone hacking scandal.

:00:12. > :00:13.

:00:13. > :00:18.That's a summary of the headlines. Some politicians claim that they

:00:18. > :00:22.would be willing to die for their beliefs. Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan

:00:22. > :00:27.politician who says that she expects to be killed. I am resigned

:00:27. > :00:31.to this fate, she says. She is currently an MP in the Afghan

:00:31. > :00:36.parliament and has been a popular figure since she was elected in

:00:36. > :00:40.2005. She has already survived several assassination attempt. What

:00:40. > :00:50.in that case does she believe she can achieve by running for the

:00:50. > :01:08.

:01:08. > :01:14.presidency of her country the year Fawzia Koofi, welcome to HARDtalk.

:01:14. > :01:19.Thank you for having me. Afghanistan really ready for a

:01:19. > :01:25.female President? Afghanistan needs a change in leadership. The people

:01:25. > :01:31.of Afghanistan, the progress of part of society, people who believe

:01:31. > :01:34.they could achieve their goals and wishes through democracy. They have

:01:34. > :01:41.come to the point that they believe the country needs a change of

:01:41. > :01:46.leadership. That change of leadership could be a woman because

:01:46. > :01:51.I think women in the country's history, Afghanistan's history,

:01:51. > :01:55.have never been involved in fighting and destroying the country.

:01:55. > :01:59.So they can become the true leaders of the country. There are

:01:59. > :02:05.challenges. The social structures have always been managed and

:02:05. > :02:11.controlled by men. The economy of Afghanistan Always and now is in

:02:11. > :02:14.the hands of an end and the Mafia, so, for a woman, the social

:02:14. > :02:18.barriers are of course the tradition. The men who have always

:02:18. > :02:24.been running the country for the past decades and centuries - these

:02:24. > :02:28.are the challenges. I think it's time for us to come forward and to

:02:28. > :02:34.explain to the world that Afghanistan is not only a country

:02:34. > :02:37.that produces terrorism. It has a different face also. You are a

:02:37. > :02:42.perfect illustration in your life story of some of the difficulties

:02:43. > :02:48.women face. You almost didn't make it to your second day. You were

:02:48. > :02:52.left out as a baby on the first day of your life. My life story is just

:02:52. > :02:59.a small example of the lives of many hundreds of thousands of

:02:59. > :03:04.Afghan women from the day they are born. The way they are perceived,

:03:04. > :03:10.discrimination, injustice. Union particular were left out, literally,

:03:10. > :03:14.to die in the sun. I was not a welcome daughter of my family. Not

:03:14. > :03:18.many in the family was happy because yet another girl was born,

:03:18. > :03:23.and my mother in particular, because she suffers with the

:03:23. > :03:27.problems she has had been her life. She has given life to another baby

:03:27. > :03:33.girl which could also go through the same life, so she did not want

:03:33. > :03:39.another girl to suffer like she had suffered. Women's voices have never

:03:39. > :03:43.been heard. Mine is different because it is a success story.

:03:43. > :03:47.to this point, but just to establish the hurdles you had to

:03:47. > :03:53.cross. You say your mother did not want to have a daughter who was

:03:54. > :04:00.going to suffer as much as she did. She also did not want to face the

:04:00. > :04:07.anger of your father. You write about he -- how he regularly beat

:04:07. > :04:15.her. In my book, My memoir, the story of my life, my mother was the

:04:15. > :04:19.role model for me because she was patient, she was a manager of all

:04:19. > :04:25.of our lives, her children, but the fact that she faced so much

:04:25. > :04:28.violence in her life. She was illiterate, not educated even, but

:04:28. > :04:33.this talk about the strength of Afghan women's lives, that they are

:04:33. > :04:37.not educated but they are strong. They can demonstrate to their

:04:37. > :04:42.family and the larger part of their country that they can bring change.

:04:42. > :04:49.My mother was the sixth wife of my father, so my father already had

:04:49. > :04:54.other wives when he married my mother. My mother went through so

:04:54. > :04:59.many difficulties in her life. Being not the only wife of your

:04:59. > :05:07.husband and being beaten up by your husband and suffering from her life.

