The Favored Daughter (5 page)

Boy children had power—within the household a brother's word or order was often more powerful than even the word of a mother.

Muqim would follow my mother and ask for sweets. She wouldn't give him many because such delicacies were usually reserved for the guests. He'd get angry, stomp his feet, and leave the room, but then my mother would take hold of my hand, and, without looking at my face, secretly slip me some sweets. If Muqim saw he would be furious and tell my mother that if I ate those chocolates he would prevent me from going out. As a boy he had the power and authority to do that, to control what I did or did not do, regardless of what my mother said. I hated the idea of not playing outside with my friends, so I would give him the sweets begrudgingly and run out to play.

I heard the word
dukhtarak
often and early in my life. It's a common derogatory term to call a girl child, and it roughly translates as “less than a girl.”

Instinctively, I hated it. Once, when I was no more than five years old, one of my older cousins called me
dukhtarak
and ordered me to make him a cup of tea. I stood up in a room full of people, my hand on my hip, and replied: “Cousin, I shall make your tea, but you shall never call me this name again.” Everyone in the room fell apart laughing.

And I heard it the only time my father ever spoke directly to me. He had organized a political rally in our garden and wanted to share some news reports with those gathered. He placed large speakers in the trees and it was the first time we'd ever heard stereo sound. We were curious, so we sneaked as close as we could get without being seen so we could listen. But I soon became bored and started to make noise. My father was trying to talk and suddenly the sounds of my squeals disturbed his ears. He stopped talking and turned directly toward us. He stared at me and I froze for what felt like minutes. Then he shouted: “
Dukhtarak!
Girls! Go away you girls!”

We ran as fast as our legs could carry us.

I was so scared of him after that I didn't ever want to see him again, terrified that if he saw me even weeks later he'd be so angry that he'd kill me.

But in my childhood fantasies, I could not have imagined that it was he who would be killed, and that my golden existence was about to come to a brutal end.

 

 

*
The Saur Revolution is the name given to the Communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) takeover of political power from the government of Afghanistan on April 28, 1978. The word “Saur” refers to the Dari name of the second month of the Persian calendar, the month in which the uprising took place.

This was widely seen as the start of de-facto soviet rule in Afghanistan, with a pro-Soviet puppet government appointed after the revolution. Once in power, the PDPA implemented a Soviet communist agenda. It moved to promote state atheism and carried out illconceived land reform, which was resented by virtually all Afghans. It changed the national flag from the traditional Islamic green color to a near-copy of the red flag of the Soviet Union, a provocative affront to the people of this conservative Islamic country. The PDPA also imprisoned, tortured or murdered thousands of members of the traditional elite, the religious establishment, and the intelligentsia.

THREE

A TERRIBLE LOSS

The year was 1978, and both the mujahideen and the Russians were beginning to make their presence felt in Afghanistan for the first time.

It was the height of the cold war, and the Soviet Union was keen to show strength. The USSR was working under an expansionist agenda in those days, and Afghanistan lay between Moscow and the warm-water ports of Pakistan, where the USSR wanted to place its naval fleet. To do so it needed control of Afghanistan and was beginning to exert its strategic influence to ensure that happened. Eventually, the USSR invaded Afghanistan.

In later years Afghan fighters, known as the mujahideen, defeated those Russians invaders and became heroes among the people. But at the time the Afghan public knew them only as anti-government rebels.

The mujahideen first made their presence felt in Northern Badakhshan. The central regime in Kabul was in upheaval: The king had been forced into exile, but his successor President Khan did not last long. He and his entire family were assassinated in his palace, and communist sympathizers, Nur Muhammad Taraky and Hafizullah Amin, took control. Taraky became the first communist-backed president, but a few months later he was killed by Amin on the orders of the USSR government in Moscow.

Amin then took over the presidency with the support of Moscow. He is remembered as probably the cruelest president in the history of Afghanistan. His regime was terrifying; torture and arrests were commonplace. He tried to kill anyone who opposed the government—intellectuals, teachers, religious leaders, anyone who dared to say a word against the ruling forces would be dragged from their house at night and, if they were lucky, taken to Puli Charkhi, Kabul's largest jail, where they faced interrogation and torture. The unlucky ones were thrown into the rivers. In those days Afghanistan's rivers witnessed thousands of lives being taken, all without reason or trial.

During this time my father continued his work, trying to stay focused on helping Badakhshan even through those days of terror. He remained outspoken, despite the risk of torture or more imprisonment. But perhaps the regime knew he was more useful to them alive than dead. The mujahideen rebels were beginning to make their presence known, and the government was nervous. The rebels had a stronghold in Badakhshan. Eventually the government ordered my father back to his province with instructions to settle the mujahideen or else. They made clear the penalty for failure would be death.

A man of peace, my father was certain he could reason with the mujahideen; after all, they were his fellow Afghans. He understood the political uncertainties of the time and the calls for more social justice. These were men from his own province, Badakhshanis just like him, and he was sure that once he had spoken to them he could calm their fears, listen to their complaints, and offer to help them in exchange for their cooperation with the government. But the Afghanistan my father thought he knew—the values of country first, Islamic tradition, and natural justice that he believed in so strongly— had already begun to change.

