David Vance SubstackRead More
39 years ago, on 5 February 1987, Meena Keshwar Kamal was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan.
At just 21, she founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), transforming education, awareness, and civil resistance into a force of empowerment for Afghan women. Though a graduate of Kabul University’s Faculty of Sharia, she rejected political Islam and all forms of domination, standing fearless against both the Soviet invaders and corrupt mujahideen leaders.
Meena wrote poetry, published the magazine Payam-e-Zan, and distributed underground leaflets against tyranny. Her greatest gift was inspiring women students, schoolgirls, neighbors to rise, organize, and claim their place in shaping history.
In 1984, she represented Afghan resistance at the Socialist Party Congress in France. Her speech earned a ten-minute standing ovation, so fierce that Soviet delegates walked out. In Pakistan, she built schools, clinics, orphanages, and workshops for refugees. It was there that her life was brutally cut short but not her legacy.
She once wrote: “I am a woman who has awakened; I have found my path, and I will never turn back.”
Today, 39 years later, her fire still burns. Afghan women continue to rise, defying oppression, demanding justice, and keeping Meena’s spirit alive.