:05:08. > :05:12.She was actually not an ordinary woman. She was an extraordinary

:05:12. > :05:16.woman and a role-model in demonstrating strength as an Afghan

:05:16. > :05:19.woman. What is interesting in your book is that you do not reject

:05:19. > :05:26.complete your father despite the fact that he was brutal towards

:05:26. > :05:31.your mother. You say, for example, that "Perhaps today I understand

:05:31. > :05:34.him more than ever because I understand his workload". It sounds

:05:34. > :05:39.as if you are perhaps trying to find excuses for that level of

:05:39. > :05:45.violence within your family. Back when I was a child, the beating of

:05:45. > :05:49.a woman was regarded as, in many families, the sense of protection

:05:49. > :05:53.and protectiveness from the man towards his wife. But I don't

:05:53. > :05:58.understand. How can you possibly protect your wife by beating her

:05:58. > :06:04.up? As protective as you gotta what's your wife, you want her to

:06:04. > :06:10.stay home. You basically reduce her freedom by giving her love inside

:06:10. > :06:14.the house. Sometimes this love will go to the extreme and turned the

:06:14. > :06:19.beatings. That is how the women regard beatings by their husbands

:06:19. > :06:24.for some that's how my mother tried to explain it to me as a child, the

:06:24. > :06:30.beatings she received from my father. This was a sign of love and

:06:30. > :06:35.ownership over my mother. You seem to be trying to bend over backwards

:06:35. > :06:40.to try to understand that context rather than saying it can never be

:06:40. > :06:45.tolerated. I don't think it will be tolerated in my generation. I don't

:06:45. > :06:48.think this will be tolerated by my daughter. This is the kind of

:06:48. > :06:53.change which has never been reflected in the media from

:06:53. > :06:56.Afghanistan around the world. This is a perspective change. My mother

:06:56. > :07:04.regarded violence in the family as a sign of love and protection from

:07:04. > :07:08.my father, and she always met it with love and a smiling face. I

:07:08. > :07:13.don't think my daughters thought I would be able to receive that kind

:07:13. > :07:17.of love. This is a generational change. It is interesting that you

:07:17. > :07:22.also say that you're dead husband, when you gave birth to your second

:07:22. > :07:27.daughter, he was very disappointed, very upset with you. At the end of

:07:27. > :07:33.the day, he was an Afghan man. He wanted me to have... It must have

:07:33. > :07:39.been hurtful. It was. In Afghan culture, if you don't have a son,

:07:39. > :07:42.your life is not completed, for many reasons, first because boys

:07:42. > :07:47.are basically the heritage and the identity, the owner of the family,

:07:47. > :07:53.and the property owner of the family. It is changing through time.

:07:53. > :07:56.I think in my daughter's generation it is changing but, even among the

:07:56. > :08:02.intellectuals, to have a son, that is a sign your life will be

:08:03. > :08:08.completed. There are still challenges for being a girl, a poor

:08:08. > :08:14.girl. They are still there. Given that level of sexism that runs

:08:14. > :08:18.through tradition in Afghanistan as you have portrayed it, how much of

:08:18. > :08:24.the split did it cause in your family? What ruptures did it cause

:08:25. > :08:31.when you said back in 2005, "I want to be the Member of Parliament for

:08:31. > :08:35.this family" when you had a brother who also had political ambitions?

:08:35. > :08:39.come from a political family. My father was a Member of Parliament.

:08:39. > :08:43.My father was the first to establish a school in our village

:08:43. > :08:47.but he never allowed his daughter to go to school, so that level of

:08:47. > :08:54.tradition exists, and coming from that traditional family, to run for

:08:54. > :08:59.politics was not easy. I had to win an internal election within our

:08:59. > :09:04.family, like my brothers and sisters, but luckily I won that

:09:04. > :09:09.election. And what happened as a result? Did your brothers for give

:09:09. > :09:13.you? They were not initially happy. They did not believe in a woman's

:09:13. > :09:18.capacity to represent the family identity to the extent that they

:09:18. > :09:26.could represent it properly. They were initially opposing the point

:09:26. > :09:30.Have they come round to accepting the? In a few years' time, they

:09:30. > :09:36.came to understand that a woman could equally deliver as men could

:09:36. > :09:39.do that and, in the last election in 2010, they were proud, they were

:09:39. > :09:44.telling me they were proud to campaign for me. It takes time to

:09:44. > :09:47.change perspectives. It is not a matter of just campaigning and

:09:47. > :09:53.changing by awareness but by delivering - that's what I learnt

:09:53. > :09:58.through the process. By delivering you can affect your own family

:09:58. > :10:02.members who are in a traditional family and society. You can see how

:10:02. > :10:07.many challenges women in Afghanistan face, and with all that

:10:07. > :10:11.they are strong enough to bring changes. Let me take you on to the

:10:11. > :10:16.changes that have been brought in Afghanistan over the last few years.

:10:16. > :10:21.In a way, you embodied some of the most dramatic changes, the fact

:10:21. > :10:27.that I think almost 30% of the Members of Parliament are women, a

:10:27. > :10:30.higher proportion than even here in Britain. Do you think that,

:10:30. > :10:36.actually, although we talk a lot about the tremendous problems

:10:36. > :10:41.Afghanistan has, that it has made big strides in the last few years?

