Poetry of Afghan Women

05.06.2011 - 17:57

Reviewed by Aria Fani

Persian Poetry Today

Ambassadors of Life: Poetry of Afghan Women

The shocking image of Nazia, an eighteen-year-old Afghan woman whose nose and ears were sliced off by her husband, appeared on the cover of Time magazine in August 2010. Nazia’s story shed light on countless cases of domestic violence and once more brought international sympathy and witness to the suffering of women in Afghanistan. The main discourse that emerged thereafter as a response to stories such as Nazia’s, however, and what I wish to present as the central narrative in the way Afghan women in the West are characterized, is the concept of liberation. Gender relations in Afghanistan, though repressive and subject to criticism, have often been used as a tool to legitimize the invasion and military adventurism of the United States and its allies. While within Afghanistan, the Taliban ruthlessly strive to annihilate the voices of women all together. It is against such a political backdrop that Afghan women and their predicament can be understood.

As portrayed by the Western media, the lives of Afghan women have come to a standstill at the crossroads of victimhood and war. The images of abused and helpless women incessantly flood our minds, undermining the significant role of women as agents of change in Afghanistan. During the 1920s and 70s, a period of economic and political stability, a large number of Afghan women asserted their rights and continued their education and professional pursuits. These women belonged to a privileged economic background; all the same their role and aspirations offer the world an alternative narrative. Acknowledging the agency, contributions, and strong voice of Afghan women does not undermine the stories of women like Nazia and her audacious spirit, whose story of suffering is one too many for our world.

The history of Afghan women’s struggle for social recognition and equality chronicles Afghanistan’s physical and cultural devastation. Following the Soviet Invasion (1979-89), the Afghan Civil War (1994-96), and the American Invasion (2001- Present), women’s access to education, security, and jobs has been minimal. Today, in the “Post-Taliban” era, the Western “liberation” and Islamic fundamentalism each impose their own values on Afghan society as political models. Westernization, with regards to gender equality, does not take into account the traditional concept of family in Islamic or Afghan culture and tends to negotiate the rights of Afghan women outside their community and family. On the other hand, misogynistic readings of the Quran deprive women of their most basic rights. Neither ideology is central to the daily lives and aspirations of Afghan women; their day to day struggle narrates their hopes for a democratic and just Afghanistan, social visibility, and involvement in the reconstruction of their homeland. Afghan women are agents of change in numerous ways, one of which is poetry.

The tradition of poetry is one of the most celebrated components of arts and culture in cotemporary Afghanistan, once the center for Persian poetry. Though marginalized in the literary arena, women are not exempt from this ancient tradition. Afghan women, who have the financial and material means to write, or a room of one’s own as to quote Virginia Woolf, are from progressive and affluent families. Overall, widespread acceptance for women poets who reveal their sentiments through verse and receive social recognition has yet to come, most especially in rural Afghanistan. Nadia Anjuman, included in this selection, was a young poet from Herat who published her first collection at the age of twenty-five. Nadia, who was known in both Afghanistan and Iran, was murdered in 2005; many Afghans believe her husband murdered her because of her social visibility and fame. In spite of restrictions, countless women write and share their poetry in public and private meetings. However, the majority of Afghan literature is produced in diaspora where there is more economic stability and access to resources.

The following selection of works by Afghan women provides readers with the opportunity to observe some of the diverse currents within their poetry. These works express the poet’s hopes, fears, and aspirations; most of all, they add refreshing new colors to the one-dimensional blue color of their chaddari (Burqa) that has ironically become the only “face” of Afghan women in the West. Their poetry empowers them, expands their minds, differentiates them, and humanizes them. Their works heal their war-stricken homeland, express profound patriotism, reveal resentment for dogma, religious hypocrisy and misogyny, and romanticize Afghanistan and its stunning natural landscape. They commemorate voices that have lost their youthfulness, hopes, and lives to many decades of war. Whether writing in Persian (Dari), Pashto or English, their words echo their yearning for peace and carry their images and identities across our globe as ambassadors of life.

