The news depicts Afghanistan as a war-torn wasteland. This isn’t how Zarifa Ghafari wishes her homeland to be seen, though it’s impossible to ignore the conflict. Ghafari is a fierce fighter herself – for the rights of women. This has made her both popular and a target.
The young Zarifa was fortunate enough to attend school in the ‘Golden Era’ when the education of girls wasn’t considered morally wrong. In 2005, aged 11, she was one of the school children who interviewed the president, Hamid Karzai. She was, however, also injured twice by suicide bombers in that same year.
This juxtaposition of good and bad highlights the dissonance within this narrative, particularly between male and female. She earns her place at university but is initially prevented from attending by her father. She’s selected as mayor of Maidan Shahr (an hour from Kabul) but is thwarted by entrenched corruption and misogyny. Social codes outweigh the law. Even without the extremes of the Taliban, these codes have exclusively favoured men. Non-Afghanis might think they’re aware of this, but the actual level of repression is soul-destroying. In Afghanistan, as Ghafari says, ‘every man is a little dictator’. The man who does treat her as an equal is her husband, Bashir.
Her work empowering women garners respect internationally, even though she’s often scorned in her own country. She obtains a position in the government’s defence ministry, but it’s immediately apparent that the government is doomed. The Taliban take control soon after and her life is again in danger.
Ghafari has the courage of her convictions to continue her advocacy against enormous odds. This is the riveting story of a most extraordinary woman.
Reviewed by Bob Moore
ABOUT ZARIFA GHAFARI
Zarifa Ghafari is a former female mayor of Maidan Shahr, capital city of the Wardak Province, Afghanistan. Zarifa was one of the few Afghan female mayors, next to the first Afghanistan’s mayor, Azra Jafari and Khadija Zahra Ahmadi, and was also the youngest to be appointed, at the age of 24.
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