Walking the Precipice

by Barbara Bick

  Dr. Jalal and her husband did not go into exile either during the Soviet war or during the rule of the Taliban. In fact, she was one of the few women allowed to work under the Taliban, directing an all-women’s project within the World Food Programme. Despite finding the couple stiff and cold, I admire Dr. Jalal’s tenacity and her husband’s fierce loyalty to her.

  The purpose of the last day of the conference is to identify items that the regional women want included in the new constitution. These create a fascinating picture of the kind of society the women hope for, as well as the challenges they face in getting there. The resulting list includes several recommendations specifically concerning human rights:

  Implementation of international human rights charters and other agreements to which the nation is a signatory

  The expression “women’s rights” to be included specifically, rather than assumed to be included, within the general term “citizens rights”

  Then there are items that reflect the specific life conditions of Afghan women:

  Establishment of laws preventing girls from being given away or sold to pay for a crime or to solve a dispute between families

  The right of women to sing the national anthem—in either Dari or Pashto

  Identity cards issued at birth for women as well as men

  Freedom from being told what to wear and the right to participate in sports and cultural life

  A review of the 1964 and 1977 constitutions to adopt specific provisions that were beneficial to women

  There are also “dream” items that have yet to be part of most national constitutions:

  Free health clinics for women and children

  Obligatory education through fourteen to fifteen years of age

  Free education through university

  Parliament to have 30 percent women members

  The women raise points that address their hatred of the Taliban and the “Arabs” who came into Afghanistan with the Taliban. All foreigners with the Taliban and Al Qaeda are called “Arabs” by Afghans, and the fact that they were given Afghan names and identity cards by the Taliban is still an issue. The women demand that those identity cards be revoked. But there is debate about children conceived by rape or forced marriage of Afghan women to the so-called Arabs. In Afghanistan the line of descent is patrilineal; hence these children are not Afghans and have no civil rights. This, in turn, means that the Afghan women living outside the country in refugee camps who have borne these children cannot bring them across the border into Afghanistan. The women vote to restore the identity and rights of the children. (The Loya Jirga later votes to deny these children citizenship, despite eloquent arguments presented by both Nasrine and Dr. Jalal.)

  When the conference ends, Judy and I plan to spend a few days socializing and touring the city. We visit Mary MacMakin’s new PARSA center, with living quarters for her and guests, a women’s workshop, and a sales room for their products. There is also a garden for growing vegetables, dormant now for the winter. It is abundantly clear that Mary has happily settled in for the long term and we soon leave as another group of Western women arrive to see her.

  We also go to a dinner party at the new home of a NEGAR activist. Leaving our shoes in the entryway, we enter a spacious living room, where at least fifty Afghan women are sitting on the floor, leaning on cushions and against the walls. A few have brought babies. The red wall-to-wall carpeting is overlaid with a white Chinese rug. Champagne-colored velvet drapes cover the windows and a gas stove is beside one wall, yet the room is chilly enough for everyone to wear a sweater or silk padded jacket. After much eating and conversation, a group of women in the corner pick up large brass trays and begin a rhythmic drumbeat. Our beautiful hostess leads off with a swaying dance. Her long blue-patterned velvet robe catches the light as she moves her body to the beat. She moves away from the center, another woman rises to perform, and the women begin to clap in rhythm. Judy jumps up, throws her arms in the air, and with a big grin performs a relatively sedate bump and grind. The women love it.

  Jacqui and Jane are leaving for Paris on Sunday afternoon, so Zubair takes us all shopping for gifts in the morning. We park near the Kabul River, which after years of drought is now barely an ebbing stream. Small vendors have set up their wares on the dry, rocky riverbed, near the concrete embankment that formerly confined the river. Above, the embankment walls are covered with brilliant crimson carpets for sale; their owners lounge on the wall waiting for buyers, their shoes neatly deposited on the ground. It is a warm, sunny day and almost all the men wear their traditional shalwar kameez, some with light suit jackets over the long tunic. I see very few beards or turbans. The women wear long skirts; most have shawls over their heads or wrapped around their shoulders. Many women still wear their burqas, but most keep their faces uncovered and their hands free. They also reveal their skirts, shoes, and handbags—the sight of which had been forbidden by the Taliban. Men crowd around money changers. Mounds of huge cauliflowers and piles of green beans, carrots, potatoes, cabbages, legumes, onions, and turnips are heaped on carts or spread on the ground. The vegetables rival any in the world.