A Selection from the Poetry of Afghan Women

Bahar Saeed

(1953)

The Veil

Grisly veil dare not censure me from sight
Nor, my bare face, my nakedness expose;
Sun-like I transcend the darkness and shine.

No blackness, however dense,
Can forge the mask of confinement.

Isn’t your flawed morality, Believer,
To banish me thus behind the veil.
You devout Visitor
from the cities of pious way,
A speck of doubt ought lead you thus astray?

Let no warped preacher, advocate,
Bend my proud head, so low,
To where your footsteps mislead.

I see no fairness in such wisdom:
For others’ moral frailty,
I must reside in hell.

Conjuror of morality!
Why conjure up such devious device;
To conceal from sight my unblemished face,
Design instead, an opaque veil to hide
from innocent views your impure gaze.

– Translated from Persian by Leila Enayat-Seraj

Nadia Anjuman

(1980 - 2005)

The sound of green footsteps is the rain
They are coming in from the road, now
Thirsty souls and dusty skirts brought from the desert
Their breath burning, mirage-mingled
Mouths dry and caked with dust
They are coming in from the road, now
Tormented-bodied, girls brought up on pain
Joy departed from their faces
Hearts old and lined with cracks
No smile appears on the bleak oceans of their lips
Not a tear springs from the dry riverbeds of their eyes
O God!
Might I not know if their voiceless cries reach the clouds,
the vaulted heavens?
The sound of green footsteps is the rain.

– Translated from Persian by Zuzanna Olszewska and Belgheis Alavi

Parwin Pajwak

(1966)

in my dreams

I fly and look at myself

in disbelief – like a bird

flying over a lake

do captive birds

dream such dreams?

***

the flower that turned

into stone

was me

once more delicate

than the flower

I fear becoming

harder than

the stone

–Translated from Persian by Aria Fani

Fatana Jahangir Ahrary

(1962)

Like an enervated man
Gasping for air
Like a wounded bird
Searching for remedy
Like a guilty conscience
Seeking some virtue
Like a hungry child
Craving some sustenance
Like a thirsty creature
Yearning for some water
I want some serenity
I need some harmony
I am waiting for some tranquility
Come please Come
Peace Peace Peace

Shakila Naseer

(1949)

I swear to the restless hearts
of wandering people,
To the sorrows and miseries of the homeless,
To the bitterness and pains of the poor,
To the desperate heart of a mournful mother,
I swear to the body of a brave soldier falling for his homeland,
I swear to your green valleys
high mountains and ever-blue sky,
I swear to your brave sons and daughters
who stand for you,
I swear to the Holy books,
I swear to almighty God, the creator,
That I shall give
Not even a tiny peace of your soil,
Oh, my beloved homeland!
For the entire world.

Meena Keshwar Kamal

(1956-1987)

(Excerpt)

I’m a woman

awaken now

arisen from the ashes of my children’s burnt

bodies, become a storm

arisen from streams of my brothers’ blood

empowered by my people’s wrath

every burnt village of my homeland

fills me with resentment for the enemy

now my compatriot

no longer think of me as a powerless victim

I’m a woman

awaken now

I’ve found my path

I will not return

–Translated from Persian by Aria Fani

* Meena was an Afghan women’s rights activist and the founder of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. She was assassinated in Pakistan in 1987.

Ardeshir	01.07.2016 - 23:41
Afghan womens struggle, which still enslaves their heart and soul along with their bodies, is a deeply sad but uniquely strong platform for jubilation of art and particularly of poetry. Long live the Afghan woman! Every civilized man and woman is behind her fight for emancipation and freedom from the stronghold of the lowlife alienated backward traditions and those who enforce them.

DORDAN	27.09.2011 - 23:22
can you translate poem of the leena roozbeh

AHMADFAROKHI	25.06.2011 - 07:25
I hope you carry on translating of dari pooems .

MK	15.06.2011 - 16:47
It is great to see our Iranian co-linguists taking interest and understanding the importance of our "one" cultural heritage.