January 9th, 2013 at 2:57PM
You won’t allow me to go to school.
I won’t become a doctor.
Remember this:
One day you will be sick. —

Poem written by an 11-year-old Afghan girl 

This poem was recorded in a NYT magazine article about female underground poetry groups in Afghanistan. An amazing article about the ways in which women are using a traditional two line poetry form to express their resistance to male oppression, their feelings about love (considered blasphemous), and their doubts about religion. 

One of the best articles I’ve read all year. Here’s the link (via katyuno)

(via stay-human)
42,004 notes Source: katyuno #Afghanistan#misogyny#poetry
January 5th, 2013 at 11:30AM

haaretz:

Israel’s National Library recently purchased 1,000-year-old Jewish documents from Afghanistan. The documents were reportedly discovered by villagers in a cave in eastern Afghanistan, near the Iranian and Uzbeki border. The collection of 29 pages includes writings by Saadia Gaon.

79 notes Source: haaretz #Israel#Afghanistan#Jewish#Judaism
August 13th, 2012 at 2:59PM

watanafghanistan:

Afghanistan’s Only Music High School In Kabul

Marjan Fidaye,11, takes a break from violin lessons at the Afghanistan National Institute of Music on September 26, 2010 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s first and only music high school opened in June and now has 150 students, including 27 girls. The Taliban regime, from 1996 to 2001 banned all music, forcing many musicians to put away their instruments or go into exile. The school’s aim is to revive long-neglected musical traditions using both Afghan and foreign instructors. 25 students were recruited from the war-ravaged country’s large number of orphans and street children. There is a host of donor governments, international music colleges and instrument suppliers.

(September 24, 2010 - Source: Paula Bronstein/Getty Images AsiaPac)

(via obliquecity)

724 notes Source: watanafghanistan #Afghanistan
August 11th, 2012 at 9:01PM

afghanistaninphotos:

Afghan women take it to streets of Kabul to speak out against street harassment. (2011)

Mubaraka Sahar eagerly tells me that her sign reads: “Street Harassment is a Sin.” She is only 15, but is “really excited today to fight for our rights” at the first ever protest against street harassment in Afghanistan. 

(via akio)

132 notes Source: afghanistaninphotos #Afghanistan#Kabul#Feminism
August 10th, 2012 at 9:02PM
PS AJAM HAS A TUMBLR NOW

whoweretheqajars:

You know, Ajam Media Collective? Them!
4 notes Source: whoweretheqajars #Ajam#Iran#Persian#Iranian#Afghan#Afghanistan#Central Asia#Middle East
July 18th, 2012 at 4:55PM
salamalaikum: Old Afghanistan

salamalaikum:

Old Afghanistan

(via yanorayanora)

141 notes Source: salamalaikum #Afghanistan
July 18th, 2012 at 3:59PM
jylshaffer: RIP, Hanifa Safi,  a great advocate for Afghanistan’s women Find out more about Ms. Safi and the bombing that killed her here.

jylshaffer:

RIP, Hanifa Safi,  a great advocate for Afghanistan’s women

Find out more about Ms. Safi and the bombing that killed her here.

1 note Source: theraccoonqueen #Hanifa Safi#Afghanistan
July 15th, 2012 at 6:19PM
dgorman88: This picture shows the entire Jewish population of Afghanistan. Zablon Simintov (b. 1959, Turkmenistan) is a Turkmen-Afghan carpet trader and the caretaker of the only synagogue in Kabul. As of 2008, he is believed to be the sole remaining Afghan Jew still residing in Afghanistan. Simintov had lived with the second last remaining Jewish man in Afghanistan, Ishaq Levin, who died on January 26, 2005, aged around 80. The story of Simintov and Levin was the basis for a British play. Simintov deprecated Levin in an interview with British journalist Martin Fletcher. Levin had initially welcomed Simintov but the two fell out permanently when Simintov offered the caretaker help to emigrate to Israel to join the rest of the former Kabul Jewish community. Simintov is adamant that he made the suggestion only as he thought Kabul was too cold for the old man, but the older man took umbrage, thinking that Simintov was trying to take over the synagogue. A feud ensued, with the Taliban becoming involved after both men reported each other to the authorities for alleged wrongdoings ranging from running a brothel to misappropriating religious objects. Simintov says it is not easy to practice his religion alone. However, he has obtained special permission from the nearest rabbi, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to slaughter his own meat in line with kosher dietary laws that can normally only be done by a specially trained Jewish butcher. Simintov lives alone in a small room next to an old synagogue on Flower Street in Kabul and receives donations from Jewish groups abroad and sympathetic Muslim locals. His wife and daughters emigrated to Israel. When asked during an interview whether he would go emigrate to Israel, Simintov retorted, “Go to Israel? What business do I have there? Why should I leave?” In a video interview by Al Jazeera on 17 September 2007, Simentov suggested he may be interested in moving to Israel to join his two daughters. He says that he receives special kosher for Passover packages from Afghan Jews living in New York. Sometimes, he says, Jewish foreigners visit his home for the high holidays. Simintov has also been quoted as saying: “I don’t want my Jewish heritage erased. My father was a rabbi, my grandfather was a rabbi. We were a big, religious family…” However he wears his yarmulke only in private and is hesitant to take visitors inside the synagogue he calls home. The business owners on Flower Street, where he lives, call him “Zabolon the Jew.” They say they don’t know him well but greet him when he passes by.

dgorman88:

This picture shows the entire Jewish population of Afghanistan.

Zablon Simintov (b. 1959, Turkmenistan) is a Turkmen-Afghan carpet trader and the caretaker of the only synagogue in Kabul. As of 2008, he is believed to be the sole remaining Afghan Jew still residing in Afghanistan.

Simintov had lived with the second last remaining Jewish man in Afghanistan, Ishaq Levin, who died on January 26, 2005, aged around 80. The story of Simintov and Levin was the basis for a British play. Simintov deprecated Levin in an interview with British journalist Martin Fletcher. Levin had initially welcomed Simintov but the two fell out permanently when Simintov offered the caretaker help to emigrate to Israel to join the rest of the former Kabul Jewish community. Simintov is adamant that he made the suggestion only as he thought Kabul was too cold for the old man, but the older man took umbrage, thinking that Simintov was trying to take over the synagogue. A feud ensued, with the Taliban becoming involved after both men reported each other to the authorities for alleged wrongdoings ranging from running a brothel to misappropriating religious objects.

Simintov says it is not easy to practice his religion alone. However, he has obtained special permission from the nearest rabbi, in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, to slaughter his own meat in line with kosher dietary laws that can normally only be done by a specially trained Jewish butcher. Simintov lives alone in a small room next to an old synagogue on Flower Street in Kabul and receives donations from Jewish groups abroad and sympathetic Muslim locals. His wife and daughters emigrated to Israel. When asked during an interview whether he would go emigrate to Israel, Simintov retorted, “Go to Israel? What business do I have there? Why should I leave?” In a video interview by Al Jazeera on 17 September 2007, Simentov suggested he may be interested in moving to Israel to join his two daughters.

He says that he receives special kosher for Passover packages from Afghan Jews living in New York. Sometimes, he says, Jewish foreigners visit his home for the high holidays. Simintov has also been quoted as saying: “I don’t want my Jewish heritage erased. My father was a rabbi, my grandfather was a rabbi. We were a big, religious family…” However he wears his yarmulke only in private and is hesitant to take visitors inside the synagogue he calls home.

The business owners on Flower Street, where he lives, call him “Zabolon the Jew.” They say they don’t know him well but greet him when he passes by.

(via byerushalayim)

47 notes Source: Wikipedia #Judaism#Afghanistan
July 1st, 2012 at 10:34AM
mehreenkasana: The number of girls able to go to school in Afghanistan has gone up dramatically in the last 10 years - Report by BBC However, a series of recent attacks on schools across the country has lead the Afghan government to close down some 500 schools. In an act of defiance - schoolgirls carry on attending lessons. Before the proponents of the US invasion jump on to hijack this achievement by Afghan girls as something as a “positive outcome” of the American war on Afghanistan, stop. They weren’t able to do this because of the war; they did this because they are resilient, optimistic and strong human beings. The US war did not exactly emancipate or empower these women. Every form of defiance they have shown was because they possessed the will to overcome obstacles - both foreign and domestic -  not because of some jingoistic invasion. Today they defy extremism - whether displayed by the Taliban or the US Army - on their own. This achievement belongs to the Afghan women. More power to them.

mehreenkasana:

The number of girls able to go to school in Afghanistan has gone up dramatically in the last 10 years - Report by BBC

However, a series of recent attacks on schools across the country has lead the Afghan government to close down some 500 schools. In an act of defiance - schoolgirls carry on attending lessons.

Before the proponents of the US invasion jump on to hijack this achievement by Afghan girls as something as a “positive outcome” of the American war on Afghanistan, stop. They weren’t able to do this because of the war; they did this because they are resilient, optimistic and strong human beings. The US war did not exactly emancipate or empower these women. Every form of defiance they have shown was because they possessed the will to overcome obstacles - both foreign and domestic -  not because of some jingoistic invasion. Today they defy extremism - whether displayed by the Taliban or the US Army - on their own. This achievement belongs to the Afghan women.

More power to them.

143 notes Source: BBC #Afghanistan#Education#Women's rights
June 11th, 2012 at 8:03PM

bankuei:

holzmantweed:

“When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.”

— Arundhati Roy (via jahanzebjz)

Welp 1 and Welp 2.

(via zaataronpita)

5,178 notes Source: jahanzebjz #Feminism#Niqab#Burqa#Hijab#Afghanistan#Women