The Favored Daughter

by Fawzia Koofi

  I had an education and I had a voice, and I was determined to use it to save my husband.

  That same voice and desire to save those in trouble is still what guides me through my political life today.

  Perhaps my failure to save your father is an even greater motivation. Every injustice I can help solve as an MP perhaps makes up a little for what I could not do to save his life.

  With love,

  Your mother

  NINETEEN

  A MOVEMENT FOR CHANGE

  On election day the mood was jubilant. My sisters had been mobilizing female voters, arranging free transport to take them to and from the polling stations. We didn’t care who the women wanted to vote for, whether it was me or another candidate, we just wanted to make sure the women with voting cards actually got a chance to use them. My sisters were dressed in their burqas so people didn’t know who they were, but they came to the office excitedly and told me virtually all of the women on the transport said they were voting for me.

  I knew I was going to win by then but I was still tense. This is Afghanistan and anything can happen. I also worried I might get killed. But in some ways I was more worried about what would happen after I won, and about how I would cope with the expectations and the pressure.

  The polling stations opened at 6 a.m. One of my sisters had hired a car and wanted to visit as many polling stations as possible in order to check that there was no cheating or fraud, a problem that blights almost every Afghan election. She rang me from the first polling station. She was shouting, actually screaming: “Something is wrong here, the election staff are supporting a candidate; they are not neutral. They are telling people who to vote for!”

  I called some of my contacts in the electoral commission and asked them to send monitors. A Western member of staff went to check the situation and then called me back to say everything was fine. But of course no one would commit fraud openly in front of a foreigner.

  Then I got a call from another district to say the same thing was happening there. One of the candidates was the brother of a local police commander and all the policemen in that area had been ordered to go vote for him. My campaign office kicked into action. They started to call all the journalists we knew—the BBC, the local Afghan radio stations, anyone we could think of. We had to get the message out that we knew they were cheating because that was the only way to stop it.

  My half-brother Nadir had wanted to stand for election himself and had been very opposed to my candidacy. I think he was more opposed because he didn’t think it was a job for a woman rather than being angry at not having won the family selection. If another brother had won against him he’d have been happier. Earlier in the campaign he had allegedly been furious every time he saw my face on a poster, even ripping some of them down. But on this day his family loyalty took precedence over his resentment. He spent the day driving to some of the most remote polling stations to monitor them, and when the roads were too bad to drive he got out and trekked. He had not wanted me to stand but now that I had he most certainly was not going to allow his little sister to lose because of fraud.

  At the end of the day all the ballot boxes were collected and brought to Faizabad. They were locked overnight and counting started the following day. My volunteer campaign team was so scared that election staff might tamper with the boxes overnight that two of them decided to spend the night outside the election offices. They had no blankets with them but they stayed there the whole night. I was so touched by the dedication these young volunteers showed me.

  The counting process took two very long weeks in total but all early indications were that despite the fraud I would win the seat.

  I felt the tension lift and was able to finally get some rest. That evening I was enjoying a dinner with friends when my brother Mirshakay rang me from Denmark. He was crying and sobbing hysterically. His eldest son Najib had drowned that afternoon.

  My brother had two wives. His second wife was with him in Denmark but his first wife had opted to stay in Afghanistan. Najib was the son of the first wife and the only child she and my brother had together. He was a lovely kind young man and had been part of my campaign team. He’d worked so hard for his Aunt Fawzia. The morning after the election he’d gone with friends on a picnic and decided to swim. The current took him by surprise and swept him away. I struggled to believe what I was hearing. Why did every happy event in my family have to end with a tragedy or a death?

  The counting process took two weeks. Toward the middle of the first week we became aware that some of the election commission staff were cheating. They had been seen removing ballot papers with my name on them and not counting them. One of my supporters actually saw it happen with his own eyes. He was furious and began shouting: “Look she is a woman and she is risking her life to stand. Why don’t you count her vote? We are the young generation and we want her to lead us.” The argument escalated so violently that the police were called.

  Fortunately the police chief took the allegations seriously and ordered a recount of several boxes while they watched. On the recount I received 300 extra votes just from a few boxes. They most certainly had been cheating.

  At the end of the count I had won 8,000 votes. The candidate who came next won only 7,000. As a female candidate I was part of a quota system designed to ensure at least two women from each province entered parliament on reserved seats. I had only needed 1,800 votes to fulfill the quota, but I would have won anyway, quota or no quota. I have mixed feeling about these quota systems. I can see why quotas are important in male-dominated countries like Afghanistan, where women might need extra support to enter politics. But I also feel it can stop people from taking us seriously. I want to win people’s votes on an equal playing field.

  By the time confirmation came that I had won, I was aware that politics had changed my life utterly. Privacy was a thing of my past. There was now a constant stream of visitors at my door, asking for my help on everything from employment issues to illness. It was overwhelming.

