After a long time, I finally gained access to the internet. Yes, in the 21st century, when the internet has become an inseparable part of the lives of teenagers and young people, for me, it is a rare occurrence. With the money I had saved a few days ago, I activated just a few MBs of the internet to catch up on a world from which I have become quite distant. At first, I checked my WhatsApp messages because those few MBs were all I had, allowing me to open just one app. I received many messages from friends, especially my classmates, each asking, “Where are you? How are you?” One stood out Among those messages: “What does living under the Taliban flag mean?” My eyes locked onto that message, and just as one of my hands was holding the carpet’s threads and the other tightly gripping the hook, I broke into tears. I pulled my phone from between the carpet threads, where I had been holding it right in front of my eyes, and without anyone seeing my tears, I wrote: “I don’t have time to answer now. I’m busy weaving carpets. My only free time is midnight, and I will write to you in detail then.” I ended the message and dug my fingers into the carpet threads again, trying to make up for what my family and I lacked through my labor.
A week later, I was able to activate a few more MBs of the internet again, and the first thing I did was reply to that question. In a message, I shared the daily struggles of a student who has been forced out of school, drowning in a sea of misery — misery caused by the Taliban. My answer to that question is this: Living under the so-called white flag means captivity and suffering, a flag that has stripped half of society — the women and girls — of light and happiness. This flag has taken away the right to education, work, and freedom from women and girls. This flag has not only impoverished women but has plunged everyone into poverty and misery. It has established a tyrannical rule that steals bread from people’s mouths.
As a girl and as a human being, with my eyes, I do not see; with my mouth, I do not speak; with my mind and abilities, I am brought up ignorant because all my rights have been taken away. Before the Taliban took power, I envisioned myself in the role of a lawyer, defending rights and justice in society. All my energy and emotions were focused on my future and progress; my only worry day and night was about final exams and the end of the semester. I was a free girl, someone who could leave the house without fear, spending all my time engaged in social service at school, training centers, and educational offices, learning and teaching. I was pursuing my dreams and striving to make them a reality. Since the Taliban’s rule began, I have become a girl who is confined to her home all the time. There is no news of activity, no school, and no dreams. My entire time is consumed by carpet weaving and hard labor, just to earn a morsel of bread. I have let go of everything and grabbed the threads and hook of the carpet, just so that I do not go to bed hungry in a regime that has taken away work and bread from people.
Life here has become difficult. Women and girls lament over their shattered dreams, and men over the limitless oppression and torture by this group. No one can say anything good about the Taliban’s rule. Living under the Taliban flag means breathing without truly being alive or living. We live, but our control and decisions are in the hands of those who have plunged everyone into misery. We are forced to accept and implement whatever is decided from above and ordered. Otherwise, we are condemned to imprisonment and torture on charges of indecency.
Living under the Taliban flag, for me, feels like this: “A bird created for flight has suddenly had its wings cut off and been thrown into a cage.” This is the unjust life that the Taliban have forced upon the women and girls of Afghanistan.
You can read the Persian version of this Afghan woman’s story here:
