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

There were others
that denigrated America and England.
    Our school became a showplace for our Russian
invaders. Parades of visiting dignitaries marched across the border
to Kabul to be shown that Afghan schoolgirls were models of
communist youth.
    With each passing day, our lives became more
bizarre. And with each passing day, I became more angry. I
remembered that on my first trip abroad, when I was distressed by
Afghanistan’s lack of modernization compared to Pakistan and India,
my father had told me, ‘Maryam, you live under your own flag.’ But
now, our new government changed our beloved Afghan flag to resemble
the Soviet one. I was living under an alien country’s flag.
    A bubbling volcano of rage was building
inside my patriotic heart.
    The sister of our new President Taraki was a
newly employed teacher at my school. Although I did not dislike her
personally, I could not accept her close association with our new
communist regime. She was a fervent supporter of all that my family
and I hated. She pressured all the girls in her classroom to join
the communist party youth group. While some of my friends
compromised their beliefs and joined, I refused. Since I was a
leader in the school, she made me a personal case, counseling me to
join, sometimes whispering veiled threats. ‘Maryam, if you do not
join the youth group, your chances of being selected for higher
education will be endangered.’
    Such threats only make me more stubborn. ‘No,
thank you,’ I replied with a calm voice even as my fingers itched
to scratch her face.
    ‘Maryam, this will reflect badly on your
family.’
    I looked at her without speaking. I knew I
was making the right decision. I am not a person who can pretend to
go along with something I dislike just for a few benefits. If the
Communists would not allow me to leave Afghanistan to travel to
college in India, then I thought I might slip across the border
without official permission.
    My decision to refuse to enroll in the youth
group was considered subversive, yet I never regretted it. I heard
from other students who had joined that they were put under
unrelenting pressure to spy on their own families, to report any
anti-communist remarks they heard even from their own parents. They
were compelled to be present at mixed-sex party meetings,
gatherings which were offensive to our culture.
    While I had played with boys prior to
reaching puberty, once I passed into my teenage years I was no
longer allowed to play with boys in the neighbourhood, or to attend
mixed-sex events. Although I was pleased with one aspect of the
communist rule – that women would be treated equally at the
workplace, that women could vote and that women would gain some
legal rights – that did not mean I was comfortable mixing with boys
I did not know. The Communists were moving in the wrong direction
for conservative Muslim Afghanistan.
    Like many Afghan people I became more
religious after the Communists came to power. Before their arrival,
I had taken my religion lightly, feeling secure in my faith. But
with so many changes being imposed upon us, I, like many other
Afghans, clung to my Muslim faith with a new determination. During
Ramadan, I fasted diligently, never eating or drinking during the
daylight hours.
    During Ramadan a Polish television crew
appeared at our school. Before the crew arrived, we were briefed by
our teachers to praise the new government. It was a sham. Everyone
I knew resented and even hated the new regime.
    I was in a foul mood even before the
television crew arrived.
    Since we were seniors, we were scheduled to
be interviewed first. We were led to the courtyard of the school
and instructed to sit in a circle. The Polish film crew surrounded
us with blinding bright lights.
    I saw that one of the young men on the crew
was eating an apple. In the past I would not have noticed or cared
that a non-Muslim ate during Ramadan, but on that day I was struck
by a great fury. I longed for the power to sentence that stupid man
to a good flogging.
    Never one to temper my reactions, I exclaimed
in Farsi, ‘Shame on you, you idiot! This is Ramadan and you stand
there eating an apple? Where is your respect for our religion?’
    Several of my classmates giggled. One
whispered, ‘Maryam, your loose tongue will get you into
trouble.’
    ‘They are too dumb to understand Farsi,’ I
replied haughtily.
    Just then the young man tossed the apple to
the ground and said in perfect Farsi, ‘I am sorry.