  After Jacqui and Jane’s departure, Judy and I decide to move to the Intercontinental Hotel, as both of us have had enough of the fumes from the gas heaters. We have to pass through heavy security before gaining entrance and realize that we will be overlooking the arrangements for the Loya Jirga, which will take place directly below the hotel.

  That evening we go to Zubair’s house for dinner. I am eager to see Zainab, his two-year-old daughter who was with Zubair and Manija in Washington. Zubair and his family live on the first floor of a rented house with his old father. The second story is occupied by his middle brother, a policeman, and the brother’s wife and eight children. I have no sense of where we are as we drive through the dark, quiet city. High walls on either side of the passing streets create a mysterious atmosphere. As we drive into their small compound, Zubair’s oldest brother, who will represent the family, comes out with a flashlight to guide us inside. Shoes off in the entry, curtains pulled aside, and we enter the main room, lit by a flickering, battery-charged electric lamp. Later, a brighter electric light comes on. Most houses in Kabul have their own, frequently unreliable, generators.

  Large tapestries of Massoud hang on two walls; the others are covered with coarse lace curtains embellished with red satin drapes and swags. Cushions are already piled up for me to sit on. The ninety-four-year old father sits silently, cross-legged, on the floor. The oldest brother sits beside Judy and me. He lives elsewhere with his six sons and has brought along the youngest, about two years old, with whom he gently plays. This brother runs the Kabul airport and will soon open an Arianna Airlines office in Frankfurt. He speaks English, but our conversation is forced and formal. Zubair brings Zainab in but she is too shy to come to me. Manija carries the baby, quite as beautiful as Zainab. The baby’s eyes are outlined with kohl. Manija seems tired and faded.

  I embrace her. “How are you? I am so happy to see your new baby.” She bows her head, smiles, and nods, but doesn’t speak, even though she spent many weeks learning English in the States. “Manija,” I scold, “you speak English! Are you continuing your studies? The baby is beautiful and I know it’s hard taking care of both of them, but I hope you are taking time to study.” She smiles with lowered head, but again says nothing.

  “She doesn’t have time,” Zubair breaks in. Manija takes Zainab’s hand and leaves the room with the children. Zubair follows her. I attempt conversation with the brother until Zubair and Manjia come back with large trays, which are put on the floor before us. Manija has cooked my favorite vegetable dish, one that she frequently made in Washington, cauliflower and eggplant stewed with onions and tomatoes. There are also meat patties, rice and nan, and a platter of beautifully cut and arranged vegetables. Manija leaves the room as soon as the food is served, which saddens me. I realized during their time living with me that she had fully internalized aspects of
her traditional upbringing, and she was unlikely to break out of the mold that defined so many Afghan women. But I cannot help being disturbed that she did not see this evening as a public occasion in which she could participate. Her submissive manner, lowered head and eyes, sadden me. I am angry that Zubair has not aggressively helped Manija continue her English lessons and insisted that she have a position of equality in the family. I remind myself that I do not know the real family dynamics. I do know that Zubair is worried about his future, still searching for his place and path in this fragile, troubled country.

  But I also feel badly about my own role during the evening. I wish I had asked that Zainab be kept in the room to slowly ease her shyness with me. I could have insisted that Manija also stay in the room and eat with us—or would that have increased everyone’s discomfort? Tired and frustrated, I ask Zubair to take us back to the hotel early. In any case, we are going to leave in the morning for the Panjshir Valley and have to pack for a possible overnight stay.

  In the morning, sunlight floods the elegant dining room of the Intercontinental; the buffet is lavish, full of Western-style foods that I have been missing, but I am feeling queasy and keep to oatmeal, toast, and tea. Zubair and our driver arrive. We leave to rendezvous with a carload of American friends of Nasrine and then set off for the famous seventy-mile-long valley, deep in the Hindu Kush mountains, that was Massoud’s base and beloved home.

