“Imperial solidarity”: do queer and trans Afghan Muslims need “saving”?

ABSTRACT

In August 2021, immediately after the abrupt withdrawal of the United States (US) from Afghanistan and the return of the Taliban, “saving” Afghan women and queer and trans Afghans was highlighted as a global humanitarian responsibility, from Canada to the United Kingdom, Germany, Ireland, France and the US. Echoing Lila Abu-Lughod’s famous question “Do Muslim women need saving?,” in this article, I ask: do queer and trans Afghan Muslims need “saving”? Through an in-depth “de/colonial” ethnographic study with queer and trans Afghan Muslims in Afghanistan and the US, I develop the concept of “imperial solidarity,” which refers to “savior” regimes of Eurocentric, white, liberal, middle-class, and queer and trans unities and sympathies that establish certain forms of queer and trans ties across borders while serving the imperial project of “divide and rule,” invasion and withdrawal, Islamophobia and homophobia, and save and kill. I argue that imperial solidarity situates the West as morally superior and Islam as anti-queer and trans, which then contributes to an already rising Islamophobia. Another political implication of imperial solidarity with which this article engages is queer and trans Afghan Muslims’ troubled sense of (be)longing, both within Muslim communities and broader queer and trans communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Queer and trans
• murat
• Afghanistan
• Muslim
• war

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 By “the West,” I am referring to the geographical and political powers: the US, Canada, Australia, and the Western European countries and regions that became allies during the US “War on Terror” and the invasion of Afghanistan.

2 Ramadan is based on the Islamic calendar, which is based on the lunar cycle. Therefore, it changes every year on the Gregorian calendar.

3 However, not all Western LGBTQIA+ advocacy projects become civilizing missions, as Rao (2015) also points out.

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Notes on contributors

Ahmad Qais Munhazim

Ahmad Qais Munhazim – queer Afghan, Muslim, and perpetually displaced – is an Assistant Professor of Global Studies at Thomas Jefferson University, USA. They are an interdisciplinary scholar, “de/colonial” ethnographer, and artist, and their work troubles borders of academia, art, and activism while exploring gender and sexuality amid war and migration in the lives of Afghans. Currently, they are preparing their book manuscript based on a de/colonial ethnography of gender and sexuality among Afghans in Afghanistan and Afghan diaspora in the West.