As a consequence, the information obtained was limited or selected. A small number of journalists had the guts to take other paths to get different stories, sometimes risking their lives.
By
LINDA CHRISTANTY
·6 minutes read
AFP/WAKIL KOHSAR
Afghan woman with children, hoping to leave Afghanistan, walk through the main entrance gate of Kabul airport in Kabul on August 28, 2021, following the Taliban stunning military takeover of Afghanistan.
A number of journalists used to go to Afghanistan to cover the war. When the joint forces or the International Security Assistance Force were still operating, participating in the convoys of armored vehicles, entering "secure" areas and eating soldier rations was the safest option.
As a consequence, the information obtained was limited or selected. A small number of journalists had the guts to take other paths to get different stories, sometimes risking their lives. An American journalist and poet, Eliza Griswold, carried out a no less dangerous mission, though far from direct combat. She was looking for poetry.
The suicide case of Rahila Muska, a teenage poet from Helmand, encouraged Griswold to travel to Afghanistan to collect landay (oral poetry). This poetry is usually recited and sung by Pashtun women, the tribe with the largest population in Afghanistan. Landay composers are unknown or anonymous. Rahila Muska was also a pseudonym.
Landay consists of two lines. Nine words on the first line. Thirteen words on the second line. Common themes range from love, separation, grief and war to homeland. Landay also contains sexual jokes to contain the outrage against patriarchal practices or violence against women.
The oldest landay is around 3,800 years old, believed to have been born from the exclamations of travelers on their caravans and somehow, over time, it developed into a poetic form.
In 2012 Griswold visited refugee camps, residents\' homes, wedding ceremonies, horse farms and skill training centers, in these places she found female singers or landay writers.
In her book published in 2014, I am the Beggar of the World; Landay from Contemporary Afghanistan, Griswold writes: “Since landay belongs to a rural tradition, and the rural heart of Pashtuns is a war zone, traveling to remote villages would be dangerous for women as well as us. In a number of cases, women asked me to come to their homes by wearing a burqa so as not to be seen by spies or nosy neighbors.”
STAFF SGT. VICTOR MANCILLA/U.S. MARINE CORPS VIA AP
In this image provided by the U.S. Marine Corps, a Marine with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) checks an Afghan woman as she goes through the evacuation control center at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021.
The poetry operation led her to enter deeper into the small spaces of Pashtun women\'s lives, giving her the opportunity to hear their stories and sometimes becoming the party who was looked to for solutions.
An old woman told her that she had lost her son and grandson. This woman had heard rumors that they were being held at Guantanamo. She asked Griswold to help find a lawyer. An international organization intervened until the woman learned that her son and grandson were being held at the headquarters of the United States troops at Bagram Air Base. Her nephew who had a land dispute against his son had made false accusations, which led to his detention.
The presence of US troops marked the invasion in Afghanistan, but Griswold saw a paradox. She said the future of women in Afghanistan would be bleaker without the United States.
Rahila Muska was in a desperate state because her future husband did not have enough money to get married.
When she was searching for the home of Rahila Muska\'s family in Helmand, a Taliban stronghold, the uncle of Griswold\'s translator, Asma Safi, had to escort them with weapons. A sad story awaited there. Rahila Muska was in a desperate state because her future husband did not have enough money to get married.
Composing and reciting poetry gave her a way to turn despair into happiness. It all started with listening to a poetry program on the radio and getting involved in Mirman Baheer, a women\'s literary community. One day her elder brothers beat this poor girl for being caught making landay, which was considered a sin. She then killed herself. Her real name was Zarmina.
The title of Griswold\'s book is a snippet of the last line of a composition by a woman in her 70s staying at the Samar Khel Tagaw refugee camp:
In my dream, I am the president.
When I wake up, I am the beggar of the world.
On 28 Dec. 2014, the joint forces of 51 member states and allies of the US ended operations in Afghanistan after 13 years. Griswold managed to finish her poetry operation eight months earlier than the troops.
AFP/KARIM SAHIB
An Afghan woman eats a biscuit in Kabul on September 11, 2021.
In the past, joint troop operations were looking for the US’ number one enemy, Osama bin Laden. He was declared the terrorist kingpin responsible for the suicide attack on planes in the US on 11 Sept. 2001. Ten years later, Osama was assassinated in Pakistan.
Who was Osama?
Ziauddin Sardar, a well-known British intellectual from Pakistan and an opponent of the Islamic state, recalled his experience with Pakistani President Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq in the city of Islamabad in the winter of 1985. Sardar participated in a delegation from the Muslim World League at that time. He heard President Zia praise Osama, “who just a few days earlier led a bold attack in Kabul.” According to President Zia, quoted by Sardar in his book Desperately Seeking Paradise, more than 30,000 mujahideen (fighters) came from 43 countries in the world (including Indonesia) and were accommodated in madrasas in northern Pakistan to prepare for jihad against the communist Soviet.
He saw Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, and he saw Osama.
In the city of Peshawar, Sardar witnessed a gathering of mujahideen leaders fighting in Afghanistan. He saw Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Massoud, and he saw Osama. Sardar wrote about his impressions of the tall, thin, lightly bearded and turban-wearing man: “He carried himself with a certain majesty and decency. Almost everyone at the meeting seemed to adore him.”
Love and hate can change places at any time, and so can friends and foes in global politics. For Pashtun women, loving is forbidden. However, the rebellion never goes out. A photo by Seamus Murphy shows the inscription on the rear windshield of a wrecked car: “Loving is Not Sin”. Murphy\'s poetic, sad and dramatic photos accompany the narrative and landay in Griswold\'s book, reinforcing the stories, or even building another narrative in our minds.
