“My pain grows as my life dwindles” * : Women,poetry,and resisting state violence in Afghanistan

Abstract

Western media reporting on the post-9/11 Taliban regime in Afghanistan propagated the image of Afghani women as being helpless, voiceless victims in desperate need of external intervention to rescue them from oppression—i.e. the faceless woman dressed in the all-encompassing blue burqa. Contrary to such symbolizing, and drawing on Hayward and Schuilenburg’s (2014) criteria for resistance, this article examines the longevity and endurance of Pashtun poetry as a vehicle of resistance for women and girls in their fight against state-sanctioned patriarchal oppression. Not only does this undermine the broader narrative of helplessness propagated by the West, but it illuminates the agency, resilience, and bravery of women who challenge the status quo and achieve greater participation in public and political life.

Keywords

Art gender patriarchy poetry resistance women

In Afghanistan, Pashtun poetry has long been recognized as a form of rebellious expression for women and girls, who despite being faced with extreme conditions of state-endorsed structural inequality, reject perceptions of them being defeated or submissive. Contrary to the imagery of the oppressed woman existing only “behind the burqa” (Saeed, 2015: 299) that was propagated as part of the largely Westernized protectionist rhetoric of the post-9/11 US-led occupation, women often engage the public sphere in innovative and creative ways (Saeed, 2015; Siddiqui et al., 2014). For example, during Taliban rule women belonged to clandestine literary groups where they met under the pretense of sewing together to read and write (Griswold, 2012). The most known of these groups is the Golden Needle that met in the Herat region of Afghanistan. In defiance of the Taliban, members of this group met regularly to read, write, and hear lectures from professors of literature from Herat University. Also consider that post-conflict Afghanistan has seen the initiation of legislative theater as a means to address women’s human rights. In what has been termed the “theater of the oppressed” (Boal, 1979), women engage in participatory theater as a means to access the public sphere, influencing political discourse in an attempt to institute radical social change (Saeed, 2015). In a similar vein, and the topic of focus here, is the long enduring practice of the use of poetry, specifically Pashtun poetry, as a form of resistance. Here, women and girls have actively used textual constructions to contest broader cultural productions of oppression, as a means to assert a counter-narrative to the dominant ideology of women as being passive and voiceless.

Building on broader attempts to address a state crime of resistance (Stanley and McCulloch, 2013), and more specific works on the less often mediatized women’s resistance to state oppression and violence in Afghanistan (Saeed, 2015), I examine the social, political, and cultural importance of poetry as a form of micro-resistance. It is through this analysis that I unpack the importance of the spoken word as “telling truth to power” (Bibby, 1996: ix) as it relates to the transmission of cultural, social, and political criticism by a structurally oppressed group, that of women and girls, while simultaneously cautioning against Western tendencies to overgeneralize and reduce the experiences of women in Afghanistan to a monolithic caricature of a voiceless victim shrouded in a blue burqa in need of Western liberation (Saeed, 2015). While acknowledging the argument of Hayward and Schuilenburg (2014) that there is a tendency in the West to be indulgent in the application of the term “resistance”, especially as it relates to cultural productions that appear subversive to the “mainstream”, I argue that the poetry of the women of Afghanistan does constitute resistance. It is through art, specifically poetry, that cultural logics propagated by the West are disrupted, challenging not only topics addressed in the content of these poems (i.e. politics, war, and drones), but Western constructions of Afghani women. It is my contention that the persistence of such messages of resistance and the intersection of the self with the collective have provided the foundation for a “transformative agenda” (Hayward and Schuilenburg, 2014: 34)—the increased rejection of Western tropes and greater attention to women’s rights as human rights in Afghanistan. I also call attention to the political and social endurance of the poetry despite efforts of suppression and the imposition of rigid systems of control, including that of the Taliban, the US occupying forces, and broader systemic and historical gender structures and practices. I begin with a brief overview of the current literature on state crime and resistance, and poetry as resistance, before introducing the subject of Pashtun poetry.

State crime and resistance

There is a growing state crime literature on the topic of resisting state violence (Friedrichs, 2009; Iadicola, 2009; Kramer, 2009; Ross, 2009; Rothe, 2009a; Stanley and McCulloch, 2013; White, 2009). Although the study of resistance is not new to criminology—there is a broad literature on effecting social, political, and legislative change—this research specifically orientates resistance as a means to control, influence, or constrain state criminality (Rothe, 2009b) by tackling a broad variety of issues. The topics addressed range from the seemingly sudden and collective resistance shown by the people of Egypt in the Arab Spring Uprising (Friedrichs, 2013), to escapes from Australia’s immigration detention centers as epitomizing resistance to the state’s immigration control policies (Grewcock, 2013), to the advancement of different frameworks to view and understand resistance behaviors (Pantazis and Pemberton, 2013). Although there now exist several studies on state-resistance behaviors (Friedrichs, 2013; Green and Ward, 2013; Kramer, 2013; Nadarajah and Sentas, 2013), of particular relevance here are the studies that examine art and performance not only as a vehicle for resisting state oppression, but as a means to invite public interaction with the resistance message (Cheliotis, 2012; Ferrell, 1993; Kauzlarich, 2013; Tunnell and Hamm, 2009; Van Der Merwe, 2014).

