I was 13 years old when I looked into the face of Sharbat Gula, the 13 year old Afghan girl that had been photographed by National Geographic photographer, Steve McCurry, while at the Nasir Bagh refugee camp in 1984. She made an indelible mark in American history, becoming the visible face of Afghanistan. As a 13 year old girl, I always wondered what it must’ve been like for her…also 13. I lived in a country where I could freely run my mouth, scream at my parents and slam doors. The typical difficult American teenager. Gula lived in a country that publicly executed, stoned and beheaded young girls and women for things like wearing fingernail polish.
In 2002, when National Geographic tracked down Gula’s location and later published her photos, side by side….I remember being overcome with emotion. At 13, Gula’s eyes showed a wisdom far beyond her years. And behind that wisdom, stubborn tenacity. Her jaw firmly set, her head covered but only slightly…perhaps her way of rebelling. Seventeen years later, those same eyes held a look of defeat. A look of resignation. That maybe life wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be….a big rip-off. The tenacity of her youth a naive notion. Her once firm jaw had become slack and her firmly set lips now turned downward. Her head completely covered in submission. Without saying a word, Gula’s eyes tell a story of unspoken pain, terror and trauma. Yet under all of this, there remains a look of ferocity.
Sharbat is a married mother of three daughters. In 2002, she told McCurry that her dream was to provide an education for her daughters. She knew it was “too late” for her oldest daughter…13 year old Robina….but there was still time for her youngest, 3 year old Zahida and 1 year old Alia.
Now here we sit…7 years later…our President sits behind closed doors today discussing Afghanistan and four options that involve putting more American lives on the line. Do one of those options give a defining meaning to each ordered mission? One that can be communicated to everyone? From where I sit, sending more troops to Afghanistan is like dragging a garden hose to a 5-alarm fire that’s been burning for six days straight.
The Afghani men are all about getting some free stuff from the Americans. Guns, uniforms, candy, ink pens…..but the second you start talking about the rights of women, they laugh in your face, spit in the sand and saunter off. It’s not like they’re being subtle about it either. It’s not something they do when noone is looking. It’s a way of life. I recently read an article that lightly stated, “It’s better to be a dog in America than a woman in Afghanistan.” Ha Ha….but not really.
As a woman, I’d like to think that some of my tax money is over there helping another woman out…..not pulling the burqa tighter over her face. Not throwing little girls out of school to make room for more boys. We’re assured by the higher-ups that progress is being made. “Lookie! We put one in Parliament!” I’ve said it myself….it’s THEIR culture….if they want to live that way then we should let them. When orders were given to invade….to set up a government and help rebuild their country….were human rights specified?
Afghan men are allowed to marry as many women as they can afford….and as young as they desire. Seeing as how we’re giving them $65 million bucks every month…I’d say we’re funding a top-shelf brothel. While unemployed Americans desperately search for work so they can feed their families, we’re pumping billions into the Afghan’s economy by giving the majority of the reconstruction jobs to the locals. So let me get this straight. We’ve given the men more jobs…with more money….more guns…more power. Sure, it’ll help their economy. They’ll throw some haphazard form of government together. We’ll try to clear our guilty consciences by giving them even MORE money and jobs to compensate for wrecking their country. But is that helping their cause or exasperating the underlying issue….that being one of Human Rights?
Somewhere in the middle of all this money, power and testosterone….there stands a woman, completely buried beneath suffocating blue fabric. A tortured mind, wondering, “Have they not seen us? Certainly they’re not blind. Every day we make sure to walk past them many times so they’re sure to see us. They’re here to help us, yes? The Americans? Surely they wouldn’t leave us here….like this. Surely they see us beaten and pushed to our knees in the streets while they give handfuls of candy to our children. We cannot scream or we’ll be killed. If I can just let them see my eyes….to speak to them with my eyes….maybe then they could see and help us. Help our children.”
Maybe Sharbat was trying to tell her story when she realized she’d been noticed. When she realized a man had made eye contact with her and respected her human worth. Steve McCurry’s photograph was the one and only photograph ever taken of Sharbat Gula. McCurry was able to capture her on film a second time, but only after permission had been granted by Sharbat’s husband.
When we hear the word “Apartheid”, we immediately think of South Africa and their violent racial war. But the true definition of Apartheid is this:
“The condition of being separated from others; segregation.”
So from where I’m sitting…it looks an awful lot like Gender Apartheid going on over there in Afghanistan. And what are we doing to stop it?! If anything, we dig our heel a little deeper into the head of an Afghan woman when we assume she likes it this way. That she is somehow comfortable within the confines of her burqa, never wanting things to change.
What goes through the mind of a female soldier when she sees a blur of blue shuffle past her on the street? Does she see a woman? Or does she see a burqa. Chances are, she sees the burqa. Not because she’s blind….but because of what is being hidden. I can see why the Afghan men wouldn’t want the world to see their women. We’ve already seen one……and she single-handedly became embedded in American culture. A stark reminder of what is forcefully hidden by a country with no intention of changing their ways.
I hope that when an Afghan man leaves the room, the women rip off their burqas and start mocking him….shooting invisible guns in the air, flalalalalalala-ing at the top of their lungs…..playfully pushing each other around, imitating, “Get over here woman and bear my water and child….quick…before I kick you in the teeth!”
If anyone can hear me…someone with rank….do me a favor. SEE the women of Afghanistan. Take them into consideration when you’re padding the pockets of the man who will beat and torture her every night. Think of her when you build schools with two separate wings…one for boys, one for girls. Think about the subliminal message that sends. Candy coating their condition with words like “It’s their culture it’s always been this way” only demeans them further.
So I end this Veteran’s Day a bit heated under the collar. Heated because by the end of this year, we will have flushed $200 billion down Afghanistan’s woman-beating toilet. $200 billion that is desperately needed right here in our own back yard. If our money is doing nothing but empower abusive Afghan men, then I say put our military men and women on a one-way flight and bring the money back home. I’ll bet all those people standing in line at the unemployment office would appreciate it. So would the family that’s been forced out of their home because of a dismal economy that is seemingly sinking further.
Chances are, more of our men and women will be ordered to Afghanistan. From a not-at-all neutral third party, I’ll sum up my perception. We’re depriving and neglecting our own children to feed, support and empower the kids who throw rocks at our kids every day at recess. I say give them a “Neener Neener” and put them on the Naughty Bench and start paying attention to who is sitting in our lap.
Oh, snap!
Authors bio is coming up shortly. 
