The Politics of Zan from Amanullah to Karzai

Lessons for Improving Afghan Women's Status

SHIREEN KHAN BURKI

Women are just like roses: A fresh rose is a happy sight. —Khushal Khan Khattak, Pashtun warrior poet, seventeenth-century C.E.

Since independence in 1919, the Afghan state's gender policies have involved a bewildering series of missteps, corrections, and more missteps, resulting in confusion, pain, and suffering for Afghan zan. Since the ouster of the Taliban regime, conditions for Afghan women improved under the Karzai government, but if history is any guide, gender policies and approaches are most likely to fail in Afghanistan unless they incorporate into the process the well-entrenched social and cultural norms of a traditional, patriarchal, primarily tribal society. In short, the historical record suggests that a gender template characterized by cautious, incremental efforts at improving female status stands the best chance of improving women's lives in the long term.

A LESSON IN CAUTION—1919 TO 1929

Afghanistan's "modernization" process—including the improvement of women's status—was first set in motion by Amir Amanullah's grandfather, Amir Abdur Rahman (1880–1901) and continued by his father Amir Habibullah (1901–1919), albeit limitedly. During Muhammad Amanullah Khan's reign (1919–1929), ambitious efforts were made to implement drastic social changes to improve women's status. Amanullah's views on women's role in society were not a response to widespread societal demands; rather they were influenced primarily by his in-laws (the highly intellectual Tarzi family) and by unfolding events in the region. Amanullah's gender policies, however, were completely divorced from the social realities of his extremely conservative, primarily tribal, and geographically remote country. Thus, under his father-in-law Prime Minister Mahmud Tarzi's tutelage, he undertook an ambitious and controversial program meant to transform Afghanistan into a modern state in the same mold as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's Turkey.

Amanullah's government began by emphasizing secular-based (that is, non-madrassa) education and established the first primary school for girls, Masturat School, in 1921 in Kabul, under the patronage of Queen Soraya. From 1920 to 1927, two primary schools and one middle school for girls were established in Kabul, with an estimated 700 students. These numbers, however, suggest that despite strong encouragement by the Amir, most Afghans were reluctant to send their daughters to obtain what was characterized as a secular education. Furthermore, the establishment of girls' schools was limited to urban areas such as Kabul and Herat and thus failed to benefit the provinces.

Although many members of the urban elite welcomed such schools for their daughters,Amanullah's promotion of a coeducational system—with the establishment of the Amaniya School in Kabul (named for the Amir)—was viewed with skepticism and/or disapproval. In 1928, fifteen female graduates of the Masturat Middle School, daughters of prominent Kabulis, were sent to Turkey for higher education. Sending young, unmarried girls out of the country was regarded with alarm in many quarters as yet another sign that the state, in its efforts to Westernize, was willing to push against social and cultural norms.

Queen Soraya, the Amir's only wife, was viewed by most Afghans as a controversial figure. She publicly campaigned for drastic change in women's roles and advocated for women's rights to education, employment, and divorce. Soraya's behavior, however, perplexed most Afghans and frequently was seen as alien and "un-Islamic." In a society where the dominant ethnic group, the Pashtun, adhered to the strictures of Pashtunwali, calls for women's rights made publicly by a woman challenged the embedded religious and cultural beliefs of a tribal society that did not view women as equals but only as property. Furthermore, the queen's advocacy on behalf of women impinged upon Afghan men's carefully nurtured nang ("honor" in Pashto), as members of a khel (clan) or qaum (tribal group). Across time, due to proximity to the dominant Pashtuns, other ethnic groups adopted cultural mores that mirrored the tenets of the ancient tribal codes, valuing family honor and its protection as a true measure of a man's worth and status in society. Pashtunwali stressed the importance of protecting one's zan (women), zar (gold/wealth), and zamin (land), in order to maintain izzat (respect)....