Artistic expression has long been recognized as a tool for propagating counter-narratives (Cheliotis, 2014; Kauzlarich, 2013; Scott, 1990) or as a means to give voice to counter or subcultures (Reed, 2005). Whether it is through music, poetry, storytelling, painting, dance, theater, or fashion, artistic expression contains within it political ideologies that can be, and have been, used to resist state power and control and/or violence (Bennett and Peterson, 2004; Finley, 2002; Martinez, 1997; Roberts and Moore, 2009; Saeed, 2015; Scott, 1990; Shirli, 2005). For example, Cheliotis (2014) recognizes the role of art as a tool of resistance for prisoners to draw attention to the inhumane conditions suffered, to convey political messages, and to retain their autonomy while incarcerated. Conversely, he also draws attention to how arts-in-prison programs are used as a mechanism of state control. Such programs act as internal controls by enforcing rule conformity within the prison itself, and as image controls by promoting humanism and social justice platforms to the general public.

The power of art in shaping social protests and movements, both in their genesis and success, has been long recognized (Isaac, 2008). Crucial to the success of such movements is the dramaturgy of performance that connects the cultural logics of the art to a broader public audience (Eyerman, 2006; Ratliff and Hall, 2014). As argued by Kauzlarich (2013), art (specifically music) can be used to collectively resist state crime, war, and human rights abuses, but only when there is an active public audience that is able to connect with the characteristics of the performance. This includes the subject of dissent, the target of the complaint, and the “stage” on which the performance occurs (Ratliff, 2011; Ratliff and Hall, 2014). Furthermore, Hayward and Schuilenburg (2014) argue true resistance only occurs when three conditions are met. The behavior has to be: 1) inventive, 2) imitated, 3) then linked to a broader transformative agenda. This is necessary if the intent is to garner greater support and legitimacy from the public at large, leading to enduring social and political change. Although Hayward and Schuilenburg (2014) restrict their analysis to the West, where the process of imitation is captured by the mass consumerisms of post-modern societies, the socio-political climate of rural Afghanistan provides a different cultural context for consideration—a cultural landscape where the prioritizing of capital accumulation, consumerism, and privatization does not dominate in the same way. Successful imitation in the Afghani sense therefore, could be achieved when the inventive behavior becomes routinized or habitual, a commonplace feature of daily life. It is then, that the resistance agenda, if successful, receives political legitimacy and leads to social transformation. However, even when all of the abovementioned criteria are not fulfilled, something Hayward and Schuilenburg (2014) contend happens rarely in the West, it is important to recognize that art as a means of resistance has historically served alternative, yet significant purposes that were not solely dependent on an active public audience.

Art as a vehicle for resistance has provided and continues to provide records of events that have transpired—often when more formal methods of recording life histories are unavailable to certain populations. Power differences often prevent those in subordinate positions from articulating freely; rather, they may defer or consent to the dominant discourse as part of their public performance, or what Scott (1990: 4) terms the “public transcript.” Yet, in private settings, subordinate groups provide commentary that may support, contradict, or communicate thoughts and feelings on the public transcript. These “hidden transcripts” (Scott, 1990: 4) are produced and performed in different power contexts and for different audiences than the public transcript. A comparison of the two discourses can be instructive as to the pervasiveness of the hegemonic discourse in the public realm. For example, there is a noticeable recorded history of enslaved peoples using song and verse, as well as storytelling, to preserve histories and resist state violence (Aptheker, 1969; Roberts, 1972; Sullivan, 2001). While these particular records of history may not have entered the public transcript of the time or initiated substantial political or social change, retrospection has provided for their legitimation as a challenge to “official” historical accounts which are then more readily accepted as being one-sided or biased. Furthermore, these micro-level acts also had real transformative consequences, as song and verse served a practical purpose for African slaves who used music and the rhythmic beats of drums to transmit hidden messages and instructions for action. As noted by Sullivan (2001: 21), “[u]sing drums to spread messages in a rhythmic language undeciphered by Whites, slaves could orchestrate revolts on land and on slave ships as well.” Thus, art—and the messages contained within it—can be audience specific, intended to clandestinely subvert or distract the attention of authority in order to serve a practical end. Resistance, therefore, is context specific and can be active or passive (Friedrichs, 2009), interactional in its construct, or for the purposes of organizing large segments of the population, containing within it symbols for strategizing and energizing large-scale social change. Like music, poetry has long been used to vocalize concern, criticism, anger, and frustration about a range of issues including oppression, power, and state-sanctioned violence.

