https://www.positive.news/society/keeping-afghan-womens-words-alive/
"It’s August 2021. Imagine being a woman in Kabul – a woman who loves words,
who loves to write. Who keeps in touch with fellow women writers on WhatsApp as
the Taliban advances, seizing city after city, until, with shocking rapidity,
they’re in Kabul itself …
A woman like Marie (not her real name), who worked with a German NGO, and
remembers how: “One of the girls left a message saying that the Taliban had
started a house-to-house search, so it would be best to destroy any documents
showing that we had worked with foreign organisations. This message was like a
sledgehammer. We spent the day putting all our family’s books and papers in a
bucket for my father to set fire to. As each sheet was burning, I felt as if a
part of me was burning. For my survival, I have to destroy with my own hands
the things that I value the most.”
Or like Zainab, who describes how she “boiled some water and added a little
dishwashing liquid. I go through my notebooks and manuscripts one by one and
soak them … My father told me that the ashes of all these books cannot be
hidden, but if you soak them in foamy water and then wash them like clothes, no
trace of your writings will be left. Now that the Taliban are here, my words
are just a pile of rubbish.”
These stark recollections come from
My Dear Kabul, an extraordinary new book
composed of the messages an Afghan women’s writers’ group shared with each
other as their world collapsed. The shock of seeing Taliban on the streets
outside their home. The agonising decisions: to carry on going to work or
college, or to hide? The courage, and fear, felt by those who dared to take to
the streets, demanding their rights despite the threat – sometimes the blows –
of whip-wielding militants.
Some managed to escape the country and find sanctuary abroad, an often
heartrending decision to leave homeland and family behind. Others, through
choice, or lack of it, stay. But many kept in touch, as
My Dear Kabul
records.
The book is the product of Untold Narratives, a project founded by Lucy Hannah,
a journalist and producer who’s worked in Afghanistan. Its aim, Hannah says, is
to help writers, particularly women who have been “marginalised by community or
conflict” to get their voices heard. Its Paranda network brings together Afghan
women like Marie and Zainab, helping them continue to share and write together,
even though separated by borders or – for those remaining in Afghanistan –
seeing their freedom massively constrained.
The strength of their stories was demonstrated by the success of the anthology,
My Pen is the Wing of a Bird: New Fiction by Afghan Women. Published in 2022,
it was named a Book of the Year by the
Financial Times. Translated into
English from Dari and Pashto, the range and sophistication of its writing took
some readers by surprise, accustomed as they were to the stereotypical image of
Afghan woman as burqa-clad and submissive."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