:10:41. > :10:45.I think that Afghanistan has come a long way, especially when it comes

:10:45. > :10:51.to the woman's situation, but generally speaking, we started from

:10:51. > :10:57.scratch, we started from zero in 2001. The history of women

:10:57. > :11:01.Afghanistan does not go back to the Taliban period only. We did not

:11:01. > :11:05.start after 2001 only. Women have a long history in Afghanistan the

:11:05. > :11:12.politics. But we had to start everything from scratch and we have

:11:12. > :11:19.come a long way till now. There are 30%, as you say, of women in the

:11:19. > :11:23.Afghanistan the parliament, and some of them managed to get elected

:11:23. > :11:28.openly without anything other than open competition. This brings me to

:11:28. > :11:35.the point that some people say Afghanistan is not ready for

:11:35. > :11:44.democratic institutions. But some women managed to get direct votes

:11:44. > :11:48.from people. There are women in Afghanistan Society, 40% out of 17

:11:48. > :11:53.million -- 7 million children in school are girls. But for me the

:11:53. > :11:58.biggest thing is the change of perspective. My family is a small

:11:58. > :12:05.example but in other societies - you cannot measure it day by day.

:12:05. > :12:13.Of course there are challenges. is more than challengers, isn't it?

:12:13. > :12:17.The European Union ambassador to Afghanistan said that even ten

:12:17. > :12:21.years after the overthrow of the Taliban women still suffer deprived

:12:22. > :12:25.conditions deprived of the most basic human rights. In a way

:12:25. > :12:30.perhaps we are seduced by seeing women MPs such as you but the truth

:12:31. > :12:36.is that the vast majority of Afghan women live in the most appalling

:12:36. > :12:38.deprivation. That's right. There was a huge gap between people who

:12:38. > :12:45.live in the cities and those involved in national institutions

:12:45. > :12:52.and those people, including women, in rural areas. The women in rural

:12:52. > :12:55.areas, the poor, still suffer from enormous violence. Just a month ago

:12:56. > :12:59.there was a famous case of a lady who was brutally tortured by her

:12:59. > :13:05.husband and family and put in a house prison. The women of

:13:05. > :13:12.Afghanistan are suffering from different kinds of violence and

:13:12. > :13:17.there is a shift in politics to Taliban and reconciliation process.

:13:17. > :13:22.It puts women's lives at more risk because there is no systematic

:13:22. > :13:27.protection towards women activists who actually are delivering a

:13:27. > :13:31.healthy activism for changing the situation. I want to talk to you

:13:31. > :13:34.about the Taliban in a moment and possible attempts to have

:13:34. > :13:40.reconciliation with them but just in direct terms about the presence

:13:40. > :13:46.of international troops, which are going to be withdrawn in the next

:13:46. > :13:53.couple of years, how much do you think that is going to possibly un-

:13:53. > :13:58.picks some of the progress there has been? Permission came to

:13:58. > :14:07.Afghanistan in 2001 for two reasons, to fight Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

:14:07. > :14:16.The second was to help Afghan people to establish democracy. We

:14:16. > :14:20.will not hold this international community responsible for security

:14:20. > :14:30.because security for Afghanistan is security for the world. You didn't

:14:30. > :14:33.

:14:33. > :14:37.come just to help us. It was also on the September 11th attacks. It

:14:37. > :14:40.is about ending the war in Afghanistan. You also have the

:14:40. > :14:50.financial crisis in your own country. This in my opinion will

:14:50. > :14:52.

:14:52. > :14:58.It is very unpopular in that a large part of the world, this

:14:59. > :15:05.invasion of Afghanistan. Many Americans think that the troops

:15:05. > :15:11.should withdraw by the end of this year. That is costly for your

:15:11. > :15:19.people. The security in Afghanistan will impact the whole security of

:15:19. > :15:27.the world. We do not want to go back to the situation where

:15:27. > :15:33.Afghanistan is a safe haven for terrorists in the region. There are

:15:33. > :15:40.similarities with where the Russians wanted to withdraw. It is

:15:40. > :15:49.exactly what is happening right now. What happened then is that the

:15:49. > :15:54.whole world abandoned Afghanistan. The Soviet Union collapsed and that

:15:54. > :15:59.is when the international community abandoned Afghanistan. Then the

:15:59. > :16:04.Taliban came forward. For give me for interrupting. Isn't the point

:16:04. > :16:09.that the international community saying it will not abandon

:16:09. > :16:12.Afghanistan, but in order from the war to come to a conclusion there

:16:12. > :16:22.has to be a political settlement. The house to the talks with the

:16:22. > :16:23.

:16:23. > :16:30.whole barn. -- the Taliban. I do not think any one opposes talks. In

:16:30. > :16:38.the 21st century, the basis of democracy is talks. The point here

:16:38. > :16:48.is that who are we talking to? From my perspective, there are not just

:16:48. > :16:52.