Poetry as resistance

There is a long history of poetry being used to resist, act against, counter, and give voice. From classical Greek poets such as Homer to the more modern-day open-mic format of the poetry slam, the poem in its very construct makes the “subjective objective [and] … the inner world of the ‘personal’ experience available for public ‘political’ discussion” (Reed, 2005: 87). Poetry can be distinguished from other forms of artistic expression due to its level of reflexivity; there is a performer who is present “mak[ing] speech into art” (Gurevitch, 1999). The language and its meaning are dependent on the body, as “the body must be brought forth to curtail the trance and sway of the imaginary of both speaker and audience” (Gurevitch, 1999: 525). The body becomes the site of knowledge that must be scrutinized. In addition, poetry is as much about that which is uttered as it is about that which is not, as the speech becomes the object of analysis. Argued by Gurevitch (1999: 526), “the poetic … implies a reflexivity of utterance (word, sentence, line) that shifts the focus from the referential function – speaking about things – to speaking or language itself as matter, or as that which matters.” The spoken word interlaces fact, fiction, truths, and interpretations with the issue of depth and variety of meaning within the text itself, but also as it relates to the human body speaking, giving the poetry performance. It is this reflexivity that gives the spoken word power as the individual can question, counter, and negate the institutional language (Gurevitch, 1999) or hegemonic discourse surrounding a particular topic. The subversive power of the spoken word can, by its very nature, be used to resist or reclaim the truth where an individual can become the voice of the collective. Therefore, the individual, their body and voice, become the “stage” for the dramaturgical performance (Ratcliff and Hall, 2014), giving momentum and coherence to the performance of protest gaining traction and meaning over time.

For women, poetry has been an instrumental vehicle for “consciousness raising” and has been an enduring tool of feminist movements and resistance expression throughout the globe. From British women’s wartime poetry of the First and Second World Wars (see the works of Margaret Postgate Cole, Charlotte Mew, Marjorie Wilson, and Vera Britain, to mention but a few), to the poetry that was instrumental to the challenge to epistemology launched by the US feminist movement (Reed, 2005), to the oral histories of the women of Morocco’s independence movement (Baker, 1998), to the Bedouin women of Egypt’s use of poetry as a tool of resistance and an expression of cultural autonomy (Abu-Lughod, 1986), poetry has been used to insert and shape ideas, positions, attitudes, expression, as well as to form actions that can be circulated to specific groups and larger communities (Reed, 2005). Through poetry there has been recognition that language conveys knowledge which gives voice and power to the marginalized, trivialized, pacified, and silenced. As argued by Audre Lorde (2007: 37):

For women, poetry is not a luxury. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change, first made into language, then into idea, and then into more tangible action. Poetry is the way we give name to the nameless so it can be thought.

Poetry allows for the identification and circulation of collective experiences as well as differences, where the experience of the self can be simultaneously in tension with, yet part of, the experiences of the group. Poetry provides a secondary discourse, an alternative to the mundane discourse of everyday communication. The poet can retain their autonomy as poetry allows them to step outside culturally prescribed behavioral expectations, such as rigid honor codes that are inherent to Afghan society, and express sentiments that are more intimate. The poet can therefore simultaneously express vulnerability while retaining perceptions of social and cultural honor (Abu-Lughod, 1986).

Poetry does not simply reflect on a particular experience or phenomenon; rather, it is what Young (2013) terms “auto-theoretical,” where self-reflection, cultural and social commentary, as well as consciousness raising, enter the public realm initiating further theorizing as well as action. Giving platform to the hidden transcript “does not merely shed light on behavior or explain it; it helps constitute that behavior” (Scott, 1990: 189). This does not always take the form of public protest or open declarations of rebellion; instead, everyday forms of micro-resistance can be exercised quietly and/or in a piecemeal manner, collectively asserting a group’s rights in a practical manner that assuages the necessity for direct confrontation in the renegotiation of power relations (Scott, 1990). The hidden transcript, therefore, “is a condition of practical resistance rather than a substitute for it” (Scott, 1990: 191). It is in the public realm, whether entrance is achieved directly or quietly, that lived experiences are given form, become visible and audible—they become real, gaining collective political legitimacy. It is from this perspective, coupled with the aforementioned criteria offered by Hayward and Schuilenburg (2014), that the social, political, and cultural importance of Afghani women’s poetry as a form of resistance, simultaneously interactional and collective, to state structures of oppression and projected Western logics is explored.

Poetry as voice: The women of Afghanistan

The Pashtun are one of the largest ethnic groups in Afghanistan, living predominantly in the Southwestern province of the country. They are traditionally nomadic pastoralists with strong tribal organization whereby each of the approximately 60 tribes is further divided into clans and sub-clans, as well as patriarchal families (US Department of State, 1994). There are considerable variations in the lives of women, largely related to geographical location. Women who reside in the heavily controlled tribal areas of rural Afghanistan often experience greater restrictions on their rights, movement, and behavior than women who live in urban areas. Due to strict patriarchal codes (see for example the Pashtunwali code that enforces strict gender roles as well as gender separation (Abirafeh, 2009) that sometimes intersect with strict interpretations of Islamic law, and the long history of conflict in Afghanistan predominantly a result of external interventionist policies from the West, reform for women rights has been slow to develop. This reflects the changing nature of the restriction of women’s rights that has varied as different state-power structures take hold, with some of the strictest controls over women’s bodies and access to resources occurring during Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001.

