[The 22-year-old is just one of tens of thousands of urban Afghans who had until recently spent their adult lives in a country propped up by Western forces, surrounded by the liberal rhetoric that came alongside two decades of war. While the billions of dollars spent on the country’s security forces and government vanished with the Taliban takeover, this generation of young Afghans determined to live in a more tolerant society could be one of the few enduring legacies of foreign intervention and investment here.]
By Susannah George
and Ezzatullah Mehrdad
“One
of our groups was arrested.”
Then
a call for help: “The Taliban have surrounded us, we are trapped.”
Her
back still throbbing from the beating she had received just days before,
Abdekhil’s face tensed as she and her sister compared reports from across Kabul
on Wednesday. They had planned to join a group gathering at a central
roundabout and march against the Taliban’s announcement of an all-male cabinet.
But
the militant group had just declared protests illegal the night before and
deployed additional fighters to the city’s streets, with orders to arrest
violators. The protesters’ plans were quickly unraveling.
“Go
home? No, now it’s even more important we speak out,” Abdekhil said, without
looking up, texting similar messages of encouragement to the other women in her
group. “Our voices are a threat to them. That’s why they said protesting is
illegal. But all we want is our rights.”
[Fear
and anticipation on the streets of Kabul as Afghans adapt to Taliban rule]
The
22-year-old is just one of tens of thousands of urban Afghans who had until
recently spent their adult lives in a country propped up by Western forces,
surrounded by the liberal rhetoric that came alongside two decades of war.
While the billions of dollars spent on the country’s security forces and
government vanished with the Taliban takeover, this generation of young Afghans
determined to live in a more tolerant society could be one of the few enduring
legacies of foreign intervention and investment here.
But
after days of violent Taliban crackdowns, and a ban on demonstrations by the militants, it’s unclear
if the protest movement will continue in its current form. Protesters say they
are determined to keep fighting, but after a wave of brutal Taliban attacks
against demonstrators and journalists last week, activists have gone
underground.
“I
first learned about women’s right from the Koran,” Abdekhil said, “but when the
United States was here we learned more about our rights in society, about
protest and the power of raising our voices.”
About
a dozen other women were already at the meeting place in central Kabul when
Abdekhil arrived Wednesday. They greeted each other warmly and quickly began
sharing sobering news of friends arrested or injured.
Nearly
every woman in the small group had a story to tell of a close call at a recent
protest. The previous week, just a few blocks from where they stood, a group of
Taliban fighters began shooting in the air in an attempt to disperse the crowd.
“At
that moment I was scared,” Abdekhil said. “I heard one of the commanders tell
his fighters to shoot us, but I just remembered the story of Malala Yousafzai.
That encouraged me to continue, to be ready to pay that cost for our freedom.”
Others
in the crowd began to fume as more reports of Taliban violence pinged on their
phones. Taliban fighters lined the street where the women had gathered, and
without reinforcements they almost certainly faced arrest if they went through
with the protest on their own.
“The
United States should have just dropped a nuclear bomb on Afghanistan when it
left, instead of letting us die slowly,” yelled one of the women, Rashmeen, her
hands shaking. She spoke on the condition that she be identified only by her
first name, for fear of reprisals.
But
Abdekhil said she views the U.S. legacy as more complex. She is thankful for
her education at schools for women that didn’t exist before the Taliban was
overthrown after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and for what she learned from
seminars on women’s rights and civil activism funded by international aid.
But
after the U.S. withdrawal, she said she can’t help feeling abandoned, almost
set up to fail after being promised so much.
[The
flights to a new life were in sight: Portraits of Afghans lost in the airport
bombing]
Zafarudin
Nawrozi, 28, joined Afghan women on the capital’s streets to speak out against
Taliban rule in recent weeks. He said he has been protesting in Kabul for over
six years.
“I
did not hesitate to run into the street for justice, for the right cause,” he
said of taking part in demonstrations under the previous government. The public
lynching of Farkhunda Malikzada in 2015 first drove him to
protest. Malikzada, a 27-year-old woman, was attacked and killed by a mob after
a rumor spread that she had desecrated a Koran.