  And without a husband it was even harder. Most other MPs have a partner to help them manage daily life and deal with guests. With Hamid gone it was just me. The girls were upset because I wasn’t able to put them to bed every night like I had before. I felt guilty and torn and wondered if I had made the right decision. Like working women all over the world I wondered if I had selfishly put my own ambitions ahead of my children. But then I thought back to my father. Had it been so different for him? Didn’t he also feel guilt at leaving his wives and brood for weeks on end because of his job? It was the price we had to pay. And I consoled myself by trying to remind myself that part of the reason I wanted to work for change was so that my daughters had a better country to live in.

  But then the smears and rumors started against me. And I really realized just how hard it is to be a woman in a man’s world. My opponents, angry at my victory, started a series of viciously untrue slanders. They ranged from the suggestion that I had a rich businessman boyfriend in Dubai who had funded my campaign to the fact that I had lied about my achievements on my resume. But the most hurtful of all was that I had divorced Hamid in order to stand for election and had lied about his death. According to this particularly nasty rumor Hamid was alive and well and living in a mountain village.

  I was still grieving so badly for my husband that the allegation that I had lied about his death made me shake with rage. How dare these people speak filth, pure hurtful filth like this? It is nothing short of disgusting. Unfortunately I was not alone in suffering this. Most female politicians had suffered similarly vicious untrue rumors against them. And they were more than just hurtful, they were downright dangerous. In Afghanistan a woman’s reputation and honor can mean her life. And my opponents knew that.

  It was a crazy period of adjustment. On some days I had 500 people come to see me. At times people had to sit in corridors because there was no room. They all wanted to know what my policies were, what I was going to do for them. I had to
sit and talk to everyone individually, explaining the same thing over and over again. It was clear I couldn’t go on like this, so after a few weeks I managed to get a little more organized and hired staff to manage an appointments system.

  In October 2005 the new democratic parliament opened after 33 years of conflict. On the day of the opening ceremony I was beside myself with joy. The streets were closed to traffic because of the risk of suicide bombers trying to disrupt proceedings. But people still came out onto the streets to wave flags and dance the Attan, the national dance.

  A bus came to take all the female MPs together to the parliament and as I drove past the dancing citizens I felt such joy in my heart. We passed a big poster of president Karzai and Ahmed Shah Massoud and I started to cry. I really felt that I was part of a new Afghanistan, a country that was finally leaving violence behind and embracing peace. Whatever personal sacrifices I was making now, it would be worth it to achieve this.

  For the first time in my life, I had a sense of pride and maturity and a feeling that I could change things. I had both the power and a voice to make a difference. I was so very happy, but I still couldn’t stop crying. Since Hamid died, I rarely cry. I’ve been through so much in my life: my father assassinated, my brother murdered, my mother dying, my husband dying, our house being looted. I’ve cried so many tears over the years that these days I have no tears left. But on that momentous occasion, I think I cried the whole day long. Only this time, they were tears of happiness.

  I had never been inside the parliament building until that day and I was almost overcome with excitement at the thought that this was my new place of work and my office. Under the new postwar system of governance that had been decided for Afghanistan, the National Assembly was created as the national legislature. It is a bicameral body, composed of the lower house called the Wolesi Jirga (House of the People) and the upper house known as the Meshrano Jirga (House of the Elders). I was one of sixty-eight women in the lower house and twenty-three women in the upper house. The lower house is made up of 250 members elected to five-year terms directly by the people, in proportion to the population of each province; a quota requirement of two women from each province was instituted to ensure women got elected. In the upper house, one-third of the members are elected by provincial councils for four years, one-third are elected by district councils of each province for three years and one-third are appointed by the president. Again, there is a quota to ensure female representation. Finally, there is the Stera Mahkama, the Supreme Court, which constitutes Afghanistan’s highest chamber in the judicial system. The Stera Mahkama is made up of nine judges appointed by the president to a ten-year term, with the approval of the parliament. Judges must be at least forty years of age, have a degree in law or Islamic jurisprudence, and be free of any affiliation to a political party.

  As I looked around the room, I realized some of my fellow MPs were former presidents, ministers, governors, and powerful mujahideen commanders—all now sitting in the same room as women like me.

  King Zahir Shah, the former monarch who had promised to bring democracy so many years ago and the man whom my father had served, was also there. He was a very old man now and had lived in exile in Europe, but he made this one last historic trip back home.

  The national anthem was played and we all stood up. More national songs were played, including one called “Daz Ma Zeba Watan” (which can be roughly translated as “This Land Was My Ancestors”). It’s one of my favorite songs and sums up how I feel about my country. The lyrics go like this:

  This is our beautiful land

  This is our beloved land

  This land is our life

  This Afghanistan.

  This country is our life

  This country is our faith

  Our children say this when they are crawling

  This is the land of our grandfather

  This is the land of our grandmother.

  It is very dear to us

  This Afghanistan.

  I sacrifice myself to its rivers

  I sacrifice myself to its deserts

  I sacrifice myself to its streams.

  This is the land that we know

  My heart is made bright by it

  This Afghanistan

  Our heart is made bright by it

  This Afghanistan.

  This is our beautiful land

  This is our beloved land

  This land is our life

  This Afghanistan.

