March 9, 2000
Afghanistan's Girls Fight to Read and Write
By BARRY BEARAK
ABUL, Afghanistan -- Her name
is Fatima, and she was risking a
beating. Defiantly, she stood outside,
talking to a man. Her face was uncovered.
Under Taliban rule, such openness
by a woman is forbidden. But Fatima
said she did not care. She was growing used to a life with some risk.
Three months ago, she and a few
other women decided to break the
law. They opened a school for girls.
"The Taliban know," she said with
a slight shrug, a gesture that meant
she herself was unsure what lay
ahead. "We have 250 students. How
could they not know? Taliban spies
come around, asking this and that.
Some approve, some don't. We'll
wait and see."
The school itself is a drafty, decrepit house with four rooms. It is
reachable through one of Kabul's
narrow alleyways. In the windows,
sheets of torn, dirty plastic substitute
for glass. Hanging blankets are used
for doors. The rent is $12 a month.
"Now the landlord wants more,"
Fatima complained. "He sees all
these girls here. But what is he giving us? We get our water out of a
well. There is only one toilet."
A teacher by training, she is in her
30's. She was dressed smartly in a
black jacket and long skirt. Standing
in an open courtyard, her cheeks had
become rosy from the morning cold.
She was wearing lipstick.
For nearly four years now, ever
since the Taliban conquered Kabul,
this simple sight -- a woman's face
as the wind blows her hair -- has
been rare. By law, women must don
the head-to-toe burka, their bodies
camouflaged with cloth. They look
out at the world through a panel of
thick mesh at eye level.
From time to time, Fatima
glanced over her shoulder at an
opening into the alleyway. People
could see inside, and the Taliban are
stern dispensers of wrath.
But she only entered the safety of
the house when it was time to see the
classrooms. "We teach the usual
subjects: science, math, geography
and religion," she said. "These children are learning about the Caliph
Omar, a great Muslim warrior at the
time of the Holy Prophet."
The school has no chairs or desks.
Students sit on old rugs. Two of the
rooms have chalkboards. The other
two have only wooden slabs torn
from cupboards. A fifth class, held
outside on the ground, has nothing.
When the women opened the
school, they simply allowed word-of-mouth to pass through the neighborhood. "The response was amazing,"
Fatima said. "We've ended up with
more children than we can manage.
We hold sessions now in two shifts."
Most of the girls are eager, as if
deprivation had left an indelible hunger for education. The Taliban's earliest dictates banned women from
the workplace and girls from
schools.
In the first years of their rule,
some Taliban insisted they had no
objection to girls' education, but it
simply was a low priority. Afghanistan was in shambles after two decades of war. They correctly pointed
out that many schools were now
ruins and there was little money for
teachers. Most boys were not getting
an education either.
Since then, they have relented
somewhat. Women can work in
health care, so long as they do not
mingle with men. Schooling for girls
remains officially prohibited, but exceptions are being made. A few mullahs have been able to use their
mosques as classrooms for girls,
though the instruction is primarily
religious. Schools of varying sizes
have opened in homes, some secretly, others discreetly. The United Nations estimates that 10,000 young
girls are going to classes in Kabul --
and more all the time.
"Most girls have lost four years of
education," said Fatima, going from
one classroom into another. "Children with illiterate parents have suffered the most."
The teachers have their favorites,
those girls with extra spirit. Fatima
asked a few to come along outside.
Kulsum, a 5-year-old with an elfin
face, is learning the alphabet. "Listen to me recite," she said, and each
time she made a mistake she insisted
on starting over from the beginning.
Laili, 10, looks like a boy. This is
intentional. Until a month ago, she
wore pants and kept her hair closely
shorn. "I pretended to be a boy and
studied in the boys' school," she said
triumphantly. "It was the only way
for me."
Sabira wants to be a writer, and
poems seem about to unfurl from her
piercing brown eyes. But she is 14,
which is three years too old. Even
those Taliban who favor schooling
for girls say that age 11 ought to be
the limit.
"I'm already too tall," she said.
"But I have a plan. I will wear a
burka and pretend I am a teacher
when I am really still a student."
Fatima listened to the children
talk. "These girls have heart," she
said proudly. "They will do anything
to get an education. I have one. They
should have one."
Afghanistan has always had a
male-dominated culture, but many
women in the cities had escaped the
restraints. Jobs and schools were
their oases of independence.
That is no longer so. At the thought
of it, Fatima's face, full of only energy before, grew somber and then
cross. "It is a sacred task to supply
an education to these young girls,"
she said.
The Taliban are always speaking
of their jihad, their holy war against
the infidels. That is fine, she said. But
their Islam is not her Islam.
"This is what is sacred to me,"
Fatima repeated, opening her arms
and looking at her modest school.
"This is my jihad."
