S1 E4 Malalai Joya: Speaking Up

Sofia Varino talks with Malalai Joya during Joya’s trip to Berlin in April 2016 for a series of talks and speaking engagements. Joya is a renowned activist and former politician from Afghanistan and author of the memoir A Woman Among Warlords, in which she tells her story. As a member of the Afghan Parliament from 2005 to 2007, Joya spoke up against warlords and war criminals in parliament, which led to the suspension of her mandate in 2007 and earned her the title of “bravest woman in Afghanistan.” Yet when I met her, Joya highlighted instead the courage of her people, especially the women of her country. I attended her talk about torture and violence against women at K9 in Berlin and interviewed her a couple days later. The day we met, the horrific Kabul attack of April 19th, 2016 had just taken place, killing 64 people and injuring hundreds of others, and the brutality of that morning’s events permeated our conversation. Joya spoke about the importance of music, beauty, poetry and storytelling as sources of strength and resilience to keep her going in her struggle to bring democracy and emancipation to her beloved Afghanistan. This conversation was published two days after another attack in Kabul, on May 31, 2017.

You can listen to S1 E4 Malalai Joya: Speaking Up online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

S1 E4 Malalai Joya: Speaking Up is an episode from Radical Encounter by Radical Encounter Project.

This episode is 00:49:53 long.

This episode was published on Jun 2, 2017.

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