The Favored Daughter (8 page)

It was very common for women like my mother, my aunts, and my elder sisters to wear a burqa. But younger women like myself didn't identify with the traditions of wearing them. In the old days a burqa was a sign of nobility, but it also had practical uses. It was designed to protect a woman from the harsh elements, the burning sun, dusty sand, and fierce winds. I know that many people in the West today see the burqa as a sign of female oppression and religious fundamentalism. But I don't see it that way.

I want the right to wear what I think is best, but within the confines of Islam. Covering the hair with a head scarf and wearing a long loose tunic that covers one's arms, chest and bottom is enough to satisfy the Islamic rule of being modest before God. Anyone who says a woman must cover her entire face to be truly Islamic is wrong. A burqa is definitely not an Islamic requirement but is usually worn because of cultural or societal reasons.

I am also aware that in some Western countries, wearing a face-covering burqa has become a political issue, with certain politicians and leaders wanting to ban it by law. While I believe that all governments have a right to determine the laws and culture of their own countries, I also believe in freedom of choice, and I think Western governments should let Muslim women wear what they want.

As a young girl, however, I did not want to wear a burqa. One day my mother, sister, and I got dressed up in our nicest clothes for a party at my aunt's house. I was very pleased and felt beautiful. I was even wearing a little bit of makeup. Before the arrival of the mujahideen I would have just put a head scarf on before stepping outside. But my mother had gone to our neighbor's house and borrowed a burqa, which she insisted I wear.

I was furious. I had never worn a burqa in my life, and here I was in my nicest clothes with my hair and makeup done, ready for a party, and she was insisting I cover myself in a heavy blue sack.

I refused and we flew into a terrible argument. I argued, “Suddenly the mujahideen come to town and the whole world changes,” while my mother pleaded, cajoled, and threatened that it was for my own protection. She argued that the soldiers could not be trusted if they saw me uncovered and that I should hide myself to avoid unwanted trouble. I was crying, which only made me angrier because it ruined my makeup. I started doing that teenage thing where I decided that if I had to wear a burqa then I simply wouldn't go to my aunt's at all. Eventually my mother talked me around. I did want to go to the party, and having spent so long getting ready it would be a shame not to go. And so I begrudgingly pulled the burqa over my head and reluctantly took my first steps into the streets of Faizabad and this strange new world.

Peering through the tiny blue mesh eye slot, I felt as though everything was closing in on me.

The mountains seemed to be perched on my shoulders as if the world had somehow grown both much larger and much smaller at the same time. My breathing was loud and hot inside the hood and I felt claustrophobic, like I was being buried alive—smothered beneath the heavy nylon cloth.

In that moment I felt something less than human. My confidence evaporated. I became tiny and insignificant and helpless as if the simple act of donning the burqa had shut all the doors in my life I had worked so hard to open. My school, the pretty clothes, the makeup, the party—all meant nothing now.

I'd grown up seeing my mother wear the burqa, but I felt as though it was merely something of her generation and that it was a cultural tradition that was slowly dying out. I had never felt any need nor had been asked by my family to conform to it. I saw myself as part of a new generation of Afghan women, and the burqa's traditions didn't represent my ambitions, for myself or my country. Unlike my mother, I had an education, one that I was eager to expand upon. I had opportunities and freedoms. One of them was the freedom to choose whether or not to wear a burqa—and I chose not to.

It wasn't that I had, or have, a particular problem with burqas. They are traditional and can offer women some degree of protection in our society. Women all over the world must occasionally deal with unwanted attention from men and for some women, wearing a burqa can be a way of avoiding that. But what I object to is that someone can impose a decision about what to wear. How would women in the West react to a government-enforced policy that made them wear miniskirts from the onset of puberty? Islamic and cultural ideals of modesty are strong in Afghan society, but they are not so strong that a woman must, by virtue of her gender, be hidden beneath a blue sack. Covering the hair with a head-scarf is enough to satisfy the Islamic rule of being modest before God.

