Taking The Ultimate Risk in Writing: Afghan Women's Writing Project

It was bound to happen. When I opened the email from the Afghan Women?s Writing Project?their first newsletter?I immediately saw the candle and the words ?In Memoriam.? One of the writers had been killed. The project, founded by novelist and foreign journalist Masha Hamilton, gives women in Afghanistan the space and freedom to express themselves in safety. Women are provided with laptop computers, flash drives, and, in Kabul, a secret meeting place where they can gather to discuss writing, hold classes, and offer support. There is also a virtual classroom through Google Groups where women can have their writing critiqued by English-speaking mentors with the objective of publishing their work on the blog. I have had the privilege of being a mentor for the past four years.

To Tell One?s Story Is A Human Right.

The Afghan Women?s Writing Project was an idea thought up around ?a kitchen table,? which has grown into a collaboration of women from across the U.S. and abroad. Founded in May 2009, its inception was a response to the lack of voice?the silencing?of the women of Afghanistan. The absence of an outlet for them to share their perspective and experience through the voice of their written words.

The mission of AWWP is ?to support the voices of women with the belief that to tell one?s story is a human right.? Utterly crucial ?in a country where women have been told their stories do not matter, and urged to be silent, and warned against honesty.?

AWWP proffers the idea that ?the voices of women tend to be moderating influences, and this makes it more important than ever that they become part of the national dialogue and eventually perhaps part of a movement that will speak out on issues important to women, issues of job and educational equality, healthcare, and more.?

The woman who was killed was called Tabasom. The women do not use their real names for fear of reprisal, which in the Taliban controlled province she was from could mean death. Tabasom gave herself the last name Hasal, which means honey in Pashto. She had never been one of my students, but I grieved her as deeply as if she had been. Tabasom was a poet. Her writings, lyrical and bright, speak of grief and loss, of longing for a life in which she could be free. But they also speak of hope. ?I wish I wrote my destiny/With silver colors of happiness/That shined in my life,? she writes, as if the world she envisioned was just around the corner.

Tabasom walked four hours to submit her poetry and communicate with Masha. ?Isn?t it long?? she wrote to Masha. ?Not for my interest in writing, it is not far away.?

Tabasom is not alone. In a recent New York Times article Eliza Griswold tells the story of the writers of Mirman Baheer, a group of women writers who celebrate Afghan women?s long history of political expression and protest through poetry. Those women fortunate enough to live in Kabul can meet openly, but those living in rural areas, ?roughly 8 out of 10,? must communicate their poems over the phone, often in secret, walking long distances in the company of a friend or relative who supports their project. For many of these women, discovery by their husbands or male siblings would mean certain beating or even death. These women, says Ogai Amail, who currently runs Mirman Baheer, ?are in a very dangerous position. They?re behind high walls, under the strong control of men.? Zarmina, one of the poets in the group, committed suicide two years ago by setting herself on fire. Her mother is not even allowed to speak of it. Nadia Anjuman, a renowned Afghan poet, was beaten to death by her husband at the age of twenty-five. ?I am caged in this corner/full of melancholy and sorrow,? she wrote in one of her poems.

I do not mean this post in a ?poor starving children in India? kind of way. None of us choose who or where to be born, and our own writing, fortunate to find its way onto the page in a place of relative freedom, is no less valid for its serendipitous origins. My intention is rather to celebrate the power of the word and to pay homage to those who have given their lives, or who risk doing so, in order to wield the word?s sword. For if writing were not a form of power, why would those who hold the greater share of it feel threatened?

For many of us?myself included?writing does not feel like a choice. It seems as necessary as drawing breath. Even for those of us who have the luxury of expressing ourselves freely and in safety, it is an occupation that involves long hours of isolation, self-inflicted agony, self-doubt, and frustration. Why would anyone do it if she did not feel in some essential way driven? But reading about the women of Afghanistan forces me to consider the depth of my commitment. What if I risked death because of my writing? Would I continue? Would my need to express myself outweigh my instinct for self-preservation? I would like to think that the answer is yes, but here in my office looking out over the peaceful Catalina Mountains, the likelihood that I will ever be put to that test seems remote.

The women of Afghanistan have death beside them when they wake up, and it is still beside them when they lay down at night. And yet they write about politics. They write about occupation and poverty, about a life in which they are so little noticed that the day of their birth is not even recorded. They write about friends and loved ones, husbands, parents, and children who die brutal deaths, about life that is so fragile that one never knows if it will last longer than an hour more. ?Record my voice,? says Meena, one of the Mirman Baheer poets, ?so that when I get killed at least you?ll have something of me.?

But that is not all I hear in the poems and essays from Afghan women. I also hear a profound and joyful love of life, a celebration of the foods and customs, of the people who come from this country that these women so fiercely love that they are willing to sacrifice their lives for her. Their words are filled with longing for a world in which they can walk freely, without fear, a world in which they can express themselves without the threat of retribution. A world in which they can openly lift up their faces and their voices and celebrate. ?From this cup of my lips comes a song;/ It captures my singing soul, my song,? writes Nadia Anjuman in the opening stanza of a ghazal.

Some months after her last poem, ?Where Have You Gone?,? was published on the AWWP website, Tabasom was killed by a suicide bomber. In a poem she wrote in June 2010 called ?If You Kill Me? she wrote, ?It makes no difference if all of/ you forget me/I won?t come back to you.? But you are wrong, Tabasom. Every time we read your powerful words, you come back to us. You come back.

The AWWP website details the ways in which you can get involved, host a Living Room Fundraiser or raise funds in other ways.

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