Bahaar - New spring for the female voice
بهار - فصل جدید برای صدای زن
Where the Afghan female voice echoes
I’ve always been enthusiastic about great writing, and couldn’t be happier to have turned my passion into an online platform where Afghan female voices are echoed. Lowering editorial barriers, dominated by often inaccessible and exclusive spaces, de-centering knowledge and knowledge-production on Afghan women, and offering those who are, for too long, spoken for and misrepresented the chance to speak for themselves, Bahaar is a multi-genre, feminist space for creative expression, projects, and writing of Afghan women, as well as feminist social commentary.
Malika Suraya, the queen who was ahead of her time
Queen Soraya, Mahmud Tarzi's highly educated and politically active daughter, and the wife of the young modernist king, Amanullah Khan, in her activism and political career, supersceded both those familial bonds in a deeply patriorchal society. Her committment, and that of her Syrian mother's, to education and female empowerment have left a lasting legacy in a society that still finds it difficult to accept that girls have an equal right to education.
Malali Joya, the woman who stood up to the patriarchy and warlordism
Malalai Joya's name has become synonymous with the Afghan women's struggle for equality and justice in the post-9/11 Afghanistan's deeply unequal and patriarchal society. This was a society that as re-imagined by Western forces for Afghans. She embodies the contradiction and broken promises of the US-led NATO military intervention in 2001, who using the image and symbol of subjugated Afghan women set out of "free Afghan women from Afghan men". Not only would it fail to do so, it would reinforces and create new patriarchal social arrangements. These are informed by and justified in the War on Terror global rhetoric and practice.
Anahita Ratibzad, the radical Marxist
Dr. Anahita Ratibzad as an Afghan socialist politician, and a member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). As a die-hard revolutionary Afghan woman, she played an active role in Afghanistan's formal political process, and as one of the first female doctors in the country. Also Dr. Ratibzad was the first Afghan woman to run for parliament as a candidate for the left. She remarkably secured a position in the 12th term of the parliament, representing the people of Kabul in the house of representatives for to terms. Ratibzad founded the women's Democratic Organisation of Afghanistan with a group of politically Afghan women. She played a lasting role in celebrating and normalizing key annual events, including International Women's Day and Mather's Day in Afghanistan.