When we got to my aunt's house, I was relieved to get the burqa off. The experience had left me feeling shocked and scared about what my life and my country was turning into. I couldn't enjoy the party and instead kept to myself, reliving the horrible experience of the walk, suffocating beneath the tiny walls of my portable cell. All the while I plotted how to best get home—how I would dash back, hoping to avoid anybody I knew. I wasn't ready to admit to myself, let alone anybody else, that a burqa had become part of my life.

The following day Kabul airport was closed by the mujahideen. The flights between Faizabad and Kabul stopped running. Our sense of isolation from the capital became very real. I was very worried about what was happening there. I was particularly concerned that my school, if it hadn't already been destroyed in the fighting, might be closed and I would never be able to return to my studies.

We listened closely to the radio for any scrap of news. It was hard to know what to believe. The warlords were smart enough to seize the radio and television stations, and even in Faizabad rumors abounded about what was happening in the capital. The radio announcer told us the schools were open and girls were to attend. But the reality was parents were reluctant to send their daughters to class because they didn't think it was safe.

We could see the changes on the television. At that time, Afghanistan had some highly respected women presenting the evening news. They were smart and glamorous and executed their jobs with utter professionalism. As a girl they were important role models for me. I loved following their changing hairstyles as much as I loved listening to them report the international news. They were living proof Afghan women could be attractive, educated, and successful. But suddenly, the beautiful, intelligent female news presenters with their perfect hair and makeup that I had so admired disappeared from the screens. In their place dowdy women in scarves stumbled their way through the news. This change made me very worried.

I went to my mother in tears one day, upset and scared and frustrated by the situation. She just listened to me as I poured my heart out, and when I had finished, she announced that we would find a temporary admission at a school in Faizabad.

I missed Kabul and the heady glamour of my friends' houses. But I was pleased to be back at school, even though the school in Faizabad, which had once so felt so large and overwhelming to me, now seemed tiny and parochial.

And I was stuck with the burqa. I began to get used to the feeling of being enclosed, but I couldn't get used to the heat. There was no bus service in Faizabad, and so I would walk to school in the sun while the sweat ran down my body. I found I sweated so badly that my skin developed black spots from the perspiration and lack of air.

Despite my discomfort I found myself making lots of friends. I was enjoying being back in the classroom and the opportunities that came with it. My teachers invited me to take part in some gardening classes after school, where we could learn about plants, propagation, and soil care. This was Badakhshan, where even today the understanding of biology and farming science is very basic, so it seemed like an interesting way to spend time with my new friends.

Unfortunately, my mother wouldn't let me continue my gardening classes. Even with my burqa she was scared her teenage daughter might attract the roaming eye of a mujahideen fighter. Every minute I was outside the house was another minute that might lead to an unwelcome marriage proposal; and a mujahideen marriage proposal is not one you turn down without serious consequences. To do so would almost certainly invite the mujahideen to take what they wanted by force. As far as my mother was concerned, going to school was an essential risk; learning about plants was a luxury her beautiful daughter could live without.

The arrival of the mujahideen had changed so much about my world outside the house. But it changed my home life in unexpected ways, too.

I had been back at school for a month when my half-brother Nadir appeared at our door one day. He was the eldest son of the wife my father had divorced. I hadn't seen him for 15 years, when he disappeared as a boy to fight the Russians. The man who stood in our living room was now a mujahideen commander. He and his men were responsible for the supply routes into Koof, to ensure the fighters there had enough arms and ammunition. It was a very important role and not a position the generals handed out lightly. My mother was glad to see her stepson, of course, but she wasn't shy about venting her displeasure at his job. If this had angered my brother he would have been, at least as far as the mujahideen were concerned, within his rights to beat her or maybe even kill her for such insolence. But he didn't. Such was my mother's way and the respect she commanded within our family that he apologized to her. He was a man now, he said, and he knew right from wrong. His priority now lay with doing what was best for the family.

