For the Love of a Son: One Afghan Woman's Quest for Her Stolen Child

I will not carry on the Khail bloodline. Our
numbers will diminish. I have been obedient to you throughout my
entire life. But I will not marry a woman I do not respect. I will
not marry a woman I do not love.’
    Shair spluttered, shrugging with disbelief,
motioning with his hand for my father to leave. He believed my
father would soon change his mind, for what man does not desire
sons, but Shair waited in vain. My father lived the bachelor’s life
for a further three years, seemingly content to pursue his military
career and to spend time with his male friends.
    My father was considered such an excellent
catch that most of his friends were eager for him to marry into
their families. His best friend, Rahim, was more persistent than
most. ‘Ajab, I have a cousin who is not only educated and
intelligent, but also beautiful,’ he said. ‘She is so clever that
she was accepted at medical school, although she decided she would
rather be a teacher. She has a college degree and now has a good
position teaching at a girls’ school.’ After that, Rahim
hesitated.
    ‘She is very unusual, Ajab. She doesn’t speak
Pashto. She speaks Farsi. She has a career. When given the chance,
she throws off her veil.’
    My father listened carefully. At the time
very few women in Afghanistan were educated beyond the most basic
level. Most girls were taken out of school after grade six so they
could be married. Rahim’s cousin sounded completely different. He
wondered most how she found the courage to expose her face because
in 1956 it was still against Afghan law for a native woman to walk
around unveiled.
    Rahim hesitated once more. There was
something else he needed to tell my father. ‘She is of the Tajik
tribe,’ he said finally.
    My father’s jaw dropped. ‘A Tajiki ?’
My father shook his head in disbelief. ‘Rahim! Do you want my
brother to kill me with his bare hands? He would never allow me to
marry a Tajiki woman!’
    The Pashtun and the Tajik were the two
dominating tribal groups in Afghanistan and there had always been
bad blood between them. During Afghanistan’s long history, it had
not been unusual for the two powerful groups to resort to armed
hostilities.
    Our Pashtun tribe is the largest and most
powerful ethnic group in Afghanistan. It is also the group that
historically has dominated the government. While the homeland of
the Pashtun is south of the Hindu Kush area, Pashtun are scattered
throughout the country. The Pashtun are generally farmers while a
few are nomads, making the black goat-hair tent their home.
    The Tajiks are the second largest ethnic
group, mainly living in the Panjshir valley north of Kabul, as well
in the north-eastern provinces of Parwan and Badakhshan. Some
Tajikis also farm the land, but many are herders of sheep and
goats.
    The Pashtun and Tajik each had their own way
of living, their special cultures defined by an unwritten code.
Geographic factors greatly influenced the preservation of the
diversity between the two tribes. The two groups do not even share
a language, with the Pashtun speaking Pashto, and the Tajik
speaking Dari Persian, or Farsi. While the Pashtun rigidly avoid
contact with the Tajiki people, the Tajikis are more tolerant of
other ethnic groups. Due to their tolerance for diversity and
change, Tajikis tend to become more easily urbanized than do the
Pashtun.
    Certainly no tribe was more intolerant than
my father’s clan and the more intolerant a group, the more unified
they become. Pashtun men feel an overwhelming need to dominate and
defend what they know. If any Pashtun suffers harm to his honor, he
will be expected to seek revenge by physical retaliation or by
insisting upon compensation in money or property. Sometimes a
Pashtun man’s code of behavior conflicts with the strict
interpretation of Sharia (Islamic) law. When this happens, a
Pashtun man will often ‘do Pashto’, choosing the tribal way over
the religious code. To a Pashtun man, nothing is more important
than ‘doing Pashto’, regardless of who might be harmed.
    My father was a rare man for Afghanistan, who
opposed the ancient tribal codes, perhaps because he had personally
witnessed the terrible hurt such ignorance and inflexibility could
cause. Still, he was not willing to go to war against his brother
just so he could marry a Tajiki woman.
    ‘Forget it, Rahim,’ my father replied. ‘I
have enough problems as it is. My brother will not even agree for
me to marry an educated Pashtun girl.