Blog # 39...November 2014
These days in Kabul a group of women get together regularly to read and talk about poetry - they're free to meet openly. Women in smaller centres and rural areas face severe punishment if they're discovered approaching education or the outside world but they do it anyway, slipping under the radar.
Mirman Maheer, Afghanistan's largest literary society is patterned on the Golden Needle, a Taliban era group who met, pretending to sew, to talk about literature. Their members meet, talk and provide a lifeline for many women outside the city who must risk finding a phone, the call being their only link with other women and with learning and language.
From Meena:
"I am like a tulip in the desert,
I die before I open and the waves of desert breeze blow me away."
She isn't sure of her age..."Because I am a girl, no one knows my birthday."
Saheera Shariff, the founder of Mirman Baheer, is a member of Parliament from the province of Khost. Although she doesn't consider herself a poet, she expresses herself vividly when she says "A poem is a sword, and literature is a more effective battle for women's rights than shouting at political rallies. This is a different kind of battle."
Language and poetry have a long and rich history in the harsh landscape of Afghanistan... legend has it that 11th century Afghan Queen Rabia Balkhi used her last drop of blood to write poems. It's especially hurtful that so many women are denied developing their own voice and the freedom to speak freely with their sisters. Despite the repression though, traditional poetry is handed down orally as means to express themselves and share experiences.
Pashtun folk poems have always been about rebellion and often rail against forced marriage with wry humour
Couplets like this are called landai:
"Making love to an old man is like
Making love to a limp cornstalk blackened by fungus."
A contemporary woman, Zarmina, who described "the dark cage of the village" was beaten when she was discovered reading her love poems and faced marrying a man chosen by her father. She set herself on fire, dying in protest. One of her friends wrote:
"Her memory will be a flower tucked into literature's turban
In her loneliness, every sister cries for her."
Lina, who thinks she's 11, wrote this rubaiyot (an Arabic quatrain):
"You won't allow me to go to school,
I won't become a doctor,
Remember this
One day you will be sick."
Injustices against women, wherever they happen, diminish us all. Speaking out is always challenging, often dangerous, but women keep doing it.
......................................................................................................................
Not to get all 1984 on you, but has anyone else noticed ads relating to the content of e-mails appearing on their screens? No longer a question of any privacy on the internet...we're all in our underwear, better make sure it's clean.
These days in Kabul a group of women get together regularly to read and talk about poetry - they're free to meet openly. Women in smaller centres and rural areas face severe punishment if they're discovered approaching education or the outside world but they do it anyway, slipping under the radar.
Mirman Maheer, Afghanistan's largest literary society is patterned on the Golden Needle, a Taliban era group who met, pretending to sew, to talk about literature. Their members meet, talk and provide a lifeline for many women outside the city who must risk finding a phone, the call being their only link with other women and with learning and language.
From Meena:
"I am like a tulip in the desert,
I die before I open and the waves of desert breeze blow me away."
She isn't sure of her age..."Because I am a girl, no one knows my birthday."
Saheera Shariff, the founder of Mirman Baheer, is a member of Parliament from the province of Khost. Although she doesn't consider herself a poet, she expresses herself vividly when she says "A poem is a sword, and literature is a more effective battle for women's rights than shouting at political rallies. This is a different kind of battle."
Language and poetry have a long and rich history in the harsh landscape of Afghanistan... legend has it that 11th century Afghan Queen Rabia Balkhi used her last drop of blood to write poems. It's especially hurtful that so many women are denied developing their own voice and the freedom to speak freely with their sisters. Despite the repression though, traditional poetry is handed down orally as means to express themselves and share experiences.
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| From Dowser |
Couplets like this are called landai:
"Making love to an old man is like
Making love to a limp cornstalk blackened by fungus."
A contemporary woman, Zarmina, who described "the dark cage of the village" was beaten when she was discovered reading her love poems and faced marrying a man chosen by her father. She set herself on fire, dying in protest. One of her friends wrote:
"Her memory will be a flower tucked into literature's turban
In her loneliness, every sister cries for her."
Lina, who thinks she's 11, wrote this rubaiyot (an Arabic quatrain):
"You won't allow me to go to school,
I won't become a doctor,
Remember this
One day you will be sick."
......................................................................................................................
Not to get all 1984 on you, but has anyone else noticed ads relating to the content of e-mails appearing on their screens? No longer a question of any privacy on the internet...we're all in our underwear, better make sure it's clean.
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