During Taliban rule, women were heavily restricted both spatially and in relation to their access to resources. Girls were not allowed to attend school, women were forbidden from obtaining employment outside of the home, and strict dress codes were implemented whereby women’s bodies had to be completely covered if they left the home (Fraser, 1999; Shah, 2005). As reported by Amnesty International (1999), during this period, “tens of thousands of women effectively remained prisoners in their homes.” It is this understanding of Afghani gender relations that has dominated the Western gaze, where women are monolithic in their characterization as vulnerable, weak, passive, and abused. Poetry, however, has become a vehicle for women to challenge this unidimensional characterization of Afghan women and exercise their autonomy.

Despite the challenges of illiteracy, with only 5% of girls graduating high school (Griswold, 2012), there is a rich history of storytelling and poetry in Afghanistan, and Pashtun poetry specifically is a long-recognized form of resistance for women, notwithstanding historical efforts to suppress it (by the Taliban regime and through the risk of violence from the poets’ family members and the state). Although there are many different forms of literature that could be classified as resistance work, the focus here is a folk poem that takes the form of a landay (also spelled landai): a 22-syllable, two-line poem that is spoken or sung to the beat of a hand-drum. Traditionally, these folk poems contain nine syllables in the first line and 12 in the second, ending with the sound “na or ma” (Griswold, 2014: 3). They are known for being witty and poignant and for conveying messages that appeal to collective experiences of love, war, grief, separation, homeland, and even drones (bipilot or remote tayara) (Poetry Magazine, 2013). Literally meaning “short poisonous snake” in Pashto (Griswold, 2012), the poems are spoken or sung, then repeated and adapted by others. They are not proprietary as they do not belong to one author; rather, they simultaneously belong to the performer and the collective. Albeit brief, their content is powerful, evoking sadness, anger, frustration, nationalism, love, and fury while challenging the passive construct of the Afghan woman as being a “mute ghost beneath a blue burqa” (Griswold, 2014: 4). Thought to have originated from the Bronze Age where Indo-Aryan caravans arrived in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, these poems have endured and have been morphed and reinvented to reflect on current events.

Poetry has withstood the different state-power structures of Afghanistan, including the Taliban rule when the means of cultural engagement were severely restricted. These landays endured in private spaces, as they were performed for close family members and friends. Now, in a post-Taliban, post-conflict Afghanistan, these poems are audibly transmitted through the radio in specific programming where women are encouraged to call in to share their poems. They are also shared through the internet, texts, and social media. Nonetheless, there is still considerable stigma associated with being a female poet, especially as it relates to perceptions of bringing dishonor and shame to the family when the poetry addresses topics of sex and love. As a result, if a woman is caught singing or recounting poems in public she risks being labeled a prostitute. Efforts to suppress the poetry are intertwined with cultural ideals of gender, as well as the maintenance of a rigid patriarchal social structure that relegates women as being subordinate to men (Griswold, 2014). Despite the risqué content and the very real security risk to women caught reciting poetry, the landay as a means of expression is used to capture the critical and strong-willed nature of Pashtun women, and gives voice to grievances that otherwise would be stifled by the restrictive customs and traditions of Pashtun society. Historically they have been used as a vehicle to resist the Taliban, the subsequent US occupation, and Western stereotypes of Afghani women.

Criticizing the Taliban

Consider the following landay that makes a strong critique of the oppressive nature of the Taliban regime:

May God destroy the Taliban and end their wars.

They’ve made Afghan women widows and whores. (Griswold, 2014: 129)

Here the author or performer is calling for the end of the Taliban regime, drawing attention to the loss of life of Afghan men that has resulted from the ongoing conflict. In addition, they have illuminated the hypocrisy of the Taliban in their strictly enforced customs that simultaneously stress purity, virtue, and honor in women while condoning sexual violence and forced marriage. The reflexivity is evident in the language choice here, where the performer is reclaiming the “truth” about women’s reality under the Taliban regime, countering the institutional or official language of the Taliban. Similarly, the following landay addresses the duplicity of the Taliban as they propagate themselves as pious while engaging in rape and sexual assault of boys and girls (Griswold, 2014):

You’ll never be a mullah, talib, no matter what you do.

Studying in your book, you see my green tattoo. (Griswold, 2014: 89)

This poem became popular during the Taliban enforcement of the religious edicts against women, and according to Griswold (2014: 90) it is thought to have been inspired by an ancient folktale that describes a religious student who is distracted from his studies when he falls in love with a beautiful girl called named “Gulbrasha.” The criticism is of the Taliban’s propagated image as being religious and virtuous, whilst they engage in the raping of women and children. Here, both of these poems contribute to a collective commentary on the double standards of the Taliban regime. Through two short lines they assert autonomy against the Taliban and make a social and cultural commentary about an oppressive regime, engaging in a political discussion when to do so is not only prohibited but dangerous for women and girls. The poems also challenge the Western stereotype that Afghan women are silent and passive in their experiences of oppression, that they have no voice and were simply resolved to the will of Taliban control.

