Uncharted Thoughts.

Today marks the four year anniversary that Afghanistan was brutally overthrown by the Taliban. A day that will live in infamy for all Afghans, and for much of the world a day that marks another example of international intervention failure.

I remember turning on the TV and watching as men and women clung to the side of Boeing C-17s as they lifted into the hot Afghan airspace above Kabul.

Hundreds of people desperately ran onto the runway in a frantic attempt to find a ticket out of the hell that was about to unfold.

It wasn’t long before the bodies of those that managed to cling to the side of military aircrafts began to fall.

In a sick, deprived state of consciousness one is able to draw similarities between those that fell from the twin towers on September 11th 2001, and those that fell at Kabul international airport 20 years later.

These desperate souls were left to their fate as the Taliban began their assault on Afghans capital city.

Four years later, the Taliban still reigns supreme, and those souls left behind live under an oppressive Islamic theocracy.

Whats happened since…

Since August 15th, 2021, Afghanistan has turned into a living nightmare. Ruled over by well armed thugs that interoperate the Holy Islamic scriptures to their own will, the civilians of this undisputedly beautiful country live in fear as Ford pick-up trucks filled with men tear through towns and cities implementing Sharia Law with an Iron fist.

“The Taliban are putting policy in place in the name of religion, in the name of Islam. But this is not Islam” said Bakhtawar, an Afghan refugee, women rights activist and my translator and first interviewee.

According to RAWA news the following restriction have been implemented in Afghanistan since August 202: The right to protest, the right to hold government office ban on high school education thus extending into University education, ban on music and art, segregation of women and men in public spaces, ban on appearance on television, travel restrictions, ban on female drivers, ban on interaction between female students and male staff, ban on the right to work, removal of woman’s images in public spaces, imposition of the Hijab.  

The UK government has recognised these restriction and stated ‘the Taliban have gradually restricted women’s social and political rights and limited the areas of public life they can engage within. Women and girls are subject to widespread and systematic discrimination, which in general amounts to persecution’.

And yet, hope remains…

To condemn the Taliban, and in an act of defiance women, and men, across the world have come together to mark this tragic day, and to shine a light that there are still those who appose the Taliban.

In a crowded room, in Islamabad Pakistan, a voice spoke firmly, powerfully:

I am Elahah Rizaei,
a small voice,
but an echo of thousands of stories from the heart of Afghanistan.

Once, I went to school, I studied,
and I dreamed of becoming a pilot.
But August 15 came and took everything from me:
they closed my school, took away my books,
and silenced my dreams.

August 15 was not just a day,
it was the day our lives fell into darkness,
the day our freedoms were stolen,
and our voices turned into silence.

I am a girl whose only crime was wanting rights,

wanting a pen, wanting education,
and wanting liberation.
Liberation from the darkness and traditions that deny our humanity.

Once, I heard my teacher’s voice from behind the classroom door,
once, my name was on the list of top students,
once, I went to school, I studied,
and I dreamed of becoming a pilot.
Today, I hear the sound of gunfire,
and my name is on the list of prisoners.

My mother tells me, “Daughter, read.”
But what should I read?
When my notebook is burned,
when my school is destroyed,
when my world has been drowned in darkness.

For four years, they have buried us,
but they did not know we were seeds;
in the heart of the soil,
in the heart of the darkness,
in the heart of silence.

I came out of prison,
but the prison still breathes inside me.

Oh world!
Do you hear our voice?
Or have you stuffed your ears with the cotton of politics?

I am a girl from the heart of Afghanistan,
writing to you from the depths of darkness:

Do not forget us!
Our voice is the voice of history,
the voice of justice,
and a cry for freedom.
We have risen again,
with hearts full of hope,
with hands joined together,
and with a spirit that will never be broken.

Stronger than ever,
we still stand
for a brighter future,
for a free and proud generation.