Shabana Stanekzai
It was nearly the time for mid-afternoon prayer. I left home nervously. Kabul streets were desolate. People were inside either for prayers or to escape heat. I was nervous stepping out of the home alone. I looked at my feet several time to ensure I was wearing my thick black socks. I repeatedly questioned why I was stressed despite having my blue burqa and thick socks on. Yet I was terrified.
I was going to the drugstore to fill up my father’s pill prescriptions. I got on a taxi to speed up the process. A man was sitting in the front seat and I was in the back. We had moved less than a hundred meters when a white car passed our car quickly and parked in front of our taxi. The taxi driver stopped the car terrified.
Out of the white car came three men wearing black peraan tunbans, often worn by Taliban. They surrounded the taxi. The first man pulled the driver out of the car and began violently beating him. The second man attacked the man on the front seat. I was frozen with fear. The third man came to my door and ordered me to get out of the car.
I am not certain how I summoned the courage to begin running away. The moment my foot hit the street I began running towards a smaller street. The Talib who was trying to prevent me from getting far began whipping my back but the force of fear overpowers others. I ran for a long time even though I was not sure how far I had ran. I only stopped upon hearing a group of young boys who were playing on the street yell at me: “Auntie, your burqa is falling apart… Auntie…”
I found my way home and took off my torn apart burqa. My head and back were burning. When I was changing my clothes I noticed black and blue marks from the whipping I had received. The only reason I was hurt and humiliated publicly was that I had left home without a male chaperon to buy my father’s medicine.
Some people seem to have forgotten the pain of these whips which took away from us everything, including our human dignity. The society-wide lack of historic memory is such that some people have began to image the Taliban as angels capable of saving us. Have they forgotten how we were whipped into obedience?
—
This piece in Persian here.