My long-running interest in Afghanistan led me to this vingette of the life of a family in Kabul. Norwegian journalist Åsne Seierstad moved to Afghanistan disguised in a burka just after September 11th. She ended up living with a Bookseller and his entire family, providing a rare glimpse into the lives people and families lead in the capital city. While Seierstad shares stories and experiences of each family member, she primarily focuses on the female experience. The Bookseller of Kabul goes beyond the historically, politically and militarily centric work on Afghanistan to present a picture of what life being lived on the ground is actually like.

Side note: This is the type of work policy-makers should be doing. Getting to know the people. The pulse of a culture and country. If more people were to look at it this way, US policy would be much more effective. Rather than spending trillions on defense and private contractors we could use those funds to see real change. It all starts with telling the right story…

[On The Taliban & Islam]

“When the Taliban arrived, all faces disappeared from Kabul’s streets.”

“Pakistan was the only country, besides Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, to officially recognize the Taliban regime.”

“Taliban are not in conflict with our culture. They respect the Koran, the Prophet, and our tradition. I would never have printed anything that went against Islam.”

“[under the Taliban] Life had lost its color.”

“September 1996 The Taliban rolled into Kabul, sixteen decrees were broadcast on Radio Sharia. A new era had begun. Prohibition against:

1. Female exposure
2. Music
3. Shaving
4. Mandatory Prayer
5. The rearing of pigeons and bird fighting
6. Eradication of narcotics and the uses thereof
7. Kite flying
8. Reproduction of pictures
9. Gambling
10. British and American hairstyles
11. Interest on loans, exchange charges and charges on transactions
12. The washing of clothes by river embankments
13. Music and dancing at weddings
14. Playing drums
15. Tailors sewing women’s clothes or taking measurements of women
16. Witchcraft”

“Women, you must not leave you homes. If you do you must not be like those women who wore fashionable clothes and makeup and exposed themselves to every man, before Islam.”

“Islam is a religion of deliverance and it decides that a certain dignity belongs to women. Women must not make it possible to attract the attention of evil people who look lustfully upon them.  A woman’s responsibility is to bring up a daughter and her family together and attend to food and clothes. If women need to leave the house, they must cover themselves up according to the laws of Sharia. If women dress fashionably, wear ornamented, tight, seductive clothes to show off, they will be damned by Islam Sharia and can never expect to go to heaven. They will be threatened, investigated, and severely punished by the religious police, as will the head of the family. The religious police have a duty and responsibility to combat these social problems and will continue their efforts until this evil is uprooted. Allahu akhbar—God is great.”

“[when wearing a Burka] The whole head must turn; another trick by the burka inventor: a man must know what his wife is looking at.”

“The Taliban forbade shoes with solid heels; the sound of women walking could distract men. But times have changed and if it were possible to click-clack in the mud, the whole bazaar would resound with an arousing cacophony of click-clack. Now and again one catch a glimpse of painted toenails under the burka, yet another little sign of freedom.”

“She [Suhaila Seddiq] was one of the very few omen under the Taliban who refused to wear the burka. In her own words: ‘When the religious police came with the canes and raised their arms to hit me, I raise mine to hit them back. Then they lowered their arms and let me go.’”

[On Women]

“The same thing was continually provoking me: the manner in which men treated women. The belief in man’ superiority was so ingrained that it was seldom questioned.”

“I imagine they regarded me as some sort of ‘bi-gendered’ creature. Had I been a man I could never have been able to live so close to the women of the household, without gossip circulating. At the same time there was no obstacle to my being a woman, in a man’s world”

“Poet Ferdusi said: “To succeed you must sometimes be a wolf and sometimes a lamb.”

“Height and fair skin are the most important Afghan status symbols.”

“The burka had been used for centuries, but not by large numbers of the population. It was reintroduced during the reign of Habibullah, from 1901 to 1919. He decreed that two hundred women in his harem should wear them so as not to entice other men with their pretty faces when they were outside the palace doors. …The burka become a garment of the upper class, shielding women from the eyes of the masses. As the use of the burka started among the upper class, they were the first to throw it off. The garment was now a status symbol among the poor, and many maids and servant girls took over the silk burkas of their employers.”

