Reporting on what was gained – and lost

I will never forget Nazeka.What is burned in my memory from my trip to Afghanistan in 2007 is her smile. Not because it was radiant, though it was. She was like a chirping mother bird among the brood of kids who seemed drawn to her.Instead, I remember the smile because of the story. An orphan living with her grandparents, she narrated with poise the time her grandfather’s mutilated body was delivered to her front door in a bag. He had offended the Taliban, and their vengeance was simply one more tale among a barbarous litany. Why We Wrote This In this week’s magazine, we look at the fortunes of Afghan women today from both inside Afghanistan and from Europe. These reports are a reminder of what was gained during the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and then lost. That regime has returned. Afghanistan’s women are today treated like property at best, and criminals at worst. Nazeka said then that she hoped to one day be president. Today, such dreams might put a woman in jail or expose her to the casual brutality of the Taliban’s paternal order.In this week’s issue, we look at the fortunes of Afghan women from two vantage points. From inside Afghanistan, we speak with two women who expose the cruelty of the new Taliban regime. Amid the everyday threats to women in Afghanistan, few such stories make it out of the country. The report is a reminder of what was gained during the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan and then lost.From Europe, we look at the Afghan women who got out and how the freedom to dream fuels them. Many take any opportunity to learn whenever, wherever, and however they can. And whatever knowledge they gain – even if it is limited – becomes an opportunity to help others.These stories are universal in many ways: the struggle against great odds, the resilience to persevere, the hope of better to come. Yet they ring a uniquely Afghan note.Pakistani Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai was named after Malala of Maiwand, the folk hero famous for rallying Afghan forces against the British during the Second Afghan War. At age 15, Ms. Yousafzai was shot in the head at point-blank range by a Pakistani Taliban gunman who boarded a school bus to kill her. He intended to silence her call for girls’ right to an education.In the moments after the attack, as she was being rushed away in critical condition, she told her father, “Don’t worry, Baba. I am going to be fine and victory will be ours.”I saw that same defiance in Nazeka’s smile.Tempered by generations of poverty, war, and rank prejudice, so many Afghan women refuse to be bowed or broken. Their determination goes beyond willpower and touches the fringes of deeper grace. Their stories are not chronicles of any time, place, or personality, but testimonies to the human spirit.