:16:52. > :16:58.a single element, they are a national phenomenon. It is at the

:16:58. > :17:02.middle of wads of different factions and movements. But the key

:17:02. > :17:06.point is that many people are asking, should the Afghan

:17:06. > :17:13.government be talking to the Taliban? You are saying, yes it

:17:13. > :17:19.should. They should be a peaceful solution. The Taliban are not just

:17:19. > :17:26.the Afghan element. The Afghan people are victims of a regional

:17:26. > :17:32.power battle. They should be a regional settlement before we go

:17:32. > :17:39.for an outside settlement. Do you think in the meantime there,

:17:39. > :17:43.assuming that everyone wants a regional settlement, do you agree

:17:43. > :17:53.that the current government's approach is that eventually there

:17:53. > :17:54.

:17:54. > :18:02.should be talks with the toll of Van. -- Taliban. What we gave in

:18:02. > :18:09.response to the Taliban is more violence. There have been more

:18:09. > :18:15.killing of Afghanistan leaders. Taliban want to morally control

:18:15. > :18:22.Afghanistan as well as politically. Hamid Karzai says that the Taliban

:18:22. > :18:32.want peace. He says there are people like any body else. Why not

:18:32. > :18:41.try and pursued at? -- pursue that. It should definitely be a political

:18:41. > :18:49.solution. But it has to be glia, transparent and inclusive. Hamid

:18:49. > :18:53.Karzai is the main person who initiated the settlement talks.

:18:53. > :18:58.Three days ago they said they would finally like to tour with the

:18:58. > :19:08.government. But they face of we want to talk to the United States.

:19:08. > :19:09.

:19:09. > :19:15.-- basically. It should declare that this should be transparent,

:19:15. > :19:24.inclusive and questions should be answered. Who are we talking to?

:19:24. > :19:33.Just to get to Hamid Karzai himself, do you think she is acting in a

:19:33. > :19:40.Afghanistan's best interests. peace process has to be inclusive.

:19:40. > :19:50.If we really want to be on us to the peace process, we need to

:19:50. > :19:54.

:19:54. > :20:02.include everybody. They will come and talk and agree. One issue they

:20:02. > :20:07.will compromise on and another they will refuse. They can come to some

:20:07. > :20:11.kind of agreement. Not involving people or letting people what is

:20:11. > :20:19.going on is going to create more confusion. That is what is

:20:19. > :20:27.happening. How could a female Afghan President talk to the

:20:27. > :20:31.Taliban in all honesty? Before talking to the Taliban, the

:20:31. > :20:37.responsibility of any president of Afghanistan is to deliver a good

:20:37. > :20:45.government. The problem in that Dagestan is not only Taliban. The

:20:45. > :20:51.problem is corruption, the rule of law, poverty. I understand that.

:20:51. > :20:57.need to focus on our homework. asking specifically about your

:20:57. > :21:02.ambitions. The Taliban tried several times to assassinate you.

:21:02. > :21:12.Why do you want to put yourself through what to say is a death

:21:12. > :21:21.sentence of campaigning openly questioned hack if we deliver good

:21:21. > :21:26.government. Afghanistan is located in a geographically important

:21:26. > :21:33.location. It is for the leader of the country to make use of the

:21:33. > :21:43.resources. Instead of focusing on issues we cannot achieve winning to

:21:43. > :21:46.

:21:46. > :21:52.focus on priorities we can win on. You are still talking in

:21:52. > :21:56.generalities. I am asking about you personally. You are a mother with

:21:56. > :22:02.two daughters. You seem to be convinced that in the end the

:22:02. > :22:12.Taliban for some body will get to you and kill you. Why is at a price

:22:12. > :22:18.you are willing to pay? There is no guarantee we will live for ever. I

:22:18. > :22:25.do not have a problem with my objectives. If other people do not

:22:25. > :22:32.come forward, then we automatically pave the way for the colour bar. --

:22:32. > :22:34.Taliban. They will take the leadership. You need to believe

:22:34. > :22:44.that he ended the day that your change will make a small

:22:44. > :22:48.

:22:48. > :22:55.contribution for the rest of your people. Do you ever played for them

:22:55. > :23:01.to just leave it all alone? Sometimes. They have been occasions

:23:01. > :23:08.when there were people fighting with the Taliban. Sometimes they

:23:08. > :23:12.are proud of my contribution. The fact that I held in the school and

:23:12. > :23:19.the fact that girls go to the schools is something of a

:23:19. > :23:28.contribution to them. We need to learn to change. If you really want

:23:28. > :23:38.to change, move forward. Not only yourself. Some people will move

:23:38. > :23:42.with you. It is my people who want to follow me. If I stepped down,

:23:42. > :23:47.what about the people who want to follow the? So no matter how

:23:47. > :23:56.dangerous it becomes, you want to be leading Afghanistan? Have made