He wanted to take me to his village, where he could protect me from the other mujahideen. His rank within the fighters would be enough to guarantee my security there. But he was clear that while I remained with my mother in Faizabad, not even his influence was sufficient to prevent local gunmen from forcibly marrying me should it occur to them.

This was my mother's greatest fear, and so it was decided I should go with Nadir to the village where he lived in the Yaftal district.

The only way there was on horseback. And later that day he arrived at the door with two white horses wearing tasseled bridles. I hadn't ridden a horse since I was a little girl. And as ever, my burqa conspired to make my life difficult. Trying to even sit on a horse while wearing a burqa is a challenge, let alone riding an animal through busy traffic. It startled at every blaring horn and strange noise. In the end my brother had to take the reins and lead the horse through the city, while I did my best just to stay on. Every time it kicked or bucked he would rein it in, controlling it just as I thought I was about to fall onto the road. I had never felt more backward than I did that day. Here I was, dressed in a burqa, while being led on a horse. I felt like I had regressed to my mother's or grandmother's generation. At that moment it looked like neither my country nor my life was ever going to progress into something better.

We rode out of Faizabad and on to my brother's house. It was several days' riding and the roads were very poor, barely even dirt tracks. I had taken control of the horse, so I was pleased with myself. The burqa still made it difficult for me to ride, especially when trying to steer the horse around corners. With my restricted vision I was very disoriented. And if the horse stumbled in a hole it was very hard to retain my balance.

As night fell we came to a village where we could rest. Although we had only been traveling a day, already I could see the differences in the people. The village women were very welcoming and were eager to talk to the new arrivals. As we spoke I noticed how filthy their hands were, black with dirt from long, hard days working in the fields and irregular bathing. Their clothes were those of simple rural peasants, which I suppose shouldn't have surprised me, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that somehow I had gone back in time. First the burqa, then the horse, and now the dirty village women who lived their lives in much the same way as their grandmothers and their grandmothers before them—it was like watching my country's future unravel before my eyes.

When I woke I found I was very stiff and sore. Horse riding can create aches in places you never thought possible. But I was still pleased with myself to be riding unassisted through such tough country after such a long time out of the saddle. You need to be skilled to ride in this part of Afghanistan. Sometimes your life depends on it.

I had been living with Nadir and his family for two weeks when we went to visit an uncle and some of my other distant family in a nearby village. I was sitting with a woman who knew my mother when she asked me if I was in Kabul when my brother Muqim had been killed. I was completely shocked because I hadn't heard anything about this. Everybody in the room could see the look of horror on my face and they realized I didn't know. My uncle was first to react. His instinct was to deflect the subject, and he tried to suggest the woman was asking about another of my half-brothers who had been killed by the mujahideen 15 years previously.

That brother had been among a group of village men who helped fight off the mujahideen when they attacked the town of Kohan. He spent all night firing out of a small bathroom window in his house, armed with just a pistol. In order to reach the high window, his poor wife had to crouch on all fours and he stood on her back. Both he and his wife survived that battle, but he was a marked man after that. He fled to Takjikistan for a while but eventually tried to sneak back into Afghanistan. That was when they caught him. In another sign of the strength of the extended family, my mother spent the night going from local commander to local commander, begging for his release. He wasn't her blood son, but like all the other wives' children, she loved him as her own. But she failed and he was executed with a bullet to the head the following morning at dawn.

But I knew all about this story. And I was only a little girl when it had happened. So why would she ask me if I was there? Despite what the family said to the contrary, I was sick with worry that they were really talking about my brother Muqim. He lived in Kabul and I feared it was he who had been killed. I was in shock. I felt like I was having a heart attack. I didn't want to eat anything. I felt sick. I just wanted to sprout wings and fly to Kabul to check if he was alright.