I’m not entirely sure why, but I hate the #SaveAfghanWomen. I’m sure the intention was well-intentioned, but to me, #SaveAfghanWomen reads very condescendingly. I have a feeling it dehumanizes them, takes away the individuality of these brave, bold women. To use a catchphrase in feminist circles, the hashtag takes their “agency” further away. It sounds to me like #SaveTheTiger #SaveTheEnvironment or the long-time favorite in Gurugram RWA groups #SaveTheAravalis or the one that was recently used in a newsletter in my neighborhood #SaveRani (our friendly neighborhood dog).
I also have to admit that the problem could very well be mine. I’ve known some Afghan women personally in my life, and I don’t feel comfortable if they are a hashtag that suggests they are on the verge of extinction. Or that they must save when they know they paid the highest price to be saved.
As far as I know, Afghan women are tough as nails, hardened by the rigors of their own kind. Death threats, acid attacks, public flogging, and rape are milestones in the rite of passage from childhood to teen for most. They know that the history of their country is written on the fabric of their submission and the blood of their sisters, though even going to school was an act of bravery.
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I was 18 years old in my first year of college. The joy of passing the tough entrance exam for admission to a coveted college was subdued; it was an all girls college. But it was also the only reason I would become a lifelong friend. She was from Afghanistan, came from a very influential Afghan family and could not have gone to a co-educational college.
The year was 2002, a full year after the Taliban had been removed from their country by the US-led forces. She had spent most of her teenage years in India as her family had been in exile here since the Taliban came to power in 1996. She came from sheer privilege, but unlike most privileged people, she valued them deeply.
Almost 20 years later she became one of the leading voices on peace / conflict and development in her country. Two days before the Taliban marched into Kabul on August 13, 2021, she was in Kabul airport, left a life and a huge work that she built over 20 years.
She paid the price of patriotism and lost her father to a political assassination shortly after graduating from college. When the rest of her family emigrated to a European country, she decided to stay back. She turned down many marriage proposals from some very distinctive suitors because the main condition was that she move out of Afghanistan. She chose to stay in Afghanistan because the women in her country were just beginning to find a voice and she wanted to hear them scream. Then the Taliban came again and my dear friend finally took that flight. The finality would dawn two days later.
My boyfriend and I come from a college where most women are naturally related to equality. Our conversation about the fate of Afghan women began there in 2002 and continues to this day. What has always fascinated me is the development of women’s rights in Afghanistan.
It may come as a surprise, but the fact is that women in Afghanistan were given the right to vote in 1919, a year before US women were allowed to vote. Under King Amanullah Khan, women were given equal rights, including the right to vote, from 1919 to 1929. Reforms for women were introduced in 1919 that the rest of the world saw decades later.
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The Family Code, which banned child marriages, reduced the jurisdiction of religious leaders, and gave women the right to choose their husbands, were some of the characteristic moves. King Amanullah Khan pushed for modern reforms by introducing a new constitution that would guarantee rights for both women and men. His wife Queen Soraya was considered a figurehead for women’s rights; The opening of the first girls’ school in Kabul was one of the many premieres for them.
The world was impressed with the speed of modernization, but internally, the traditional religious conservatives were not amused. The king had to abdicate in 1929. Almost all of Khan’s reforms were reversed and Afghanistan returned to Sharia law with a monarchy and no voting rights for nearly 40 years. The last Afghan king, Zahir Shah, who ruled from 1933 to 1973, cautiously reintroduced some of Amanullah’s initiatives. In 1964 women helped draft a new constitution that gave them the right to vote and enabled them to run for elected office. They got jobs, ran businesses, and went into politics. There were many power shifts over the next decade; the religious conservatives pushed hard, but the women fended off any attack on their rights.
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In 1979 the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The country fell into civil war and the status of women was threatened. In rural areas, female Islamist fighters called mujahideen prevailed and women’s rights were undermined. Afghan women were the greatest security for the American-Soviet Cold War. The United States began flooding the region with money and arms to aid the mujahideen and weaken the Soviets. These were men who came from conservative tribal areas where women’s rights were unknown.
The Soviets imploded and withdrew in 1989, leaving a black hole for the government. The fighting began between the mujahideen and the tribesmen; Both wanted nothing to do with women’s rights. In the middle, the last Soviet-backed Afghan President Mohammad Najibullah was killed. In 1996 the ultra-conservative Taliban took power. The Taliban promised peace and created chaos. Her reign from 1996 to 2001 will go down as her darkest days in the country’s bloody history, especially for women. Enough has gone down in print and pictures to illustrate their reign of terror.
Taliban rule ended in 2001 and the process of rebuilding a devastated country and its broken wives began. The resilience of Afghan women came to the fore. The country’s 2004 constitution guaranteed women’s rights and quotas to ensure they became part of the political process. Women joined the army and police, were trained as surgeons, judges and prosecutors, and worked as journalists and in banks. They had the Afghan women’s choir, the women’s soccer team, and the women’s cricket team. Women regained their place and then the Taliban came back – piece by piece, province by province. And Kabul fell on August 15th. Once again, almost everything women do except have children would be ordained as un-Islamic under Sharia law.
Last week we all read about enough Afghan women who risked everything for their country and their tribal women. Names like Salima Mazari, Zarifa Ghafari and Fauzia Koofi will become part of Afghan folklore when women’s names can be used again in Afghanistan.
I’m not going to tell you who they are and what they did; They deserve to be read to know what courage is. The name that I would have wanted to enter here, but could not for your safety, is that of my friend. She’s just waiting to pack her bags and return to her Watan on the day things seem to “normalize”. Afghan women are made of something else, nerves of steel is an understatement. No, they are different, made of stricter material. I will always wonder what drives their resilience. My best guess to borrow a line from RTA’s Pashto news host Khadija Amin (I interviewed her the day she was told to return home from work as the female staff is permanently suspended war) – “The greatest prison is fear.”
SEE: Watch: Afghan women are gripped by fear and helplessness
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