A number of authors have recently looked "behind
the veil" to reveal the extraordinary, unseen women of Afghanistan.
These writers argue it was the Taliban's terror of women that fueled
policies banning women from schools and the workplace, and requiring them
to wear the long veils called burquas. Laughter and loud talk were
forbidden, seen as being sexually exciting.
Even after the Taliban's defeat, the streets of Kabul remain an
unpleasant reservoir of overheated hyper-masculinity, so Afghan women
continue to stay indoors. But many Afghan women have organized to oppose
their oppressors.
"Veiled Courage: Inside the Afghan Women's Resistance" by
Cheryl Benard (Broadway, $$23.95).
Twenty years ago, while Afghanistan fought the Soviet Union and the
United States armed the fundamentalist warlords, a young Afghan woman,
Meena, founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan
(RAWA). Meena believed that educated women could provide strong opposition
to violence and extremism.
In this informative history, Cheryl Benard takes the reader inside
RAWA's political culture, describing courageous, educated Afghan women who
are willing to discuss and listen to opposing points of view, and to
persuade through reasoned argument instead of brute force.
|
Zoya's Story:
An Afghan Woman's
Battle for Freedom
by Zoya with John Follain
and Rita Cristofari
|
"Zoya's Story: An Afghan Woman's Struggle for Freedom" by Zoya
with John Follain and Rita Cristofari (Morrow, $24.95).
Articulate and charismatic, Zoya is a second-generation member of RAWA.
When her mother and father were killed on the orders of fundamentalist
warlords, Zoya was sent to a school in Pakistan. Using Zoya's own words,
journalists Follain and Cristofari tell the story of her return to
Afghanistan on a mission for RAWA. Zoya's eloquence paints a chilling
picture of the physical and psychological claustrophobia imposed on Afghan
women.
"My Forbidden Face: Growing Up Under the Taliban; A Young Woman's
Story" by Latifa (Hyperion $21.95).
This story of a young woman's struggle to survive under the Taliban is
less mature, but no less courageous. Confined to a Kabul apartment with
her mother and sister, Latifa finds the petty tyranny over her personal
life intolerable. Overcoming a strange and indescribable exhaustion, the
16-year-old bravely defies the government and starts a school for the
younger children in her building.
"Unveiled: Voices of Women in Afghanistan" y Harriet Logan
(Regan Books, $29.95).
A visitor to Afghanistan in 1982, British photographer Harriet Logan
returned in 1997 and again in 2001 to find and photograph the same Afghan
women. With accompanying stories that range from hopeful to despairing,
the visual contrasts are striking. Having experienced the penetrating
stares of Afghan men herself, Logan capably articulates why Afghan women,
even after the Taliban, are uncomfortable in the predatory atmosphere on
the streets of Kabul.
Rob Mitchell hosts the radio talk show "Pages to People," which
airs on WBNW-AM and WPLM-AM.