  As I looked around at my fellow new MPs, I felt I could see all of Afghanistan in their different faces. There were men in big turbans and long coats, intellectuals in smart suits and ties, young people, old people, women, people from every different ethnic group.

  This is what democracy means to me. People with different views, cultural beliefs, and experiences coming together under one roof in order to work alongside one another for a common aim. After so much bloodshed and tears, it was a beautiful thing to see and even more beautiful to be part of it.

  After the music and pomp of the opening ceremony was over, it was time to settle down to business. I was determined not to be dismissed as “just a woman,” so from day one I spoke up about issues and quickly gained a reputation for being both outspoken and capable. I also made it clear I would work professionally and cooperate with everyone. There were many men in the parliament who were opposed to the women MPs and did their best to intimidate us. They also tried to belittle any male MPs who showed us support. One male MP was shouted down in a debate on education after he backed the view of a woman. Other male MPs started to heckle him and derided as a “feminist.”

  I’ve gotten used to those things now. The atmosphere in the Afghan parliament is loud and often almost verging on violence. A tug of the beard is an ancient way to tell someone they have offended you. Some days an awful lot of tugging goes on. I decided that showing hostility or shouting back in these situations would achieve nothing. Instead I tried to create an atmosphere of mutual respect. I listened politely to opposing views and tried to find common ground wherever I could. Democracy is about fighting your corner but it is also about learning to accept that sometimes you just have to agree to disagree.

  But at the same time I made a vow to myself to never lose sight of my principles and values. If you always go along with the popular flow then you are lost and lose sight of what you believe in. What I believe in is promoting human rights, striving for gender equality, and alleviating poverty.

  Sadly some of the female MPs found the process too much. To this day I still haven’t heard some of them utter a single word.

  All the new MPs had to put our hands on the Holy Quran and swear allegiance to the country. We promised to be honest to Afghanistan and be honest to the people of Afghanistan. When I put my hand on the Quran to swear I felt the wave of responsibility wash over me.

  Given the rampant levels of corruption in my country today it seems not all of my colleagues took their vow of honesty seriously.

  The next day, the debate began for the election of leadership positions, such as speaker, deputy speakers and secretaries, which are highly important senior political positions in the house. I had already made some good friends among other MPs, such as Sabrina Saqib, who had the proud honor of being the youngest member of parliament. I told her I wanted to run for the position of deputy speaker. My feeling was that I risked nothing by doing so and that even if I lost, the very act of running would ensure that the new female voices were being heard at the most senior level in the legislature.

  Sabrina was supportive and agreed that it would be good for all the women if I stood, but she warned me that I was unlikely to win and would face a great deal of opposition from some of the men. She also feared I wasn’t well known enough yet and did not have other big-name MPs supporting me.

  I then talked to my family, who also urged caution. Nadir, the brother who held the local political role of district manager in Badakhshan’s Koof district, was totally ag
ainst it. He said to me: “Fawzia jan, it was more than enough for a woman to become an MP. You should not be more ambitious. If you stand for speaker, you will lose. That would not look good for the political reputation of our family. Politics is not just about you, Fawzia. It is about the political dynasty of our whole family.”

  Those words stung, but I understood what he was trying to say. Traditionally politics in Afghanistan is seen as just winning a battle or gaining power, not as a genuine means by which ordinary people can use their voice to demonstrate their will. In the past, if a member of one of Afghanistan’s political families lost in an election, it damaged the reputation of the whole family. But that was a risk I was prepared to take. This was a much bigger battle for me. It was a battle to serve the people of my country.

  Finally, I talked to Shuhra and Shaharzad. Here, I got the best reaction of all. Shuhra was only six years old and Shaharzad seven. Shuhra, in an early sign of her genuine political leanings, had a great campaign idea. She said, “I will gather one hundred children from my school and give them flags, then we will come to the parliament to ask the MPs to vote for you.” I gave her a big kiss of thanks. I was surprised how sophisticated her idea was for a child of six and extremely proud that she was already learning to think big.

  Shaharzad is a gentle and thoughtful child who reminds me so much of her father. She took my hand and gave me a long, earnest look as she said, “Mother, one of the women should have a senior position in this parliament. And it is better it is you who has it, because I know you are the best. I know it means you will be away from us even more and working very hard, but that’s okay with us.” I almost cried. It is exactly what Hamid would have said. I decided to run.

  The corridors in the parliament building resonated with talk of only one thing: Who was going to run for the positions? My candidacy seemed like a big joke to many MPs, especially the ones who had made plenty of money through war profiteering and involvement in criminal activities. This only strengthened my resolve to win the post of deputy speaker. The wealthier MPs started to court favor by throwing lavish evening parties at their homes and in some of Kabul’s smartest restaurants and hotels, inviting those who might vote for them. I didn’t have any spare cash for that kind of thing, and it had been noted that I was the only candidate who hadn’t organized an event. The night before the voting, my sister helped organize a small dinner party for me at a very inexpensive, low-key restaurant. It was by no means a smart place, but it was all I could afford. Around twenty MPs turned up.