By Sophie Soloway ’23
Global Editor
Two months after the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan, Mount Holyoke College’s McCulloch Center for Global Initiatives brought together a panel of several College alums from the nation to discuss its present and future. On Oct. 27, panelists Sadiqa Basiri FP ’09, Makhfi Azizi ’15, Farima Afaq ’15 and Sajia Darwish ’18 gathered in front of a virtual audience to discuss the ways that their work, families and lives have been impacted since the withdrawal.
One such impact centered around the changing potential for education, particularly the education of women, in Afghanistan. According to Time Magazine, World Bank data collected in 2020 shows that education rates in the country have been declining for months, with current literacy rates displaying a clear gender-based disparity. Their data suggests that 66 percent of adolescent boys in the country are literate, while only 37 percent of teenage girls can read and write. Since the withdrawal, the Taliban has stopped public schools from allowing young girls to re-enter their institutions.
One panelist, who wishes to remain anonymous due to her work and family remaining in Afghanistan, highlighted this loss.
“I had so many dreams. And I could see them taking shape, and I definitely knew that the education that I [got at] Mount Holyoke, that I would just go back and share with my community, with teachers as well as students,” the panelist said.
According to Darwish, this loss of education has devastated her family and friends.
“My oldest sister never got educated. My mom never got educated. If you draw a line, there was that generation on the end of that line — on one end — but then there was hope because the other end was getting educated, they were changing,” Darwish said. “Now, to think that both ends of that line are going to be uneducated — it will take a long time to come back.”
Darwish noted that this loss will impact those Afghans that left the country after Aug. 15, asking, “What does [the withdrawal] mean for education for Afghans outside the country? You look at refugees in the U.S. — where does their education lie? Many of them don’t get to higher education. They are just preoccupied with just thinking about survival in a different environment.”
Despite this loss, Darwish still has hope that she can aid in getting education to Afghans. “We have been able to get some of our students out and so I’ve been thinking about how to help them, and also people back home,” Darwish said.
While most panelists agreed on this topic, some questions brought about very different responses. In conversations surrounding the response of the United States, and of the primary concerns for modern Afghans, the panelists made their voices heard.
According to Afaq, debate was expected before the event began. “People may come with different points of views or perspectives,” Afaq told Mount Holyoke News. “It does have to do with the kind of experiences we might have had and where we are coming from — Afghanistan — because we have different ethnicities and tribes, and because of that reason we all have been impacted at different levels.”
Afaq expressed that one central point of this contention, for her, is the lack of inclusion in some conversations about the U.S. withdrawal.
“I think, being from Afghanistan, we all need to be inclusive of everybody. People did not point out … the minority groups. The Taliban have been discriminating against minority groups historically and presently: the women, activists, musicians.”
“I referred specifically to one of the minority groups — the Hazara ethnicity,” Afaq said. “The Hazara ethnic group and Shia religious minorities have been particularly targeted and persecuted by the Taliban and ISIS, whose mission is to exterminate the Shia and the Hazara minorities. The Taliban’s first regime — 1996-2001 — clearly demonstrates their cruelty and mass killings of the Hazara and Shia religious minorities,” Afaq explained.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated in a report on these violations against the Hazara group, “As stated frequently by Hazara activists in and outside Afghanistan, immense and increasing human rights violation is not one and only Hazaras’ concern, rather the central question is Hazaras’ survival by and large.”
Despite these disagreements, however, Darwish reflected on the importance of bringing this conversation to the Mount Holyoke community. In an interview with the Mount Holyoke News, Darwish said, “You get this influx of questions from people about, well, ‘What is happening? Are you okay?’ So I thought this talk was very helpful in terms of coming collectively from very different perspectives from Afghanistan. We could … voice all of the things that there's just not time to … And also do it in one sitting. There are so many pieces to it.”
The same anonymous panelist echoed this appreciation for the event.
“I’m really really proud of all our alumn[i] and they did an incredible job. And I’m so pleased for Mount Holyoke to step up and listen to what their students have to say … and also bringing the situation to the people, how dire the situation is, in terms of raising awareness to the students at Mount Holyoke and also the broader Mount Holyoke community.”
The panel concluded with calls to action, beyond the Mount Holyoke community and to the international one as it responds to the crisis in Afghanistan. Afaq said, “The International governments and communities can support the vulnerable people and minority groups through securing locations and corridors for humanitarian assistance and freedom of movement, document[ing] crimes through international human rights organizations, most importantly prioritize and provide refuge to these minority populations currently at serious risk, considering the urgency of the situation.”