He arrived in Badakhshan on his mission with a heavy heart. He had no love for the Amin regime and in truth didn't know what was best for the people of Afghanistan. He gathered his provincial elders together in what is known as a
jirga,
a meeting of tribal leaders and elders, and explained to them what he had seen in Kabul: a government who didn't want young people to be educated for fear they would turn into dissidents; a government who killed with impunity; a land where teachers and intellectuals lived in fear; an Afghanistan where government opponents were simply crushed. After the heady years of King Zahir Shah's reign, when Afghanistan was regarded as one of the world's fastest-developing countries, after all that promise of democracy, it was crushing to see the reality of communist rule.

Some of the Afghans who had gone to the mountains to fight with the mujahideen truly believed they were there to fight for the future of Afghanistan. My father was still a government servant but he understood the mujahideen and respected them in many ways. He simply didn't know which way to turn, and asked the elders what they should do.

The
jirga
debated for hours. Some wanted to join the rebels; others wanted government rule for better or worse. But in the end local needs won the day when one man stood up and spoke in a clear voice. “Sir,” he said. “We are already very poor, we can't bear to have a fight. We should talk to them and bring them down from mountains, why should we fight?”

Finally the group agreed to go and talk to them. My father gathered hundreds of local elders from all over the province. They rode on horseback for over a day to reach the rebels' camp. The Pamir mountain range is as high and as treacherous as it is beautiful. Fertile lush valleys soon give way to rocks of different colors—blues, greens, and orange ochres that change with the light—then on to towering snow-covered peaks and plateaus. Even today there are few roads in Badakhshan, but then there was nothing apart from the donkey and horse tracks, some so narrow and steep that the only way to pass was to hold onto your donkey or horse's tail, close your eyes, and pray the sure-footed beast didn't slip. To fall was certain death—plunged down the mountainside into one of the icy rivers below, swept away by the rapids.

After a day and a half of solid riding, they reached the highest point of the Pamir, where it gives way to a wonderful natural plain—almost as high as the heavens. In winter men from all over the province gather here to play Buzkashi, the origins of the game now known in the west as polo. It's a skilled game, a test of rider and horse, where men must race their horses to pick up and place the carcass of a dead cow into the goal area, marked with a circle, at the end of the pitch. In ancient times, the carcass was a dead prisoner. Games are fast and exciting, sometimes involving hundreds of riders and lasting for several days. It's a game as wild, dangerous, and clever as the men who play it. It is the true sport and essence of the Afghan warrior.

But as my father rode, thoughts of the pleasures of a Buzkashi game were furthest from his mind. He remained calm and composed, still wearing his hat, leading his white horse at the head of the group. Then three men suddenly appeared in the middle of the road and pointed rifles at them.

One of them shouted, “Wakil Abdul Rahman, so it is you. I have waited a long time for this chance to kill you.”

My father shouted back in a cool voice: “Please listen to me. The government of Afghanistan is strong. You cannot defeat it. I come here to ask you to work with it, to stand together and to cooperate with us. I will listen to your needs and I will take them to parliament.”

The man simply laughed and fired a shot. Other shots rang from out from behind the mountains. Pandemonium ensued. The village men—who were mostly unarmed—ran for their lives. My father's horse had been hit, and as it reared up in pain he lost his stirrup footing and was half dragged along as his mount galloped. The wounded animal headed for a small river that ran along the edge of the Buzkashi pitch. Some of the younger men tried to follow him but he shouted at them to flee and to save themselves. “I'm an elder,” he yelled as he was dragged along. “They will talk to me but they will kill you. Just go.”

The mujahideen gave chase and found my father.

They held him hostage for two days. I don't know if they gave him an opportunity to talk, if they listened to his reasoning and considered his offers, or if they beat and humiliated him. All we know is that two days later they executed him, shot him straight through the head.

News of his death reached the village quickly. Despite the remoteness of the region news has always traveled fast, a sophisticated system of a person passing on urgent messages at each hamlet along the way. And of course some of the men who had accompanied my father had already arrived home and reported the shooting of his horse. In Islam a body must be buried within 24 hours facing Mecca. The idea of my father's body being left alone on the mountainside without proper burial was one my family couldn't bear. He had to be brought back. But the mujahideen sent word to warn us that they would kill anyone who attempted to retrieve the body. No man wanted to be shot and killed themselves just to bring home a dead body.

So it fell to a woman to show bravery. My aunt Gada—my father's elder sister—stood up, gathered her long skirts, and put on her burqa, announcing to the shocked male gathering that she, Gada, would go retrieve the body of Wakil Abdul Rahman. As she strode out of the room and straight up the path to the mountains, her husband and my father's cousin had little choice but to follow her.

After walking for 13 hours they found him, his body dumped halfway between the village and the rebel camp.

I was three and a half years old, and I remember clearly the sadness of the day he was shot, listening to both men and women weep, alarmed by the fear and confusion in the village.

I lay awake all night listening, until at around 2:00 a.m. I heard my aunt's voice ringing out loud and clear as she approached the village. She was carrying my father's wooden staff and tapping it on the ground.

“Wakil Abdul Rahman is here. Get out of your beds. Come to greet him. He is here. We have brought him. Wakil Abdul Rahman is here.”

I leapt out of bed thinking, “He's alive, my father's alive.” Everything was going to be ok. The father was here. He would know what to do. He would restore order and stop everyone crying.