“One woman wipes her mouth; it is time to think of supper.”

“Jamila committed a serious crime, but more from ignorance than a wicked heart. She did not deserve to die. But Allah rules. However, one thing bothers her: the two days of family council when Jamila’s mother, her own mother agreed to kill her. She, the mother, it was, who in the end dispatched her three sons to kill the daughter. The brothers entered the room together. Together they put a pillow over her face; together they pushed it down, harder, harder until life was extinguished. Then they returned to the mother.”

“In Afghanistan a woman’s longing for love is taboo. … Young people have no right to meet, to love or to choose. Love has little to do with romance; on the contrary, love can be interpreted as committing a serious crime, punishable by death.”

“But in song and poem women have testified about their lives. … They protest with suicide and song.” … “One woman asks God to make her a stone in the next life, rather than a woman. None of the poems are about hope – on the contrary, hopelessness reigns.”

“Left alone, the women display a fierce, almost frightening power.”

“They are in one of the most lawless parts of the world, and they are bored.”

[On L-O-V-E & Marriage]

“Although it is not unusual for a man to take a second wife, and sometimes even a third, nevertheless, it is humiliating.”

“It’s a good sign when the bride is unwilling. That indicates a pure heart.”

“It’s a disgrace to be in love with a man one cannot have.”

“‘Imagine, when we’re married, and you’ve made my supper when I come home. You’ll always be there, waiting for me,’ Wakil dreams on ‘I’ll never be alone again.’”

“A bride must look artificial, like a doll. The word for doll and bride are the same—arus.”

“For the first time in her life someone is demanding an answer from her. He wants to know what she feels, what she thinks. But she feels nothing; she is not used to feeling anything. And she tells herself that she feels noting because she knows she must feel nothing. Feelings are a disgraces, Leila has been taught.”

“A wedding is like a small death.”

[On Afghanistan]

“First the Communists burnt my books, then the Mujahedeen looted and pillaged, finally the Taliban burnt them all over again.”

“About one quarter of Afghans are Tajiks.”

“Paradoxically, Kabul is one of the sunniest towns in the world. The sun shines nearly every day of the year, 6,000 feet above sea level.”

“Khost is a town without women, at least on the surface …They lead life locked in their backyard; they never go out, shop, or even visit. The law of purdah reigns, the total segregation of men and women.”

“In parts of Afghanistan, especially on the southeastern part of the country, homosexuality is widespread and tacitly accepted. Many commanders have young male lovers, and one often sees old men followed by a bunch of young boys. The boys adorn themselves with flowers in their hair, behind the ear, or in a buttonhole. This behavior is often explained by the strict purdah practiced in the southern and eastern parts of the country. It is not rare to see a goggle of mincing, swaying boy. They remind one of transvestites in the West. They stare, flirt, and wiggle their hips and shoulders.  The commanders do not live as homosexuals only; the majority of them have wives and a large brood of children. But they are rarely home and life is lived among men. Often major jealous drama develop around the young men….”

“Do you know who that is?” he asks. They [Afghani men] shake their heads. “That is Osama bin Laden.”

[On Education]

“Books printed by the Mujahedeen government and the Taliban are useless. This is how first-year schoolchildren learn the alphabet: ‘I is for Israel, our enemy; J is for Jihad, our aim in life; K is for Kalashnikov, we will overcome; …M is for Mujahedeen, our heroes;  …T is for Taliban… “

“War was the central theme in the math books too. Schoolboys—because the Taliban printed books only for boys—did not calculate in apples and cakes, but in bullets and Kalashnikovs, something like this: ‘Little Omar has a Kalashnikov with three magazines. There are twenty bullets in each magazine. He uses two-thirds of the bullets and kills sixty infidels. How many infidels does he kill with each bullet?”  ….  “Books from the Communist period cannot be used either. Their arithmetic problems deal with land distribution and egalitarian ideal. Red banner and happy collective farmer would guide children toward Communism.”

[Misc.]

“Rumi says: ‘The Ego is a veil between humans and God’.”

“In prayer all are equal.”