KABUL (AFP) - President Hamid Karzai’s minister for women’s affairs condemned Miss Afghanistan (news - web sites), as Vida Samadzai became the country’s first woman in the post-Taliban era to appear in a bikini during a beauty contest in Manila.
“Appearing naked before a camera or television is not women’s freedom but in my opinion is to entertain men,” minister Habiba Surabi told AFP on Sunday.
“We condemn Vida Samadzai, she is not representing Afghanistan’s women, and this is not women’s freedom.”
Surabi said according to Afghan culture women should not demonstrate their worth using their “beauty or bodies” but by their skills and knowledge.
“In the name of women’s freedom, what this Afghan girl has done is not freedom but is lascivious,” the minister said.
The 25-year-old Afghan contestant, who lives in the United States, is the first Afghan woman in 30 years to participate in the Miss World (news - web sites) international beauty contest being held in the Philippines capital this week.
The dark-haired, black-eyed Samadzai, apparently from a Pashtun tribe, was born and raised in Afghanistan but left for the United States in 1996 to escape the extremist Taliban regime which forced women to cover themselves from head to toe.
Under the harsh regime women were not allowed to work outside their homes or go out without a close relative beside them. After the fall of the militia in 2001, an increasing number of women left the burqa, or veil, at home and some took jobs.
The only other Miss Afghanistan was Zohra Daoud, who jointed the Miss Universe (news - web sites) contest in 1972.
Most people don't get the concept of freedom. They confuse freedom with their choosen way of life. Look, you are free to choose how you want to live your life. This is freedom.
The Afghan minister, has choosen to live her life a certain way. She and her people have no right to enforce their way of life on others. She might think that this is bad for women, but others don't. She should not watch this show.
People who enforce their views on others are fearful that their way will be gone. It is called competition. If your way is so good, why should you worry how others live?
^The fact is she has ch*o*sen to represent a country against the wishes of the populace at large.
This is less about personal freedom and more about hijacking a nations image against it's wishes. If Afghanistan were to enter the contest fuelled by internal interest and a formal selection process who could object?
I'm sure they'd want the selection based on merit and through a staged national contest. Or are you assuming they should make do?
This is all assuming that the majority of people in Afghanistan would want an entry into this sort of thing rather than highlight the lack of basic health and social amenities on the global scene first. It somewhat overshadows the desperate condition most Afgani's are living in at the moment.
A more apt entry would be a crippled, malnourished woman laced with shrapnel.
I think it is good P.R for Afghanistan. Make her a poster child. I bet she has more brains than the whole loya jirga combined. Good for her. She should open up a focus group with that woman in Nigeria who almost got stoned to death. Give them both a honorary seat in APWA I say.
God Bless 'em
