One of the women I met while I was there (who is called Hasina in my book), struggled with these issues herself. She had overheard her parents talking about her un-Islamic behaviour, which they felt threatened the family honour now that her sisters were engaged. Once she had been carefree, willing to take on society and fight for the rights of women, but her formerly Communist-leaning family slowly strangled her spirit. She was no longer able to meet me at the Flower Street Café, where we would drink coffee and chat about everything, including sex. Instead of going out after her classes at the University of Kabul, she had to go straight home. And when she did go out, it was under the watchful eye of her American-university-educated chaperone.
Nordland’s story brought back all the conflicting feelings that I faced when I lived in Afghanistan and re-examined the eternal and ongoing question of whether life would ever get better for women, especially without Western pressure. That the situation has not improved is a sad testament to all the Afghan women, and some men, who risked — and continue to risk — their lives. Nordland spells out in unstinting detail the impossible situations women find themselves in. If they want to go to the police to report abuse, they can’t lest they are raped by the police themselves. If they are raped, they will be regarded not as the victims but as the perpetrators, and be accused of adultery. Nordland retells the infamous story of Breshna, a 10-year-old girl who was raped by a mullah whom she was forced to marry. Even she knew this was insane. Her fate is unknown.
Robert D. Crews, a Stanford University historian, takes a different tack in Afghan Modern, a comprehensive history of the country. He looks at Afghanistan not as an isolated “hermit kingdom” but as an ancient land that has always seen itself as a global player and not a pawn in the Great Game of superpowers. He depicts it as a country that has always been “engaged and connected with a wider world”. He dispels the clichés that have attached themselves to our language and imagery of the country — that Afghans are “barbarous” and “war-like”, “wild” and “treacherous”, stereotypes from centuries ago.
Nordland’s story brought back all the conflicting feelings that I faced when I lived in Afghanistan and re-examined the eternal and ongoing question of whether life would ever get better for women, especially without Western pressure. That the situation has not improved is a sad testament to all the Afghan women, and some men, who risked — and continue to risk — their lives. Nordland spells out in unstinting detail the impossible situations women find themselves in. If they want to go to the police to report abuse, they can’t lest they are raped by the police themselves. If they are raped, they will be regarded not as the victims but as the perpetrators, and be accused of adultery. Nordland retells the infamous story of Breshna, a 10-year-old girl who was raped by a mullah whom she was forced to marry. Even she knew this was insane. Her fate is unknown.
Robert D. Crews, a Stanford University historian, takes a different tack in Afghan Modern, a comprehensive history of the country. He looks at Afghanistan not as an isolated “hermit kingdom” but as an ancient land that has always seen itself as a global player and not a pawn in the Great Game of superpowers. He depicts it as a country that has always been “engaged and connected with a wider world”. He dispels the clichés that have attached themselves to our language and imagery of the country — that Afghans are “barbarous” and “war-like”, “wild” and “treacherous”, stereotypes from centuries ago.
Reading Crews’s description of Afghanistan between the 1940s and the ’70s almost made me weep. It was as if history was repeating itself. He writes about how landlines enabled young Afghans to be in touch with each other, which was exactly what mobile phones did after 2001, and how cinema, Indian movies in particular, brought the outside world in. Afghans love Bollywood. They developed a dependence on foreign aid in the 1950s when the country was awash with technocrats and foreign advisers, and rivalries broke out among donors which led to “delay, duplication and confusion”.
These are the same issues that have dogged the country in recent years, making Afghan Modern required reading for generals, policy-makers, NGOs and journalists. It reminded me of one of the most bizarre schemes that US aid has funded, and that Nordland writes about: a lovely French woman got a grant to teach yoga to Afghan politicians and prisoners, including Taliban militants, in the hope of bringing inner harmony and world peace.
As Nato exits as fast as it can, desperate to leave the débàcle of Afghanistan behind, Crews cautions that we ignore the country’s wider role at our peril: “Indeed, the world would be well advised to listen to this strand of Afghan globalism and to recognise the many ways global processes have made Afghanistan what it is today, a place that occupies a pivotal position in the highly interconnected world we all share.”
These are the same issues that have dogged the country in recent years, making Afghan Modern required reading for generals, policy-makers, NGOs and journalists. It reminded me of one of the most bizarre schemes that US aid has funded, and that Nordland writes about: a lovely French woman got a grant to teach yoga to Afghan politicians and prisoners, including Taliban militants, in the hope of bringing inner harmony and world peace.
As Nato exits as fast as it can, desperate to leave the débàcle of Afghanistan behind, Crews cautions that we ignore the country’s wider role at our peril: “Indeed, the world would be well advised to listen to this strand of Afghan globalism and to recognise the many ways global processes have made Afghanistan what it is today, a place that occupies a pivotal position in the highly interconnected world we all share.”
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