Criticisms of traditional customs: Arranged and forced marriage

Other poems draw from very personal experiences of cultural practices that provide counter-narratives to understandings of such traditions in the West. For example, some poems address the impact traditions related to marriage in Pashtun society have on women and girls. There are many landays that address the practice of arranged or forced marriage, where greater autonomy for women and girls as well as vehement condemnation of the practice are common subjects. In the following landay, a young girl expresses the trauma of her lived experience and gives it form through the power of language, making her distress, as well as the social impact of forced marriage as a cultural practice, real and tangible in their impact on women and girls more generally:

You sold me to an old man, father.

May God destroy your home; I was your daughter. (Griswold, 2014: 75)

Here the young woman succinctly and powerfully conveys her anger at her father, the patriarchal family, and the inequality between men and women in larger society. It is a criticism of a Pashtun tradition that restricts choice and freedom for women and girls, and conveys resistance to reducing women to mere objects to be sold in arranged or forced marriages (Cestari, 2014). The young woman, in reciting this poem, is engaging in self-reflection as it relates to her “truth,” but is simultaneously making a broader criticism of a cultural practice that impacts many other young women and girls (UNIFEM Afghanistan, 2008). By utilizing poetry for her criticism, the young woman has a vehicle for her pain and anger that is more accepted than if she communicated her anguish through non-poetic discourse (Abu-Loghod, 1986)—i.e. it would not have been an appropriate conversation for the young girl to have with her father due to the strict honor codes that are prevalent in Afghani society. In addition, the performance of this poem, albeit face-to-face recital, provides an example of the auto-theoretical in action (Young, 2013) as an inventive behavior—that of poetry at the interactional level—leading to larger consciousness raising where such behavior, both women’s engagement in political life and the poetry itself, is strictly prohibited. The short verse also demonstrates the larger battle for voice and autonomy that young women often endure in the private sphere where poetry, as well as efforts to suppress it, challenge/preserve the customary practice of child marriage. The following poem makes a similar social commentary:

When sisters sit together, they always praise their brothers.

When brothers sit together, they sell their sisters to others. (Griswold, 2014: 61)

This landay evokes bitterness and sadness at the hypocrisy of customs and traditions surrounding marriage. In Pashtun society marriages are most often arranged by the parents of the bride and groom or by clan leaders. This practice is strongly related to building strong clan and familial alliances and reflects both the conservatism and the separation of the sexes in Pashtun culture. Despite child marriage being abolished by the Civil Law of 1977 (Moghadam, 2003), and the subsequent Elimination of Violence Against Women law of 2009 that outlaws child marriage, forced marriage, the exchange of money for a bride, and giving away a girl as a form of debt repayment or to settle a dispute (termed ‘baad’) (Human Rights Watch, 2014), these practices still endure in the more rural tribal-controlled areas of Afghanistan. For example, UNIFEM Afghanistan (2008) found that as many as 57% of girls in Afghanistan are married before they turn 16 years of age, and of these girls as many as 60 to 80% are forced into marriage. When women lack power and say over their futures, poetry and the power that language conveys give voice to their grievances:

Listen, friends, and share my despair.

My cruel father is selling me to an old goat. (Griswold, 2014: 91)

Here, where such practices as arranged and forced marriages continue despite being illegal, the poems provide a platform for protest for women and girls to share their voices. Through activist performance that occurs at the interactional level, women and girls address forbidden subjects with a coherence that amasses meaning over time (Ratliff and Hall, 2014). The performer’s body and voice embody the “stage” on which their experiences go beyond the utterance of words to become representative of a more tangible reality that represents the fate of many women. The landay allows for an interactional and individualistic act to become collective since, despite being grounded in stories of self, they speak to the experiences of the many to culminate into a directed cause through the process of repeating and imitation. Imitation is, therefore, important to this particular form of resistance, allowing the personal to become social, the voice of one becoming voices of the many. The frame and structure of the poem itself, as well as the content repertoires—in the above example the practice of forced marriage—are transmitted to newcomers by establishing broader networks and informational links resulting in a greater cultural diffusion of the message of resistance (Andrews and Biggs, 2006). While the oral tradition of the landay lends itself to Hayward and Schuilenburg’s (2014) criteria of imitation, it is the repeated act of expression through poetry that has become routinized. As argued by Tarde in 1890, imitation is the way in which “something is repeated and diffused” (Tarde, 1993: 17). Tarde argued that imitation is one process of interaction that constructs a reality, the other being invention, and that imitation is distinguished from invention since the majority of people are unable to be creative and instead resort to copying others. In the case of the interactional performance of the landay, imitation is used to create a reality by copying the mode through which ideas are transmitted, but it is also their repetition as well as the repeated content of focus that strengthen their impact.

