From Kabul: The making of a women's activist

Suraya #2

Suraya wanted to continue telling me about her political work, but I asked her if she would tell me first about her life as a child. She told me her family story.

A traditional Muslim household with dreams of democracy

Suraya lives in Kabul with her father, who is eighty-six years old. He had lived with Suraya’s mother for many years, but her mother died fourteen years ago. Now, Suraya is her father’s main caretaker. When she travels she knows that neighbors and friends will be available if her father, who tends for himself, needs any help. While Suraya stayed in Kabul, her three brothers went to live and be educated abroad. Her youngest brother died of cancer and this brought much sadness to her family.

In telling me about her brothers, Suraya detailed their educational achievements, letting me know that each one had earned a Ph.D. She told me that she had a master’s degree in international economics. Her sister-in-law, our translator, added that she had master’s degree also and that her son is becoming a doctor. She said that he had called her earlier in the day to tell her that he had just received his white coat. Suraya wanted me to know that her family was committed to education not only for their sons, but also for their daughters. This attitude is far from universal in Afghanistan.

Suraya was born in 1944 in a small village, Kamari, outside of Kabul. Her upper-middle-class family was well respected in the community and lived in a multi-generational compound that had not been modernized. Her parents had four children—three boys and Suraya. Her mother was not educated and lived a traditional Muslim woman’s life of praying and caring for the family.

Traditional in some ways, her family was in opposition to the monarchy that ruled the country when Suraya was born, and they were active politically in pushing for democracy. As in Kaethe’s family (see earlier blogs about Kaethe), Suraya’s family had a political consciousness that influenced her view of her role in the world. Suraya’s parents believed that no one could be complete without an education and that without an educated population, no country could become a democracy. Although most Afghani girls and women didn’t go to school, Suraya’s parents placed a great value on education for her.

Suraya said, “My mother had a modern view of women. When I was a small girl, I watched her worry about the lives of the other women in our village. She always asked questions about why a girl could not go to school or why a woman should not be able to be out in the village. She wondered why in a poor family that needed a better life, the woman were forced to stay at home and were not allowed to work. She also was unhappy because our village had no school for girls.

“My father supported my mother in these ideas. He knew that she had
longed to be an educated woman, but there was no choice in her time. She wanted to be sure that I wasn’t hampered in the same way. My older brothers and other relatives shared this view of education for me and for my girl cousins. Even my mother’s mother supported the decision for me to leave home to go to Kabul for high school and then to university there, since there was no adequate schooling for girls in our village.”

I (Ellen) had grown up in a family where there was no doubt that I would go to university. I understood the power of these expectations shared by families all over the world. It was hard to imagine what it would have been like to grow up in a situation in which most girls did not expect to go to school. Suraya draws much of her determination from the educational legacy of her family.

Suraya’s family decided to move to Kabul so that their children could continue their education. Although Kabul was not far away from her village, life there was remarkably different. Suraya’s view of her childhood was that it was secure and supportive with few obstacles. She had always known that she would be able to continue her studies and go to university. It was only when she arrived in Kabul that she heard many stories of what happened to women in other families who were made to marry or had been forbidden to study.

Early in her university studies, Suraya began to think about women’s rights. She realized that her life had been an exception, and that many women in Afghanistan didn’t have any possibility of freedom. She saw that women as individuals couldn’t make changes in their lives, and that the only possibility for women was for them to work together for their rights.

When Suraya decided that she would fight for the rights of women, she had to consider whether she could both do this work and be a wife and mother. She came to the conclusion that in Afghanistan it would be impossible for her to do both. She feared that if she married, her husband might forbid her to work or that her concern for the well being of her children might block her ability to take risks and stay focused. She also worried that she would want to leave Kabul to go and live in the West, as many others had done. Not fully realizing just how dangerous her life would be, she decided that she had to be on her own. So as a young woman, she committed herself to her work over everything else in her life. This focus would be essential when she faced jail and torture.

Keep reading. More about Suraya to come. Send comments and I will post your stories here.