LETTER | Spare some thoughts for our sisters of Afghanistan

LETTER | We must band together for our sisters in Afghanistan. They are in danger, they are in trouble. Some may say that this is not our problem. We have local problems, we have our own problems – our own mouths to feed, and our concern is Malaysian politics.

This, to a degree, is a defence mechanism. The two are not mutually exclusive. We must attempt to go beyond such sentiments, and this is coming from someone who has such sentiments.

You see, the world has had a collective trauma due to the pandemic, which should make us more aware of each individual’s suffering without having to distract or desensitise ourselves from a brewing global crisis, simply to have one less thing to worry about.

But these are not choices we can make.

After all, do these girls not remind you of any one of us: wide-eyed, ambitious, and with their lives ahead of them, lives that are being stolen as we speak. Already, Chevening scholars are losing their chance to a better life for a situation that is beyond their control.

We are told that education is the one chance, so if education is taken away, what is left? Malala Yousafzai (the now-adult woman who was shot in her face by the Taliban on her way to school) once remarked, “the Taliban could take our pens and books, but they couldn’t stop our minds from thinking”. With Malala’s words in mind, the only solace in all the darkness happening in Afghanistan is that thought-crime has not become a reality.

UN agencies have urged the Taliban to make good on promises to protect the vulnerable. This would include women and girls. They are the most vulnerable. As we are seeing, white paint is being hastily splashed across walls in Kabul – a sign of erasure of the female race under the Taliban rule.

This is a deeply disturbing and devastating development, one which marks a total failure of 21st century’s equality, of the feminist movement. If women only had rights in some nations of the world, do those rights exist at all?

In all of this, when one is inclined to ask, “what about me?”, “what about my family in these seemingly perpetual pandemic times?”, and “why should I care when I am suffering?”, all one needs to do is look at the faces of the girls in Afghanistan. They, too, cover their hair with hijabs and scarves; they, too, have dreams.

These girls have the same faith and the same belief systems. They, too, are suffering – suffering which they cannot show lest they be punished. In their faces are our faces, in their eyes are our aspirations. What are they if not the same as us? They are not strangers from a foreign land, they are family.

These girls are members of our own family. Yes, they may be miles away from us but they like the same things and are now being silenced, no longer able to have simple luxuries because the Taliban dictates as such.

Can we continue to sit still and worry only about our political uncertainties in our own land when families are calling out to us for empathy on different shores?

Now, some may ask, “Even if I care about the ongoings in Afghanistan, what can I do?” To apply this train of thought to our localised problems: what can any of us truly do to go back to the way things were pre-pandemic? We cannot.

Covid-19 is here to stay, most likely, but perhaps change to an endemic. But there are things we are doing to play our part – getting vaccinated, volunteering where we can, being compliant where we should, and taking on jobs beneath our qualifications where we are forced for the sake of our families.

In the same way, we can do something for Afghanistan’s daughters. By just knowing and caring about the crisis, we have passed the first step – awareness.

Awareness is mostly a mental state of being but is important in its numbers. If more of us are aware, more of us will want to take tangible actions.

Here is where social media comes into play. Alongside the memes and proclamations of personal as well as political frustrations some of us share, we can also share about the crisis in Afghanistan.

Just click here to do our bit: the UNHCR donation page for, among others, families forced to flee, the UN crisis relief page (donations to Afghanistan), and the International Rescue Committee’s page.

These are individual actions that can be taken. Aside from that, the powers-that-be must act. Leaders of the world must coalesce. This is a crisis that could have been prevented if not for the apathy of US generals, not so much the root cause but a symptom of the general US leadership across the tenure of four presidents – US leadership that is mostly to blame for the current Taliban takeover.

With this, it has become astoundingly clear that leaders no longer need to depend on purported First World Nations. Close by, we simply need to look at Asean, which has its own might and comprises a collection of countries that can do so much more for Afghanistan now than the US has done over the course of nearly two decades. Asean only needs to make the proverbial move.

As a whole, humanitarian organisations such as the International Rescue Committee and United Nations agencies remain in Afghanistan.

Let us take a page out of their book and play a part as individuals as well as band together in these times to help other members of the human race.

Yes, continue to help fellow Malaysians, by all means, with all vigour in spirit and in reality. But if nothing else, at least be aware of girls and women just like us in a place called Afghanistan.

If nothing else, just think of the girls and women in Afghanistan, who will be lost and forgotten in the crossfire.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.