Published on October 03, 2005
“I hate the burqa!” proclaimed Katreen Weda, editor-in-chief of the Daily Cheragh newspaper in Kabul. At the tender age of 30, Weda is Afghanistan’s first and only female newspaper boss. “I do not wear it, and I hate it.”
Weda is amongst the well-educated female professionals who refuse to wear the ubiquitous light-blue head-to-toe body cover, which became a symbol of Afghanistan’s oppression of women in the eyes of the West when the Taleban ran the country between 1996 and 2001.
The attractive female editor made sure to voice her disgust with the burqa twice more through an interpreter during our interview. The Taleban, who during their rule made wearing a burqa mandatory outside the home for all women, may have been ousted nearly four years ago, but about 20 per cent of women on the streets of Kabul today still wear a burqa. “I cannot come out of my house feeling as free as I would like. I don’t feel very safe,” Weda said about her decision not to wear a burqa. Though she pointed out that she had never been intimidated by anybody, she said the government had not done enough to promote gender equality. Afghanistan, she said, remains a male-dominated society. She thinks that no Afghan women today wear burqa by choice. The situation is even more restrictive for women in rural Afghanistan, she added. Even in Kabul, the burqa is still seen as a good thing by many well-educated men. “Women wear the burqa to be safe and not be tempted into sin,” said Enayat, a 26-year-old medical student at the elite Kabul University. “Women in burqas are better than women without burqas,” he said, adding that if women’s bodies and faces are fully covered by burqas no man can cast a lustful eye on them in the street. Weeks ago Enayat, who makes no secret of his dislike of the Islamic fundamentalism of the Taleban, tried to buy a burqa as a present for his well-educated fiancee, only to have her reject the gift. Farhadullah, an employee at an American foundation that has just won a British-government scholarship to pursue postgraduate education, said people who thought like the Taleban, at least on many religious issues, were still all over Kabul. Pashtuns, the main ethnic group in the country, said Farhadullah, are most conservative, and sayings like “A woman’s place is in the home and then in the graveyard” still ring true in their culture. “We practice 50 per cent Islam and 50 per cent beyond Islamic requirements,” he added. “To Pashtuns for a man to shake hands with a woman is tantamount to rape, so don’t ever think of having a massage in Afghanistan.” As for the burqa, Farhadullah insists that its role is to protect Afghan women from harm. Some foreign writers have even made money and fame by putting on a burqa as an exotic part of their stories or novels. Yasmina Khadra, nom de plume of an Algerian army officer turned international best-selling novelist is one. In the much praised book “The Swallows of Kabul”, a story of love and redemption under harsh Taleban rule, Khadra’s well-educated Afghan female character Zunaira protests against the burqa when her husband proposes a walk outside. “Here at home, at least, when I see my reflection in the mirror, I don’t have to hide my face. I refuse to wear a burqa. Of all the burdens they’ve put on us, that’s the most degrading. It cancels my face and takes away my identity and turns me into an object. Here, at least, I’m me, Zunaira, Moshen Ramat’s wife, aged 32, a former magistrate, dism issed by obscurantists without hearing and without compensation, but with enough self-respect left to brush my hair every day and pay attention to my clothes.” Her view is echoed in real life by Sima Samar, chairwoman of Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission and former minister of women’s affairs under President Hamid Karzai. “It can be an example of oppression,” she said, if women have no choice or are pressurised to wear it. A burqa, said Samar, turns a woman into a “walking body”. “You don’t have an identity, and you don’t have a face,” said the 50-something Samar of the burqa, which she said was introduced into Afghanistan from India some 150 years ago. Samar’s outspokenness means she is one of the most high-profile women in Afghanistan and that she is a frequent target of complaints from local ulema (Islamic scholars), who complain that her actions go against Islamic teachings. With many problems to be solved regarding the oppression of women, such as undocumented so-called honour killings of women who have committed adultery, Samar said the burqa was not a priority at the moment. Meanwhile, on Kabul’s Chicken Street, where Western expats and daredevil foreign travellers shop for souvenirs, burqas are on sale for those in search of unique keepsakes of their time in Afghanistan for US$5 (Bt205) each. Pravit Rojanaphruk The Nation Kabul Pravit Rojanaphruk is in Kabul serving as media officer for the Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel). This article, the fourth in a series of articles on Afghanistan, does not necessarily reflect the views of Anfrel.
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