By: Sdiqa Tufan
It was the last days of our university exams. Before class, I used to go to English Language Center early in the morning. I was on my way there when I received the call from my friend. “Where are you?” she asked. I told her.
Before long, she delivered the news that we had been fearing all along.
“The Taliban closed the universities,” she said.
In a moment, I felt all my dreams I had worked so hard to build shattering around me. I couldn’t believe it at first. I checked my social media feeds. And straight away, I saw someone had shared the announcement of the Taliban.
I’m a political science and international relations student at Avicenna University in my sixth semester. I studied my lessons with passion, excitement, and eager hope. I travelled long distances on many types of transport, I overcame economic barriers, and faced social challenges, just to reach the destination where I could read, study, and learn.
Three semesters, I studied under the new Taliban regime as problems mounted. I accepted them on face value, abiding by all kinds of rules and regulations that the Taliban imposed. I had one goal – to achieve my dream of graduating from university, and I would do whatever it took to get there.
I had made a vow to myself to escape the darkness and ignorance. I didn’t want to lead a humiliating and blind life. I wanted to live consciously. The truth is, I didn’t even want a ‘normal’ life. I knew that something greater is possible through education and knowledge.
When I heard the university was closed, time stopped. It was as if the world came to an end. All the love and passion for my goals turned into equally strong pangs of inescapable pain and regret.
I continued walking in the direction of the English Language Center. At least I could still go there. But on the way, I saw girls from Kaaj and Kausar Danish tuition centers walking in the street crying, their books in their hands.
“What’s happened?” I asked them.
“They closed the tuition center,” they replied. “Girls can’t study anymore.”
One of the girls asked me a question that I still don’t have an answer for.
“Tell me sister, by God, what is our sin?” she asked. I said nothing.
I felt a rush of hatred filling me up. The women and girls of Afghanistan were being buried alive – along with their dreams. In an instant, it felt like the bright and beautiful sun above us disappeared in front of my eyes. I was utterly deflated. Completely suffocated.
To those who created a situation where these inequalities are possible, where this oppression and tyranny is allowed, I say to you, you turned the lives of 36 million people backwards. You are watching the younger generation be destroyed and half of Afghan society be wiped out. You collected your luggage and left Afghanistan to go and live in the wealthiest countries in the world. Your sons and daughters study in the safest and most respected universities in the world.
You sold our bodies and minds over to buy a bit of comfort for yourselves and your children. It was you who brought this darkness into the lives of millions of people with your corruption, false promises and discrimination. We may not be able to explain why you have delivered us into this, but we will never forget the great and irreparable suffering you left us with.
