SPECIAL FEATURE
Afghan Voices
There has been a significant improvement in the educational opportunities for girls in the recent years.
What kind of images conjure up when we hear about Afghanistan? Taliban with rifles slungover their shoulders? Eyes of young women wrought with fear? Bomblasts, US troops, dead bodies?
The Taliban era which was 1996 to 2001 could be marked as the darkest chapter in Afghan women's life. However ever since the Taliban were deposed, the country is trying to recover from its dilapidated scene. It has many successful stories in the fields of education, health, sports, human rights, business. There have been many initiatives in peace building which often disappear under the weight of continuous bad news! By the grace of media we get to know about Afghanistan's ethnic conflicts but we know very little about the richness of Afghan poetry, their national celebrations, their cuisine, their culture.
A group of Afghans living outside Afghanistan talk about the stigma associated with their national identity and how the world should actually see their motherland.
From the Afghans' diary
In a war ravaged country where education supposedly seems one of the biggest challenges, Neeti Bhargava, Oxfam's country programme manager in Afghanistan, in one of her reports points out that Afghan girls are hungry for education and a large number of them intend to complete their university. Afghan students are now going to different corners of the world to get higher education.
In fact, Asian University for Women in Chittagong currently has 47 Afghan young women studying there. While these women are empowering themselves with leadership skills, when they go outside of their campus they are confronted with the inevitable query: “Where are you from?”
"The reaction is not positive in most of the time," says Shayesta Ehsan an AUW Afghan student, "The moment I say, I am from Afghanistan, they start uttering words like 'war', 'Taliban', 'Bin-Laden', 'bomb blasts'!"
Shayesta adds that such reactions leave them disappointed. "We feel like explaining to them that this is not all about Afghanistan,” she says. “But we can't because of the language barrier and their fixed mind-set regarding our country. So to avoid this kind of awkward encountering at times I end up saying I am from Nepal or any other country. But I keep asking myself why should this happen?”
Afghanistan has a noteworthy number of women working in parliaments and national army.
So who is to blame? “I don't blame them; it is the way Afghanistan is portrayed in the media" says Shayesta. "When I was 5 years old, I along with my family immigrated to Pakistan. There as well sometimes we had to listen to curses like 'dirty Afghans! Go back to your country.' This is the attitude people need to change.”
Shayesta continues, “Not all Afghans are terrorists! I want to make them understand that the people of Afghanistan are very honest and friendly. At present, the overall situation for girls' education is quite a success story. If every family would consider education as a taboo for their daughters, I could never have ended up studying in Bangladesh. My family has always encouraged me to study further.”
Christine Roehrs, the spokeswoman for Save the Children in Afghanistan in a report confirms that, "Basically, you didn't have girls educated in 2001. And now we have 3 million girls in school." At the same time she emphasizes that still there is a lot of work that needs to be done.
Recovering from a war torn condition is never an easy task to do, stereotyping the Afghans with certain terms makes that task even more difficult.
"People often forget that we, the Afghans too, lead regular lives" says Tahmina Roufi, another young Afghan woman studying at the same university. “We too watch Cinderella or Spiderman; we too enjoy daily soaps or Afghan Idol on television sitting along with our family.”
Tahmina is proud of the independent and brave Afghan women working in the media and parliament in her country. “I do believe that most of the Afghan women are the source of bravery and patience. There are independent and brave Afghan woman working in media and parliament and for some the journey was not an easy one to make. But in spite of the difficulties they have faced, they kept going.”
Shekofa Muhebbi, another Afghan student feels proud too of the success stories Afghanistan has made so far. Originally from Ghazni, a province in Afghanistan, Shekofa, along with her family live in Kabul. “In my province and specially my village the most important thing for any family is education and most of the girls come to Kabul for higher education,” says Shekofa.
“I feel proud of the women activists including the singers and actors who are still working to recover our colourful culture" she adds. "Some of them even are forced to leave the country but they still keep working hard to make awareness regarding human rights."
"I am proud of myself to be able to live in places outside of Afghanistan where every day you might face many weird questions about your country," Shekofa says with contentment. “We have colourful celebrations like Nowroze (the first day of spring) or kite running- those too should help people define what Afghanistan is all about.”
All three of them reiterate that the picture is not rosy all over Afghanistan. It differs from province to province; different forms of extremism still exist in the Southern provinces of the country.
Farhan Azizi a young Afghan man currently studying in India informs via email, “When people learn that I am an Afghan the immediate reaction that I get is the women of my country are grounded in the house covering their head to toe in burka, while the reality is not like that. We have women working for the Afghan National Army, today our women rule over the parliaments; we have women doctors and teachers. People need to get out of that mind-set regarding Afghanistan.”
“You want to hear some good news?” he continues. “I see many women working in Herat campaigning against self-immolation of women and child marriage while they advocate women education more and more. They are working towards restoring women rights where in most of the cases the women themselves are not aware of what their right is. The rate of maternal mortality and child mortality has seen a dramatic drop! The number could be still considered high from a non-Afghan perspective, but again we as a nation need some time to recover.”
We are overwhelmed by the statistics of how many Afghans are leading a disabled life, how many children are dropping out of school every year or how many girls are forced to have child marriages. However, Afghanistan has much more to offer than the war related headlines which have dominated the international media year after year. Its time we should share the good news too!
Asian University for Women in Chittagong currently has 47 Afghan young women studying there.
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