But
after the Taliban takeover, he said, everything changed.
“It
was like falling,” he said, describing his sudden loss of hope for the future.
Over
the past week, he has continued to protest Taliban rule, marching in the
streets and chanting, “Freedom, freedom.” But now Nawrozi said he feels
suffocated by the crowds and crippled by fear.
“These
Taliban fighters are like zombies,” he said. “You do not want to face them.”
Karima
Shujazada, 26, said that under Taliban rule, when she goes out to protest she
knows she is risking her life, something she never felt during the previous
government.
“Protesting
and advocating had turned into a hobby and fun activity” under Afghanistan’s
previous government, she said. “In the past, I was sure that I would return
home safely. Now, when I go out to protest, I don’t know if I will get
detained, beaten up or killed.”
A
member of the Sadat ethnic minority in Afghanistan, Shujazada said it was her
family who taught her to fight for equality. “My father used to tell me to
never tolerate anyone disrespecting your rights.”
So
after seeing women rally against Taliban rule in Kabul and Herat, she organized
a similar protest in Mazar-e Sharif.
The
night before, she created a Facebook group and posted a call to demonstrate.
Without money to print banners, her sister-in-law wrote slogans on flip charts:
“A city with one gender stinks,” “I don’t wear a burqa” and “We want political
participation at all levels.”
Filled
with fear and horror, Shujazada and dozens of women gathered outside the
mayor’s office on Monday. Initially, a Taliban official was receptive, but
ultimately fighters broke up the demonstration by driving their pickup trucks
through the crowd.
Shujazada
has since gone into hiding, fleeing her home and changing her phone number. She
said she’s determined to protest again: “I have nothing to lose. I can’t study
and can’t work. It’s better to die on the street protesting than just staying
at home.”
In
Kabul, Rohullah Raziqi and his friends prepared for protests on Tuesday in a
brightly decorated cafe that also serves as a cultural center, bookstore and
art studio. The courtyard is also where they retreat after violent crackdowns.
“Two
of my friends were arrested,” Raziqi said, pointing to the door they came
though hours later, after they were released. “Their bodies were covered with
signs of torture, long red marks on their backs from lashings.”
The
29-year-old is a local journalist, but after Kabul fell he decided to join the
protests rather than cover them.
“The
Taliban call us the ‘American generation,’ and they try to say we are not
Muslims because we have been influenced by Western thoughts,” he said. “But
it’s not true. I just believe in freedom.”
After
the Taliban banned protests last week and filled Kabul’s streets with
additional fighters, many activists, including Raziqi, stayed home to regroup.
But
Mohammed Nasir Jahanzib, 29, insisted the pause was only temporary.
“I’ll
never forget what my rights are,” he said. “I’ll never stop. Even if they
continue preventing us from protesting, I’ll do the same thing, but with my pen
and my thoughts.”
Jahanzib
partially credits his dedication to civil liberties to foreign intervention in
Afghanistan, but describes mixed feelings about the last two decades.
“If
the United States had not come to Afghanistan, I would have probably become a
mullah or a Talib,” he said with a dark laugh.
Jahanzib
grew up in Ghowr province and doesn’t remember hearing anyone talk about human
rights until after high school, when he began working for the provincial
council and volunteering for a local youth organization.
He
said he’s thankful for the foreign presence in Afghanistan because it made it
possible for him to get a secular education. But he faults the withdrawal of
those same forces for not leaving behind a government strong enough to protect
a secular society.
At
a recent protest, Taliban fighters hit his right shoulder hard with the butt of
his rifle.
“For
one day, I could barely use my arm,” he said. “I couldn’t write or hold a glass
of tea.” Since then his wounds have healed and he said he remains undeterred
from protesting in the future. But he’s skeptical the rallies will produce real
change unless they force other countries to put pressure on the Taliban.
“Knowing
our rights is not enough if we don’t have power in our hands,” he said. “As
everyone knows today, it’s the Taliban who has the power.”
Mehrdad
reported from Doha, Qatar.
