As usual, Shakila woke up early, took breakfast and prepared for school. She kissed her parents goodbye and left home for school. The sound of her footsteps receded into the distance. Her school was a little too far, and on the way she daydreamt in the world of her childhood. Perhaps, she would ambitiously dream about going to university imagining a bright future for herself. Maybe, she had been wishing to fulfill her parents’ ambitions. That morning also she went deep in her daily childhood fantasies unaware of the cruelties and wickedness of the world. She approached one of her neighbors’ home. Suddenly a sinister face of an 80-year-old man appeared grinning wickedly. It was her neighbor who kept an old animosity with Shakila’s father intending to vent his anger on her. Irrespective of her innocence, he committed honor-killing against her.
All Shakila’s wishes and desires were messed up. Going to university, which was her dream come true, was no more than a mere imagination. Her view about the world has been changed and it is not the utopia she always cherished.
Shakila’s father turned lunatic holding his daughter’s hand and taking her from door to door to raise his voice. He was smoldering with strong pain and boiling anger and talking with a lump in his throat about what was done to his innocent daughter. Of course, his words could not articulate his burning emotions. He was trembling with pain and rage, talking to whoever passed him. Whenever Shakila’s father was talking about the incident, she was keeping her distance, standing still and hanging her head. Can you imagine the heartache felt by her mother?
In Afghan society, perhaps the longest wish cherished by mothers is to see their daughters’ wedding. But, to her mother’s unmitigated chagrin, when a girl is raped, especially in the villages, she would be known notorious among the people, despite her innocence. Therefore, she would miss all her suitors and mostly remain single for her whole life. Hence, she had to grin and bear it.
There lie many cultural barriers for women in our society. An Afghan woman will have an honorable life when she lives without complaining about injustice at the hands of her husband. Often women are made to marry persons against their inner choices. A woman who keeps silent, despite hearing biting words, foul languages, mental and physical tortures, etc. is a woman of life in ideal Afghan culture.
As an Afghan citizen, whenever I hear the phrase ‘violence against women’ I, uncontrollably, imagine an addicted man with a keen knife in his hand and her wild laughter resounding in a pitch black cellar walking towards a woman to harm her. In the meantime, I hear the woman sobbing with utmost chagrin imploring the man not to hurt her. After black and white pictures blinking before my eyes for a moment, I see the woman unconscious and blood gushing from her wounds made by the man’s knife.
While observing the violence and cruelties going on in the society, one will concludes that Thomas Hobbes said very rightly that “man is a wolf to [his fellow] man” which can be interpreted to mean that man preys upon man.
Susan B. Anthony says, “The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not. Being persons, then, women are citizens; and no state has a right to make any law, or to enforce any old law, that shall abridge their privileges or immunities. Hence, every discrimination against women in the constitutions and law of the several states is today null and void, precisely as is every one against Negroes.”
By then, Shakila must know that we live in the era that humanity and moral values are hardly ever found. Religion is practiced only in words or has been misconstrued and used as a shield by the dirty people who claim to be the only religious group. In other words, religion has changed into a tool on the hands of specific people who bear the expertise to use it for their personal advantages at the cost of others’ lives and interests. She must know that moral corruptions are committed under the aegis of moral values. There are many wolves in the sheep’s clothing plotting against simple and honest people.
Mahatma Gandhi says, “There are times when you have to obey a call which is the highest of all, i.e., the voice of conscience even though such obedience may cost many a bitter tear, and even more, separation from friends, from family, from the state to which you may belong, from all that you have held as dear as life itself. For this obedience is the law of our being.”
It is worthy of mention that religion intends to guide mankind to the right path, to instill moral values in us, to quench one’s spiritual thirst for virtue, and to uproot cruelty and violence from human society. Whenever human societies were deep in vice, violence and immorality, and shrouded in the darkness of crime and corruption, the holy messengers of God emerged with a set of moral codes and religious compass to humanize the society and to guide human beings towards righteousness. Now, it is we to embrace the moral codes and religious guidelines so as to live a life empty of cruelties, violence ….
John Foster Dulles says very aptly, “Economic and military power can be developed under the spur of laws and appropriations. But moral power does not derive from any act of Congress. It depends on the relations of a people to their God. It is the churches to which we must look to develop the resources for the great moral offensive that is required to make human rights secure, and to win a just and lasting peace.”