Sexual autonomy and the risk of suppressive violence

In the midst of such restrictive and oppressive practices, landays are also used as a vehicle to tease and seduce men, as well as communicate tales of romance and love. The following landay was reportedly spoken by a 20-year-old named Nadia to a secret audience of women poets in Kandahar:

Like a candle I burn all night, separated from my lover,

I melt and fade like hot wax. (Nadia as cited in National World, 2016)

According to ancient Pashtun traditions, romantic love is considered taboo, yet the assemblage of women in secret meeting groups, such as the Mirman Baheer literary society in Kabul (Griswold, 2012), provides a safe space to recite and listen to poetry that tackles this very subject. These groups therefore take on a symbolic meaning through the merging of social action with ritual (Alexander, 2006), giving greater significance to the content of the poems through their cultural resonance with the women who attend these groups—the act of resistance here is audience-specific. The performance becomes dramaturgy, validating, inspiring, and contributing to a radical habitus that fuels further challenging of the status quo.

Furthermore, to engage poetry, whether in the private sphere or through attending a clandestine literary group, risks efforts of suppression in the form of judgment, physical violence, or death. This is particularly the case with poems that address the subject of love as they are often viewed as evidence of illicit relationships (Griswold, 2012). Consider that in 2010, a young girl named Zarmina was caught reading her poems over the telephone by her sister-in-law. Overhearing their conversation, Zarmina’s brothers thought she had been talking to a boy on the phone and punished her, physically beating her and ripping up her notebooks. Two weeks later Zarmina committed suicide by setting herself on fire. Zarmina is one of hundreds of women who “was a sacrifice to Afghan women” (Griswold, 2012). Like the famous Herat University poet Nadia Anjuman, who died after being severely beaten by her husband in 2005, women in Afghan are fierce in their use of poetry as a means to rebel against the patriarchal mores that dominate the Pashtun heartland.

Despite there being a broader reading of the poems as being taboo, offensive, and immoral and the very real risks of suppressive acts of violence, women and girls refuse to let people in power (i.e. the patriarchal gender structure, or the propagated rhetoric of the West) subordinate them and marginalize their voices into positions of lesser worth. Even when they face extreme violence as a result of such resistance, those who have died fighting for women’s rights in this way are remembered and celebrated as martyrs who have suffered in the most extreme way for their cause—through self-immolation or death. The severity of the personal bodily risk to women is more than a “reactive gesture” (Hayward and Schuilenburg, 2014) to oppressive structures; rather, it is reflective of the perseverance of a resistance agenda that calls for changes to state gender structures that shape women’s everyday lives, as well as for specific advancements in women’s human rights. The sacrifices of women who have paid the ultimate price are not forgotten; rather, they are incorporated into the movement itself, as other young girls claim:

I am the new Rahila [Zarmina’s pen name],

Record my voice, so that when I get killed at least you’ll have something of me. (Griswold, 2012)

Beyond love, and representative of the self-image that Pashtun women have of being fearless, some landays are intended to humiliate men, calling attention to their cowardice in matters of sex and war (Griswold, 2014). For example, the following landay is a challenge from a woman to her lover not to lie about her fear of kissing him:

Embrace me in your suicide vest

but don’t say I won’t give you a kiss. (Griswold, 2014: 17)

The woman is implying that her lover is cowardly and that she would rather be killed in a suicide bombing than have him tell a lie. This brazen teasing not only counters the Pashtun construction of male superiority through the direct questioning of the subject’s masculinity, but it also acts to counter Western stereotypes of the oppressed, silenced, and passive Afghani woman. The following landay is even more risqué as it is meant to simultaneously seduce a man and mock his inability to be a good lover:

Unlucky you who didn’t come last night,

I took the bed’s hard wood post for a man. (Griswold, 2014: 17)

The collective nature of the landay, specifically that no single person writes one and instead it is repeated and shared, allows for the broaching of subjects that otherwise would not be permitted. This is a means to undermine and question the social code that demarcates space and topics based on sex and gender. Collectively, through sharing and repeating, the landays encourage the giving of voice, strength, and energy to other women who may not otherwise engage poetry as a form of expression. They are intended to be repeated or imitated, and to become part of a cultural landscape that gives voice to counter-narratives that challenge perceptions of women and girls in Afghanistan. They create an intergroup cohesiveness that undermines male control over women’s bodies and lives, as “landai belong to women” (Siddiqi as cited in Griswold, 2012).

Resistance to external interventions

Not only are landays used to express women’s resistance to domestic oppression, but they are also used as vehicles to critique external threats to their security. This following landay became popular following the launching of cruise missiles by President Bill Clinton at Toro Bora and Khost in response to the 1998 attack by Bin Laden on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The landay reads:

May God destroy the White House and kill the man.

Who sent US cruise missiles to burn my homeland. (Poetry Magazine, 2013)

This represents the intersection of the political and the symbolic giving particular meaning to a historical event. The poem provides a counter-narrative to the one promoted by the West (of a retaliatory attack on terrorist training camps), providing a different meaning for or frame through which to view the bombings. There is an expression of anger and nationalism that is often ignored by the West and is generally not attributed to women during times of conflict (Yuval-Davis, 1997). Instead, women are often viewed as “the bearers of ‘tradition’ and national culture and men the protectors of the faith/nation and its property” (Giles and Hyndman, 2004: 8), so despite the historical involvement of women in state struggles for national independence, political transformations, mobilizing against oppressive regimes, standing against colonialism, and engaging in revolutionary violence (Hawkesworth, 2008), their voices are less likely to be evoked when discussing matters of militarized violence.

