Derrick O’Keefe, Rabble.ca, 30 April 2010
TIME has named Malalai Joya to the 2010 TIME 100, the magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Joya has become renown around the world as a courageous advocate of women’s rights and a fierce critic of the NATO war in Afghanistan. The full list and related tributes appear in the May 10 issue of TIME, available on newsstands on Friday, April 30, and now at time.com/tk.
When I first heard this news, I thought it might be an indication that the editors of TIME were open to spreading a dissident’s message about the increasingly unpopular war in Afghanistan. Alas, the write-up by Ayaan Hirshi Ali about Joya disabused me of this optimistic notion. Instead of describing Joya’s reasons for opposing the NATO occupation of Afghanistan, Hirshi Ali, the author of Infidel who now works for the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute, admonishes Joya: