Walking the Precipice

by Barbara Bick

  Once, we pull over while Zubair jumps out to embrace a young man, a cousin, who lives in Kabul but is vacationing at his family house. Zubair’s family home here was destroyed by Soviet bombs, but they hope to rebuild soon and use it for summer vacations.

  Next we drive through a broad stretch of the valley where the cultivated land extends to the horizon of the encircling, amethyst mountains. Fields are faintly tinged with the new green of early crops. How much more beautiful it must be in the spring, with the orchards blooming, apple and cherry blossoms perfuming the air, drifting petals coloring the ground. It is land such as this that has made the Afghan people so passionate about returning to their homeland. But outside a few places such as this Panjshir Valley, most of the country’s millions of refugees will not be coming home to fertile fields and standing homes. In addition to 23 years of brutal warfare and destruction, the worst drought in a century has created desert that is swallowing up villages. Once-rich wetlands have dried into caked beds and the great forests of pistachio, cedar, and conifers have almost disappeared. Much of the magnificent wildlife, which included Siberian cranes, snow leopards, and flamingoes, is now seldom seen.

  The sun has disappeared behind a low-hanging dark cloud as we climb to a small plateau, a solitary spot. A simple circular white building sits in the center of the site, its emerald green dome topped by a small Islamic symbol. This is Massoud’s tomb, exposed to the elements of the Hindu Kush, a symbol of the preeminent warrior, the Lion of Panjshir. The green national flag of Afghanistan whips in the wind. A billboard picture of Massoud, at a distance from the tomb, shows him sitting cross-legged on a prayer rug wrapped in a large, heavy shawl, pakol cap on his head, holding an open book. Inside the small mausoleum, its marble floor layered with rich carpets, Massoud’s black marble sepulcher is covered with a green prayer cloth imprinted with gold calligraphy. We stand in silence, solemn in prayer or thought.

  The winds are gusting up and it has grown much colder under a lowering white sky. I ask Judy if she would mind if we drive straight back to Kabul, since I am beginning to feel quite ill. She admits to nausea as well, so we tell Zubair our change of plans. The return will be no problem, but first he has to arrange for the others to spend the night at a Northern Alliance guesthouse. We all drive off as snowflakes tumble and swirl in the now biting wind. An hour later we pull up to a long wall. Zubair gets out and knocks on the wooden gates. Those in the other car go inside, and we drive off. That large compound, like the one at Khoja Bahauddin, had once been full of action, housing visiting mujahidin leaders and allies, humanitarian and aid groups, journalists and others. But few come to the Valley now. Judy and I huddle into our warm coats and fall asleep until we reach Kabul, where I fall into bed and a deep sleep. But I begin to vomit during the night, and in the morning we are both feeling very sick.

  At the hotel we watch a CNN report stating that two thousand American troops are being deployed to engage the Taliban. We agree to leave Kabul as soon as we can. Zubair finds out that all flights to Dubai are filled today but there is one tomorrow to Sharjah, one of the seven tiny desert kingdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates, which all together are about the size of Maine. The next morning we are packed and ready to leave early but security for the Loya Jirga has tied up traffic, causing Zubair to be late. We make a dash for the airport but miss the flight by less than five minutes, and will have to wait again for the next day’s flight. We decide to go back to the Insaf for the night, so we won’t run into problems with the Loya Jirga security again, and we are greeted like returning family.

  In the morning we drive to the airport with time to spare, and Judy and I wait in the unkempt terminal lobby while Zubair goes off, presumably to pick up our tickets. He comes back shortly, hesitant, to inform us that the plane to Sharjah is full. Judy and I are devastated. Zubair goes back to see what he can do. And then I vomit all over the dirty marble floor in front of me. People stare and shake their heads, some in sympathy, others in horror at the mess. Humiliated, I take a handful of tissues from Judy and try to clean up the floor and myself. Then I rush outside and throw up again, in front of the building.

  Zubair returns and says they can get me a single seat; I tell him I will not go without Judy. “Where is your brother?” I cry out. “We have to get on that plane.” Again Zubair leaves. It is 12:45, and the flight is scheduled for 1:00. He returns and tells us, miraculously, that we can board the plane. We grab, carry, pull, and push our bags and run after Zubair, rushing through doors and turnstiles. Then we are stopped. As the minutes tick away, we have to fill out forms. Our bags are taken, forms received, and we run outside as the bus to the plane pulls away with a few late passengers. I shout and want to run after it, but Zubair pulls me back. “It will be back for you,” he assures us. And he’s right. We kiss him goodbye as the bus returns, board the waiting plane, and slump into two back-row seats as we lift into the sky over Kabul.

  As I lie back in the seat, I realize that this is the third time my departure from Afghanistan has been both desperate and comedic. Over the years I have been irresistibly pulled into Afghanistan and ignobly pushed out. In my exhausted and over-wrought state, I feel that Afghanistan and I are bound together in some fated way—nonsense, of course, but a powerful feeling nonetheless. In my heart, I know that this is the last trip I shall ever take to Afghanistan; I fear that if I should return, I may never be able to leave.

  It is a short flight, but it is twilight when we land in the coastal emirate. The moisture-filled, tropical air is medicine to our desiccated skin. By the time we are ensconced in a taxi rolling toward Dubai, it is dark, and the brilliant lights of the city’s skyscrapers flash across the ebony Persian Gulf as though from another planet after the dense blackness of Kabuli nights.

  The following morning we leave on the ten-hour flight to France. We go through security and wait for hours, only to repeat security that evening for the flight to the United States, when the guards ask Judy and me to move away from the plane door just as we are about to board. Several agents set up a table in the bridge between the terminal and the airplane and begin a thorough search, emptying our pocketbooks and our cosmetic bags, unwinding our lipsticks, feeling us up and down. It is cold and Judy and I bitterly complain. The agents shrug and reply that American security asked for this, not the French.

  Finally, we are let on the flight. This is the end of my thirteen-year “adventure.” And yet, as this last security check shows, it was my country’s “adventure” into Afghanistan as well. I know this is just what imperial nations do, have always done—the British did it, the Russians did it, Alexander and Genghis Khan did it, and so it goes on, down through the ages. Men wield their power, not only in the games they play with the geopolitical map, but also in their control of women’s bodies and their lives.

  But this time in Afghanistan, all these things seem to have taken their most extreme form, and Afghanistan has become the front line for two of the most important issues of this era: saving the earth and bringing women into full equality. Too slowly, but finally, I hope, the world will understand that only when all of humanity’s energy and creativity is released, not just that of one-half of humanity, will we be able to save ourselves.

  I think of the wonderful women I have met or learned about as their stories have begun to emerge. They have come out from under the veil with accounts of courage and ingenuity. Simple women as well as educated women who had once been leaders, resisted the Taliban and built, sometimes in isolation, in other cases communally, clandestine systems of communication, education, and mutual assistance. A form of Islam that many would consider corrupted traumatized women and children in Afghanistan. But Afghan women have also found solace and strength in a truer Islam. These heroic Muslim women have much to teach us and I look forward to learning from them as I finally acknowledge that I am old and becoming too frail for more robust adventure. As I get ready to disembark in America, I know that Afghanistan will remain my marker to assess humanity
’s passage through this perilous time.

  Afghanistan Chronology

  328 B.C.—Alexander the Great [356–323 B.C.] invades region of Afghanistan, founding many cities.

  A.D. 664—Muslim conquest of Afghanistan.

  997—Mahmud, from Afghan province of Ghazni, invades Punjab, creating first Afghan Empire.

  1219—Genghis Khan (1167–1227) the Mongol warrior, invades Eurasia, eastern section of Afghanistan.

  1504—Babur, descendant of Genghis Khan, Kublai Khan, and Timur (Tamerlane), captures Kabul, is named King, establishes the Mogol empire in India, and like Kublai Khan and Timur is a great patron of arts architecture.

  1747—Ahmad Khan Abdali elected king by tribal council, establishes the last great Afghan Empire, the Durrani.

  1809—“The Great Game” between the British and Russian Empires for hegemony over Afghanistan commences. The Treaty of Friendship with Britain is signed whereby Afghan rulers agree to oppose Russian influence.

  1837-42—The First Anglo-Afghan war. The British invade Afghanistan, depose the Emir of Kabul.

  1878–80—The second Anglo-Afghan war occurs when Britain is unable to control Afghan relations with Russia.

  1879—Durrand Line is set by Britain, and becomes the contentious Afghan-Pakistan border.

  1919—The third Anglo-Afghan war. Declaration of Afghan independence. Amanullah becomes king, attempts modernization of the country.

  1927—King Amanullah abolishes purdah, frees women from the veil, declares universal free education and the end of polygamy; he forms the first elected Afghan Parliament.

  1929—Amanullah is forced to abdicate, goes into exile. Nadir Khan becomes king.

  1933—Nadir Khan murdered, succeeded by son Zahir Shah, age nineteen, whose uncles rule on his behalf, for thirty years.

  1965—Underground Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) formed, split by two factions, Parcham and Khalq.

  1973—Zahir Shah overthrown by his cousin Mohammed Daoud Khan; Afghanistan proclaimed a republic.

  1978—PDPA Communist coup, President Daoud killed. PDPA-Khalq President Nur Mohammed Taraki forces land reform, and women’s education, which sparks Islamic jihad. Taraki murdered, next PDPA-Khalq President Hafizullah Amin executed.

  1979—USSR sends in troops, installs exiled PDPA-Parcham Babrak Karmal as president.

  1979–89—Soviet-Afghan war. Pakistan selects seven mujahidin parties for military aid from US and Islamic world to support anti-USSR jihad.

  1985—PDPA-Parcham Mohammad Najibullah replaces Karmal as president.

  1988—USSR President Gorbachev sets ten-month phased exit. Geneva Accord (USA-USSR) ends outside intervention, allows arms supply.

  1989—Soviet troops withdrawn.

  1991—Collapse of the Soviet Union.

  1992—Mujahidin enter Kabul. Najibullah takes refuge in UN compound. Burhanuddin Rabbani is the first six-month transitional president of “Islamic State of Afghanistan.”

  1992—Mujahidin civil war. Kabul destroyed. Country destabilized.

  1994—Taliban militias enter from Pakistan, conquer Kandahar.

  1996—Taliban enters Kabul. Ahmad Shah Massoud withdraws. Taliban torture and kill Najibullah.

  1997—Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and UAE recognize Taliban government.

  1997—Opposition forms government under Rabbani, keeps UN Afghan seat. Massoud leads military resistance with Northern Alliance coalition.

  1998—Bin Ladin and Al Qaeda join forces with Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

  1998—US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania attacked by Al Qaeda.

  2000—USS Cole battleship bombed by Al Qaeda in Yemen.

  2001—Massoud assassinated. World Trade Center and Pentagon attacked by Al Qaeda. US attacks Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan.

  Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women

  Dushanbe, Tajikistan, June 28, 2000

  Section I

  Considering that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the international statements addressing the rights of women listed in Section II of this document, are systematically trampled in Afghanistan today.

  Considering that all the rules imposed by the Taliban concerning women are in total opposition to the international conventions cited in Section II of this document.

  Considering that torture and inhumane and degrading treatment imposed by the Taliban on women, as active members of society, have put Afghan society in danger.

  Considering that the daily violence directed against the women of Afghanistan causes, for each one of them, a state of profound distress.

  Considering that, under conditions devoid of their rights, women find themselves and their children in a situation of permanent danger.

  Considering that discrimination on the basis of gender, race, religion, ethnicity and language is the source of insults, beatings, stoning and other forms of violence.

  Considering that poverty and the lack of freedom of movement pushes women into prostitution, involuntary exile, forced marriages, and the selling and trafficking of their daughters.

  Considering the severe and tragic conditions of more than twenty years of war in Afghanistan.

  Section II

  The Declaration which follows is derived from the following documents:

  United Nations Charter

  Universal Declaration of Human Rights

  International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

  International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

  Convention on the Rights of the Child

  Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women

  Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women

  The Human Rights of Women

  The Beijing Declaration

  The Afghan Constitution of 1964

  The Afghan Constitution of 1977

  Section III

  The fundamental right of Afghan women, as for all human beings, is life with dignity, which includes the following rights:

  1. The right to equality between men and women and the right to the elimination of all forms of discrimination and segregation, based on gender, race or religion.

  2. The right to personal safety and to freedom from torture or inhumane or degrading treatment.

  3. The right to physical and mental health for women and their children.

  4. The right to equal protection under the law.

  5. The right to institutional education in all the intellectual and physical disciplines.

  6. The right to just and favorable conditions of work.

  7. The right to move about freely and independently.

  8. The right to freedom of thought, speech, assembly, and political participation.

  9. The right to wear or not to wear the chadari (burqa) or the scarf.

  10. The right to participate in cultural activities, including theater, music, and sports.

  Section IV

  This Declaration developed by Afghan women is a statement, affirmation and emphasis of those essential rights that we Afghan women own for ourselves and for all other Afghan women. It is a document that the State of Afghanistan must respect and implement.

  This document, at this moment in time, is a draft that, in the course of time, will be amended and completed by Afghan women.

  NEGAR Petition: Statement of Support for the Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women

  The most extreme violation of human and political rights in the world has been vigorously pursued in Afghanistan in a reign of terror under the control of the Pakistani-backed Taliban militias.

  On June 28, 2000, at the initiative of NEGAR-Support of Women of Afghanistan, a Paris-based Afghan women’s association, several hundred Afghan women from all segments of the Afghan nation assembled in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, to draft and promulgate a “Declaration of the Essential Rights of Afghan Women.” With this document, the Afghan women affirm and
demand for themselves the inalienable rights that had been assured for them by the Constitution of Afghanistan. The Afghan women reject the false assertions of the Taliban militias that these rights are in contradiction with the religion, culture, and traditions of the Afghan society and nation.

  For nearly twenty years, life in Afghanistan has been degraded by foreign and civil wars, but since 1994, the regime of the Taliban militias has, by decree, officially taken away from women all rights to education, to work, and to health. Denial of freedom of movement renders Afghan women practically prisoners in their own homes, in the most extreme situation of material and moral destitution.

  This statement in support of the Afghan women’s Declaration is part of an international campaign by NEGAR-Support of Women of Afghanistan with the goal of five million signatures to be presented to the United Nations by NEGAR and a delegation of Afghans and their worldwide women and men supporters.

  Congress, the US Mission to the UN, and other US policy-making entities must support:

  1. The integration of this Declaration as a part of the process for a just, honorable, and durable peace for the legitimate country of Afghanistan for eventual inclusion in the Constitution;

  2. Pressure on Pakistan to end its military, political, and financial support which renders the Taliban militias possible;

  3. The denial of recognition of the Taliban militias.

  History has demonstrated that supremacist and totalitarian regimes such as the Taliban militias maintain themselves in power only if the rest of the world remains silent.