  The valley is approximately sixty miles northeast of Kabul. The Soviets launched six major expeditions against Panjshir between 1980 and 1982 because of the valley’s proximity to the Salang Highway, which cut through the mountain range and was the only reliable overland supply route to Kabul. Thousands of Soviet soldiers were killed defending Salang against Massoud’s mujahidin. In the fall of 1982, the Soviets sent ten thousand of their troops, along with four thousand of the Afghan Communist government’s troops and scores of tanks, attack helicopters, and fighter jets, into the valley. More than 80 percent of Panjshir’s buildings were damaged or destroyed, crops were ruined, and livestock were killed. The people of the valley suffered unimaginable hardships. In the spring of 1983, Massoud declared a truce and the Soviets agreed to stop attacking the Panjshir, while Massoud agreed to let the Communist government operate an army base at the southern end of the valley around Salang.

  The following spring, Massoud learned that the Soviets planned another assault, the largest yet, including a week of aerial bombing followed by an avalanche of land mines. Massoud led more than forty thousand Panjshiris into hiding in the mountains. The Soviet troops entered a deserted valley, and Massoud’s commandos continued fighting from rugged mountain caves. Even the Soviet generals admired his mastery of guerrilla warfare, and the Panjshir Valley became a symbol of the ultimately unconquerable nature of Afghanistan.

  It is a beautiful warm December day as we head out of Kabul on a paved road. Little white flags flutter alongside the road, extending back into the barren land. I ask Zubair about them, and he explains that they signal unexploded land mines. Statistics come to life as we look at the white flags so close to the road. Afghanistan remains one of the world’s most mined countries, with millions of explosives laid over the past twenty-three years by Soviets, mujahidin, and the Taliban. Between 15 and 20 percent of all farmland is mined, in a country where agriculture has always been the predominant economic activity. Land mines not only are an obstacle to reconstruction, but also continue to kill and maim farmers and their children.

  All along the roadside are shacks crammed with things for sale—fresh, canned, or bottled foods, fabrics, mechanical parts, all piled haphazardly. Some of the shacks are domiciles as well. Women in padded, patchwork cotton jackets, traditional baggy pants, and headscarves sit beside their wares, waiting for someone to stop.

  I ask Zubair if we will pass through the Shomali Plains, once one of the most fertile regions in the country, on our way to Panjshir. “But we are on the Shomali Plains now!” he exclaims.

  “I know there was a lot of fighting here,” I say, horrified, “and crops were destroyed, but all those vineyards and orchards and villages—they just can’t have been totally wiped out.” “The Taliban and Al Qaeda had a scorched-earth policy here,” Zubair says. “They made everyone leave. About two hundred thousand people were forced off their land. The Taliban poisoned water wells and blew up ancient irrigation systems and grapevines and burned them so they could never be replanted. They torched walnut trees. Houses, shops, all buildings were burned to the ground.” Millions of Afghan farming and village families were uprooted, and driving through the barren landscape makes it more real than any of the stories I have heard.

  It is hard to imagine that this land was once fragrant with flowers and bountiful with fruit and grain. Some 80 percent of Afghanistan’s rural population traditionally owned the land they lived and worked on, and as a consequence of living in one of the harshest environments on earth, they were scrupulous stewards of their family legacies. For over fifteen centuries, Afghan peasants, predating those in China, used their horizontal-vaned windmills for power. Villagers solved the problem of evaporation from open-air canals by digging underground irrigation systems, which went as deep as one hundred twenty feet below the surface and extended as far as twenty miles. Vertical shafts every one hundred yards or so were maintained by teams to repair cave-ins and clear out debris.

  “But why would they destroy the grapevines and orchards?” Judy asks. “This was their own land, the same as the fields they had grown up on. How could Afghans do this to their own land, to their own people?”

  This is history I know, so I answer before Zubair can. “The Afghan refugees who wound up in Pakistan madrassas were Pashtun, from the south. The Afghans who lived here were Tajiks. And everybody was fanning ethnic hatred: The Pashtuns who led the Taliban, the Pakistan Wahhabi madrassas where the boys were taught, the Saudi money that funded the Al Qaeda camps and soldiers. So to Pashtun youth, the Tajiks were no longer their people.”