This same political engagement can be seen in other landays that convey anti-American sentiment in relation to the US occupation of Afghanistan in 2001:

The drones have come to the Afghan sky.

The mouths of our rockets will sound in reply. (Griswold, 2014: 125)

Here the landay is used to express the fear and defiance at the omnipresent drones that survey the Pakistan/Afghanistan border. Unlike the poetry that tackles violence against women perpetrated in the domestic realm, this landay tackles the indiscriminate killing caused by drone attacks and therefore addresses human rights issues that impact all Afghani people. Such landays also tap into feelings of nationalism pushing people to be more allied with the Taliban. They often contain a rage at the death and violence caused by drone warfare, especially in relation to the hypocrisy of the realities of the violence as juxtaposed with the broader protectionist rhetoric propagated by the West (i.e. to liberate and protect the women of Afghanistan from their oppression) for the purposes of justifying the conflict:

May God destroy your tank and your drone,

you who’ve destroyed my village, my home. (Griswold, 2014: 125)

Landays that address the subject of war often draw on very personal experiences detailing upfront experiences with death and destruction, as well as stories of having husbands and sons who have left to fight with the Taliban. They have the effect of making the subjective objective, launching very personal experiences into the public realms for political critique (Reed, 2005).

Discussion

The landay represents a creative but inventive form of resistance, satisfying the first stage of Hayward and Schuilenburg’s (2014) criteria for resistance. The poems are anti-authoritarian in their questioning and countering of formal and informal state structures that impact women. They utilize language that contains power and the poem becomes a vehicle to convey a truth—one disconnected from the narrative offered by rigid patriarchal traditions—as well as the stereotypes disseminated by the West. The landays give form to “truths” that negate the official institutional language of marriage, love, and war. Beyond provoking a reaction because of their oftentimes risqué content, there is a clear resistance agenda that extends beyond the symbolic to include the political. As noted by Saheera Sharif, the founder of the women’s poetry group Mirman Baheer, “a poem is a sword” (Sharif in Griswold, 2012), and in Afghanistan the landay has become the sword in the battle for women’s rights. In fighting for greater autonomy and increased human rights, women have sought out accessible and historically engrained means of cultural engagement as a way to express resistance that provides a foray into public and political life. As demonstrated in the few examples offered here, the words, experiences, and emotions of Afghani women poets culminate to provide a narrative that counters the larger oppressive structures of state—including that of the Taliban during their 1996–2001 rule (Laub, 2014), the subsequent US-led occupation of the country, and the patriarchal gender structure that relegates the rights of women to being secondary to men. The effectiveness of the landay, however, extends beyond the utterance of the words themselves, as they serve as a vehicle to transform subjective and personal experiences into collective commentary and critique. They are an inventive mode of resistance, where the woman poet is elevated to the status of anti-hero, fiercely countering the Western stereotype of her being the vulnerable victim of male-dominated systems of control. By granting autonomy, landays become acts of rebellion, what Kauzlarich (2013) in his analysis of punk music as resistance would term a tool for expressing outrage as well as psychological, emotional, and collective solidarity.

These auto-theatrical works become a form of consciousness raising where the poet’s performance is dependent on the active engagement of her audience, who in turn repeat, spread, and adapt the poems. They represent a dramaturgy of performance that connects the cultural logics of the art to a specific audience, other women, but then to a broader public audience (Eyerman, 2006; Ratliff and Hall, 2014). The poems are imitated, not in the same way they would be in a post-modern consumer society as proffered by Hayward and Schuilenburg’s (2014) second criterion for resistance, but in a more literal sense where they are recited, listened to, adapted, and changed. Their effectiveness as a means to resist is related to their anonymous nature and their collective voice—they do not belong to one author. The audience, or the resistance imitator, engages with the inventive behavior, as they become the resistance creator (Heath and Potter, 2006).

Despite considerable risk to women reciting and performing poetry, they have not only weathered repressive regimes and external interventions, but they have become more commonplace with performances extending beyond the private to public spaces; recitations occur at women’s poetry groups and on poetry-specific radio programs, and the poems are disseminated on the internet, through text messaging, and on social media. Indeed, it is not lost on this author that as a means of consciousness raising they have been successful, as the poems have traversed global boundaries taking the strong resistance narratives beyond the borders of Afghanistan. It is this dissemination that has allowed for the development and writing of this very article. A level of routinization has been achieved, albeit still met with considerable counter-resistance measures from the patriarchal family and state that include the threat of violence. However, growth in the acceptance of poetry as a way for women to voice hardships and concern in post-conflict Afghanistan speaks to the increased recognition of the landay as a legitimate means for women to challenge state-sanctioned oppression. Through language and recitation, lived experiences are given form, become visible and audible in their political messaging, and they are then launched into the public realm as a collective voice.

