Afghan parliamentarian Fawzia Koofi plans to run for president in 2014. She believes Afghanistan’s politics has not been about policy reforms and that its success depends on education

Reviewed by Razeshta Sethna

AT the Nato summit in Chicago in May, the international community pledged to bolster Afghan security forces beyond 2014, at the cost of four billion dollars per year. This might guarantee that security remains a priority for Afghanistan’s western allies, especially nearer the 2014 elections as the foreign troop withdrawal begins. But many believe that withdrawing troops so close to an election will have disastrous political consequences. Insurgents are ready to take control of previously insecure provinces in the south and east where Taliban influence is prevalent: girls’ education has come under attack, students poisoned and women have been subjected to violence. And if and when the war economy disintegrates, and humanitarian aid decreases, sociopolitical gains will be badly affected. When it comes to women’s rights, there is apprehension that without continuous investments and support, they might suffer the same fate as under the Taliban.

Thirty-six-year-old Fawzia Koofi, the author of The Favored Daughter: One Woman’s Fight to Lead Afghanistan into the Future (co-authored with Nadene Ghouri) is also currently chair of the Afghan parliament’s women affairs committee, and has lived through Taliban rule as a young woman. Ten days after she was married her husband was imprisoned and tortured by the Taliban because of her family’s political connections. He eventually died of tuberculosis he contracted in jail. The mother of two has also survived two attempts on her life. She is of the view that the international community has not successfully strengthened governance and security and that a rapid withdrawal plan could bring back extremist forces as the Afghan government is weak, corrupt and unable to provide basic services and jobs.

Koofi, who announced earlier this year that she will run for the 2014 presidential election, was elected to the Afghan assembly in 2005 and became its first female deputy speaker. In her memoir she talks about what it means to be a woman in Afghanistan and why educating girls is critical to the future of Afghanistan. Koofi studied medicine until the Taliban came to Kabul and then she had no choice but to marry, later working as a child protection officer with the United Nations in Faizabad as their only female employee. When she lost her husband Hamid in 2003, she writes that remarrying was out of the question and because “politics was in [her] blood”, she lobbied her extended family of patriarchs and former mujahideen commanders to consider her as their political scion. Koofi is convinced that the majority of Afghans are not opposed to a woman as president.

Koofi writes about her ancestral constituency, Badakshan, a province that has the highest rate of maternal and infant mortality in the world because of inaccessibility to medical care. She narrates the story of a 30-year-old pregnant mother of five whom she meets on her campaign travels to her ancestral village. Gravely ill, the choice for the woman and her family was selling their goat and paying for her treatment or letting her die. If she died, her husband could remarry, the woman told Koofi, but if they lost their goat, the family would starve.

Koofi was born into a traditional family, her father’s 19th child out of 23 and her mother’s last. When she was born, her mother was distraught at the birth of yet another daughter just when her husband’s younger, 14-year-old-wife had given birth to a son. Fawzia was left to die as her mother was exhausted from childbirths and beatings and watching her husband — a powerful parliamentarian from Badakshan — marry younger women. Yet, Koofi’s mother was the one who kept the extended family united and safe when her father was murdered by mujahideen rebels who opposed the government, and is the person Koofi looks towards for inspiration.

In spite of a childhood as a girl child, a “poor girl”, Koofi recalls fond memories of growing up amid orchids and mountains “bathed in the colours of [the] orange summer sun and white winter snow, the smells of the apple and plum trees outside our house, my mother’s radiant smiles, and the scent of her long, dark, plaited hair”. Koofi also discusses the darker side of being born a girl in a conservative family. Giving child brides in marriage was custom for patriarchal families like hers in the 1970s and is still a prevalent custom in Afghanistan’s rural areas, although 16 is the legal age of marriage in the country.

Each chapter of the book begins with a letter to her two daughters, and there is also one for her father, penned when she wins a parliamentary seat in the elections, inheriting his political legacy. In one of the letters to her daughters Shuhra and Shaharzad, she writes: “‘Just a girl’ would have been my life story, and probably yours too. But the bravery of my mother changed our path. She is the hero of my dreams.” There are constant references to the wisdom, bravery and resilience of not only her mother in this narrative — often written with less than perfect expression — but other young women, relatives, friends and complete strangers that Koofi has chanced to meet.

In her letter to her mother, Koofi writes: “I learnt from you that literacy alone is not enough to bring up good children, but intelligence, patience… and self-sacrifice. This is the example of Afghan women, women like you who would walk miles with an empty stomach to make sure your children get to school.” Her mother Bibi Jan married at 16 and was illiterate. After Koofi’s father was killed and the family moved to Kabul, her mother would wait outside their apartment for her to return from school. It was during the civil war in the 1990s and she would be terrified, often telling her daughter that if the classroom can make you a president, I’d rather you don’t become president and stay alive. Later Koofi recalls having to plead with her brother to attend school and to marry the man of her choice although he wasn’t as wealthy as her family. For Koofi, it’s been about learning to navigate through the worst, which meant living with the Taliban. An account of how she and her close family survived the brutal regime takes up much of the book with memories of visiting her husband in jail and a Taliban guard once hitting her with a stone for wearing nail polish.

In her opinion, talking to the Taliban about reconciliation is a mistake, “another short-term quick fix that will do nothing to solve the world’s problems.” She advises her daughters not to be afraid of anything in case she doesn’t make it back home one day: “I live this life so that you — my precious girls — will be free to live your lives and to dream all of your dreams.” Koofi is aware of the risks she has to take: her father was assassinated when she was a young girl and his wives and children had to flee their village and her brothers were killed. The Taliban had planned to assassinate her by placing a bomb under her car because they did not approve of a woman holding a prominent political position.

Any political settlement with the Taliban might be inevitable but there is debate around whether they should be given a political voice under a democratic system. Koofi and other parliamentarians who support progress say that they cannot see the Taliban sitting in parliament with female politicians and debating legislation. Neither will they relinquish their form of ultra-conservative Islam or stop short of imposing their version of sharia law. Afghan women, rights activists, politicians and educationists fear that they will be stripped of all their freedoms — of expression, political participation, education and health care — and the gains made over the past decade if political deals are made with the Taliban. This memoir is Koofi’s story from childhood to her political renaissance. It is a reminder for the international community and the Karzai government of the perils of ignoring 30 years of war, oppression and the Taliban.

The reviewer is a staffer at the monthly, Herald

(AFGHANISTAN)

By Fawzia Koofi with Nadene Ghouri

Palgrave MacMillan

ISBN 0230120679

266pp. $35