  Zubair agrees with me, but adds, “Anyway, the leaders of the Taliban militias are Arabs, not Afghans, not the kids from the madrassas. The militants are Chechen, Uzbek, Pakistani.” Of course, I know that many if not most of the leaders of the Taliban are Afghans, but I remain silent out of consideration for Zubair.

  The tarmac road continues for about thirty miles before it is replaced by rough dirt roads. The mountains appear in the distance, blue, with snow glinting off the high peaks. Soon enough we are driving through them. The air is colder but intensely clear and invigorating. At an open field, we pass hundreds of heavy war machines lined up in perfect rows. I see more tanks than I can count, Scud missiles, multiple-barrel rocket launchers, and much else. These are Northern Alliance armaments that General Fahim, director of the Defense Ministry, has said he will move into Kabul and turn over to the Karzai government. A few days after we leave the valley, prior to the convening of the Loya Jirga, the weaponry is moved. It is a dramatic statement to demonstrate that the Tajik minister of defense and his faction will not disrupt the delicate task of nation building. None of the other warlords will follow his example—not the Pashtuns along the borders with Pakistan; or Rashid Dostum, the Uzbek commander of Mazar-i-Sharif; or Ismail Khan, commander of Herat, the celebrated city of beauty and culture close to the Iranian border.

  Further into the valley, our driver stops before a shabby building in a roadside cluster of wooden houses. We are ready for lunch. Inside are rough wooden tables but I want to sit on a rickety balcony I spy on the side. It hangs over a rushing stream, which leaps and burbles as it descends down the rocky hill. I clumsily drop down to the floor and lean against the side of the shack. Everyone is stimulated by the cold air, the towering mountains, the streams of water gushing down the slopes. It is an intoxicating change after all the dryness. I quietly write in my journal while the others walk and climb wooded trails and return for grilled meat kabobs.

  We drive on through a narrow dirt road, which is the pass through th
e mountains into the broad valley. There are steep, ragged ridges on either side. The road dips down close to the rock-strewn river, then climbs, and then the steep mountains recede and miniature fields and small orchards appear on either side of the river as the valley opens up before us. Both cars suddenly pull over onto the side of a low cliff overlooking the river, and we all jump out while our drivers and Zubair go running down the hill toward several fishermen.

  I move slightly apart from the others and stand still, then slowly begin to turn in a circle; I look down to the river, then all around. I take in the whole prospect and am transfixed. I am standing in the midst of one of the most beautiful and historic spots in Afghanistan, something I thought I had forever missed. The Panjshir River, sometimes called the Five Lions River, lies below. The fishermen are casting into a still, deep, dark blue pool. A few yards farther along, the water courses over rocks and boulders; it foams and glitters, turning a lighter, paler blue, then slows, and meanders, winding around islets of waving brown grasses. Around a bend in the river, ringed closely by the rising mountains, we can see a terraced field, above which hangs a cluster of two-story, flat-roofed stone houses. On the opposite bank are trees, finally, after so many, many miles of denuded landscape. It is December, and the deciduous trees are bare, but the spreading tops are already festooned with tiny buds, each tree shimmering with a citrine green crown. It is a great miracle that the land can come alive again, renew itself and be fertile, despite the wartime devastation. All around us rise the snow capped, jagged mountains of the great Hindu Kush. I am filled with awe and happiness.

  Zubair and the drivers come running back up the hillside, exclaiming that they have bought a basket of fish that they will cook for dinner that night. The houses here are very different from the mud-brick ones I am used to. In the lowest parts of the valley, the foundations are built of stone; farther up, the entire houses are of stone, made of rounded river boulders chinked with mud plaster. Most houses have two stories. In the winter, farm animals are kept on the ground floor, and their body heat warms the upper floor. Zubair points out larger houses and tells us of their various owners. These include the Massoud family and Dr. Abdullah, the foreign minister whose helicopter flew me out of Afghanistan in 2001.