The political message of the landay has created an accessible vehicle for women to insist on a transformative agenda (Hayward and Schuilenburg, 2014). Poetry for Afghani women and the cultural landscape it confronts is more than symbolism or the adoption of a resistance lifestyle—it is not just a form of posturing without collective political goals. There is a clear political legitimacy to women’s demand for increased autonomy, human rights, and access to social and political life. Simultaneously, there has been an effective challenge to Western-constructed characterizations of women in Afghanistan as weak and powerless, existing as passive beings without voice, as well as to the US-led protectionist rhetoric that provided justification for the occupation of Afghanistan. The resilience captured by the voices of the Afghan women in their poetry has led to greater social awareness not only of the power of resistance, but of the humor, agency, bravado, and fearlessness of these women as they fight for greater autonomy.

However, it must be noted that the majority of the landays used in this analysis were translated with the aid of two native Pashto speakers by author Eliza Griswold. As with any translated material there are limitations revolving around conceptual equivalency and comparability of meaning (Temple, 1997). Griswold (2014) acknowledges that many of the poems she heard did not translate well as they became too ornate or lost their meaning if translated directly. Although this brings with it the risk of missing certain assumptions, values, or feelings associated with the original landay, as argued by Phillips (1960: 291) this is “in absolute terms an unsolvable problem.” To guard against this, Griswold (2014) only retained those poems that would merit translation to English and relied on her native speakers’ help for conceptual equivalency.

Over the last decade, the political landscape for women in Afghanistan has greatly improved, but there is still much work to be done (Saeed, 2015). There has also been considerable change in the cultural and political climate for women in Afghanistan as they have been granted greater access to social and political life, resulting in significant efforts toward gender equality. Poetry is only one artistic endeavor that has been utilized to resist and bring about greater social awareness to the multifaceted and complex lives of Afghani women (see for example, the role of theater as a means for public and political engagement for women (Saeed, 2015)). Much like other artistic behaviors of resistance, the acceptance of poetry, along with the messages it conveys, is gradual, and in isolation it is unlikely to bring immediate structural change. However, coupled with other efforts, the beginnings of structural change for women in Afghanistan are there (consider the recent passing of the Elimination of Violence Against Women law of 2009 and the greater inclusion of women in post-conflict politics, including better representation in Parliament and Grand Tribal Councils (Collins, 2015) and educating women to vote in the country’s 2004 presidential election (Bernard et al., 2008)). The broader contribution of poetry that must not be marginalized is the gradual acceptance of women having a voice when historically they have been silenced. This in itself constitutes considerable structural change; however, it is still not without risk.

Despite Taliban control ending over 15 years ago, the conservative view that women have “Naqis-ul-aqal” (a lesser or faulty intellect than men) still prevails in some regions of the country (National World, 2016). As argued by Afghan poet and writer Waheed Warasta, “[m]orality protectors in Afghan society believe that male honour can be protected only by locking away women where nobody can see or hear them” (Warasta in National World, 2016). Yet “poetry is the women’s movement from the inside” (Sharif in Griswold, 2012) and literature—in the form of poetry—has become an effective means to disseminate counter-narratives on topics deemed socially taboo, to erode gender norms that silence women’s voices, and to provide a record of alternative discourse and history that in the future may reveal how women fought for their rights in Afghanistan, as well as the tremendous sacrifices that were made along the way.

Conclusion

Here, through the examination of poetry, I have drawn attention to the powerful voices of women in Afghanistan that counter the Western propagated tropes of Afghani women as only existing as passive subjects, oppressed and voiceless beneath a burqa. This analysis has demonstrated that through accessible cultural means, women have launched a successful and unique form of resistance that promotes a greater voice for women by launching their words, and by proxy their truths, into the public realm. In a cultural landscape that can be differentiated from the post-modern consumer societies of the West, they have been successful in utilizing an inventive form of resistance that has been imitated into a transformative agenda (Hayward and Schuilenburg, 2014). Although the full reach of the transformative agenda has yet to be realized, the women of Afghanistan have a clear political agenda and continue to fight to overcome the obstacle of patriarchal and state (both domestic and external) oppression. Like the poetry and songs of the African slaves of the US’ antebellum South (Sullivan, 2001), the anti-Vietnam poems of the US (Bibby, 1996), and the women of the American feminist movement (Reed, 2005), the landays of Afghanistan make political that which was previously silenced. As noted by Saeed (2015: 324), who draws on another Afghan female poet, women “are like ‘sleeping lions’ that once awakened will break the societal chains.” Landays are a grassroots means to reclaim power, and through language they offer a collective consciousness raising that questions the status quo—they are politicizing. The poems represent resistance and fierce determination for social change, as expressed so eloquently by the following landay:

In my dream, I am president.

When I awake I am the beggar of the world. (Griswold, 2014: 63)

Hope for change perseveres as the women poets of Afghanistan have generated significant resistance to varying forms of oppression, and through their voices the multidimensionality and complexity of their lives have been, and continue to be better understood.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Travis Linnemann for his feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by Eastern Kentucky University Fellow Program.

Author biography

Victoria E. Collins is an Associate Professor in the School of Justice Studies at Eastern Kentucky University. Her research and teaching interests include state violence, white collar crime, and violence against women and the author of State Crime, Women and Gender (Routlegde, Taylor & Francis).

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