For many families in Kabul, the arrival of the Taliban on the outskirts of the city was the final sign of the Taliban’s total control of the country. Despite the air of panic and tension everywhere, shops and offices remained open in the first week of August. But gradually everything started to open later in the day or not at all; people came to work in smaller numbers with unannounced absences while senior staff and civil servants began to make excuses for their absence. Prices went up in the bazaar as people started to panic buy from the stall holders and shopkeepers still trading.
As the Taliban physically entered Kabul on August 15th, going straight to the Presidential Palace to take symbolic control of the country and announce itself as the new government, many people either tried to leave the city in any manner available to them or just went into hiding.
Young single women like ‘Mubina’ (name and personal details have been changed to protect her identity) who is a university graduate and worked alongside Afghans and internationals alike, were torn between protesting for their rights and demanding careers on one hand and the traditional obligations of family on the other. Many such women decided to stay in Kabul for a mixture of these reasons.
This is the summarised diary of one single woman in Kabul, giving insights into her thoughts and fears, insightful observations, strength and resilience
September First Week: During this week I received several missed calls from an unknown number, which is normal and I ignored them. One morning I answered yet another call and a strange and muffled voice started to ask me questions in Pashtu with a strong Kandahari accent. He was asking me about my presence in the country and if I was still in Kabul. I did not reply but I checked the number on my mobile screen and it was an unknown number. I blocked the number and went downstairs to prepare the breakfast. Both my cousins had returned from one of the local clinics where they are working. They told us that their contracts are no longer valid and they could either work without salary or quit the job. Looking at them made me feel so bad that I forgot the weird call and did not tell my family about it.
Privately, the three of us, being the youngest in the house decided to try and stay positive and start looking at how to get passports to take the family out of the country. We would have to try and withdraw money from the bank. Apart from the costs of the passports, I already owed money to a dear friend who had helped purchase oxygen and medication for us when we all had COVID earlier in the year.
On the first day we went at 07:00 and found people had been queuing overnight with no guarantee of money. One man told us “if you come before 0600 sometimes they have a few slots available. Places are limited each day and you cannot take out more than $200. My cousin then went on his own daily for 7 days to make one withdrawal. Normally, $200 would be enough to meet daily house expenses for a month, but prices in the bazaar rise without warning, and the main passport office is also shut, but passports are still available on the black market for a huge sum. Everything is going to cost a lot more and cannot use any savings in the bank.
Knowing I could not pay my friend back immediately, I apologized to him and give him two pieces of jewelry to sell and get his money back that way, but he refused and then I heard he had left for the US. I was feeling so desperate and gloomy since he was my best friend and the one whom I counted on the most, and now there was more emptiness.
September Second Week: I received a call from my office Supervisor, I was not sure to answer if I should answer his call or not since I was concerned about my own safety, but I answered him. He was checking on whether I had fled or was still in the country. He asked me if I could return the office keys to submit and also told me to come in and follow up on some other work. I was scared and had weird thoughts of being trapped and taken away, I spoke to my cousin and he tried to console me and told me “Stop worrying and we will face everything together and you are not alone” he hugged me and wiped my tears.
When we reached the office compound, I saw that none of the previous guards were there, but some Talib armed men were standing with their guns. I saw them, and felt shocked and unable to walk towards the compound, my head was filled with images of fear and terror experienced as a child when the Taliban were last in power. I held my cousins arm very tightly and we walked up to the first guard together and asked them to allow me to go inside the compound. He stared at me angrily and shouted “No, you are not allowed to enter any official compounds. Go home and wait for the official announcement”. I felt very desperate and disappointed when I saw a male colleagues walking past me and entering the compound I was banned from, and just going in without even being challenged. As a woman, I will soon feel invisible.
September Third Week: On early morning 18th of September, some of my female friends at our main University created a WhatsApp group to discuss how to show solidarity and demand our rights as humans and women. It felt good to be able to share our frustrations and also find practical ways of making our selves visible and be taken notice of.
I secretly met with a small group that week and accompanied them to their campus. They had their ID cards and we all walked up to the armed guards. They told us entrance was forbidden until further notice, and one of the guards pointed his rifle at us. We started to shout loudly about our right to enter and how there was no clear announcement preventing us from entering universities. “Only our Commander knows this, you can speak with him” the guard replied. All four guards then turned their backs to us and ignored us. I borrowed my friend’s ID card and said I would go and speak to this so-called Commander. I walked up a tarpaulin tent by the gate, made between the walled and a parked police pick-up truck. As I entered, I saw some younger armed men look at me with shock and turned their backs to me immediately. Over their shoulders they asked me what I was doing there. I suddenly felt scared and surrounded by these men, I shrugged and struggled to find my voice and coughed to cover the fear. I encouraged myself to raise my voice and asked for permission to get into the campus. From over their shoulder, they asked how many people are you and what business you have in the faculty? I answered we need to collect our research documents and other important stuff. The Colder soldier who turned out to the Commander and the only one seated and facing us paused and yelled to his men to allow us in. When we got in, though we felt so happy, we were still scared of being chased or punished since we laughed out loud on the campus. Although looking back this was a tiny victory, it still felt very large for us.
September Fourth Week: The cost of passports on the black market are too high for us at the moment. Between the three of us younger family members, we agreed that my two cousins would alternate between them for daily visits to the bank to try and withdraw more funds. At least oil and flour prices in the bazaar have stopped rising for the moment. Gas bottle and wood prices are going up, but it also be because of the winter.
I noticed on the WhatsApp group formed by some university friends that the female staff will be kicked out of the university system and we need to come up with a justification or concept. However, most of the rumors were about slowly excluding the female staff from Engineering, Agriculture, Law, and Art Faculties. Several of us drafted a justification and a practical way to retain female staff across all 14 faculties and we agreed on a way to raise our voice with the new Acting Minister of Higher Education. Likewise, I was volunteered to develop a concept based on King Zahir Khan’s constitutional law and Shar’ia law, since the Taliban said that they only valued King Zahir Khan’s era constitutional Law. During the final parts of this discussion, I found that some of the female colleagues had leaked our messages from the WhatsApp group. It was done in a way that our discussions looked like we were planning a revolt and making a case to justify our vulnerability and to demand migration status to those outside the country. I was so worried and went speechless because I intended to support a female presence in higher education, but I stopped my writing work and I left the WhatsApp group immediately. I wondered why our own sisters would sabotage these plans and deleted all traces from my phone.
This week there was heavy fighting between resistance troops and Talib in Panjshir and I was feeling gloomy when I heard that Pakistani fighter jets bombarded Panjshir. I don’t know how true this was, but it added to my sadness and grudge that why Pakistan is still interfering in our internal or domestic fights and affairs.
On the 29th I woke to the sound of loud arguments from the street outside. I climbed onto the roof and saw that a rickshaw vehicle was stopped by Talib men and they were asking the two ladies why they were out without Mahram. One of the ladies was pleading and explaining it had been an emergency and asked to be excused for being without a Mahram. Suddenly I heard another voice and saw that their Commander yelled at his men to leave the ladies and leave the post. Afterward, they went back to their check-post and within 20 minutes they had closed and removed their check-post from my area. (They check post had been set up just in front of my house’s main gate from the very first day they got into power). By seeing them leaving our area I was very pleased because their presence was disturbing because I kept thinking any minute they will knock on our door and begin asking for things or want to search the house and harass us – but they didn’t; however, their presence was also good to avoid the thieves and thugs in our area. But ruling by fear is not the answer and not the way to win people’s respect.
