For a generation, Roya Sadat has been a voice for Afghan women in one of the world’s worst places to be one. One of the first female filmmakers to make her name after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, she has won plaudits at home and abroad for works such as A Letter to the President, Three Dots and Playing the Taar.
She has lived through the Soviet occupation — fleeing with her family for their lives at times — endured the brutality of civil war, and then the violent oppression of Taliban rule, where women existed only in the shadows and basic freedoms were lost.
Her great fear is a return to that kind of fundamentalism: The US-Taliban deal, signed on Sunday, might be a first step for peace in a nation that for decades has only known war, but it offers no guarantees the few women’s rights set out in the constitution will be upheld.
Photo: AFP
“I feel concerned when I remember how we had simply been forgotten during the five-year Taliban rule until 9/11 happened,” the 37-year-old. “If the international community approaches [Afghanistan] as an open and shut scenario and abandons us again, there will undoubtedly be grave consequences.”
Almost 39 percent of girls go to secondary school according to World Bank figures for 2017, while the US Agency for International Development (USAID) said that of the 300,000 students in universities, about one-third are female, citing figures from the Afghan Ministry of Higher Education.
These figures are predominantly for urban areas, but 20 years ago, it would have been all but impossible everywhere.
“There are many good changes happening, coming from the heart of society,” Sadat said, but conceded there is a huge amount to be done.
Afghanistan ranks last in the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security index, which measures well-being and self-reliance.
In rural areas, female literacy can be less than 2 percent and rights are often even more constrained by conservative tradition.
She is not alone in fearing that the small inroads made in women’s rights might disappear — in urban centers young people have grown up listening to music, watching television, and more recently accessing the Internet and social media. Many have only seen the Taliban on the news.
Sadat, who has been writing stories, poems and plays since she was a little girl, recalls how her life ground to a halt in 1996 as the Taliban rolled in. Schools closed, women were confined to their homes, the televisions and radios stopped playing.
A precocious teenager, she continued to write indoors and read books on directing from her father’s collection. She was allowed to work as a nurse as women could only get female medical help, and even set up clandestine cultural performances of her plays in the hospital, even though the head of it was linked to the Taliban.
“It was very dangerous. I still find it hard to believe that we were able to,” she said.
Her first work, Three Dots, which tells the tale of a single mother who is forced to marry a warlord and become a drug smuggler, was penned during this period, but only made — using simple equipment — once the regime changed and she could channel all the knowledge accrued from surreptitious reading into real world creativity.
This determination and persistence have defined her career, and she feels strongly that film has a social purpose.
“I turned to cinema, when I had just come out of an era of suffocation, and had a world to express,” the mother of two said. “I strongly believe in cinema and that this is the most important art that can influence a positive change in our society. But change cannot come overnight. The change has to come to the thoughts and minds of people.”
In her 20s, she set up an independent film company — Roya Film House — with her sister Alka, and was awarded a scholarship to study film in South Korea. She has also written television dramas for prominent media firm Moby Group. Her stories are the stories of Afghan women.
From the outset of her career she has faced questions from her family and criticisms from the community, but she said that when locals come to see her work — they understand.
Her 2017 film A Letter to the President shows a woman slapping back at her violent husband when he hits her, before accidentally killing him.
Sadat depicted an act of female rebellion in a country where women are often forced to stay in abusive marriages, but recalls how she expected a “bad reaction” because of the taboos surrounding female behavior. Instead, the audience applauded during the slap scene.
Her work is not without risks. Cinema remains contentious in parts of the country, and her productions, which shine a light on female inequality and repression, controversial.
Hailed by the US for “refusing to be silenced” in the face of threats from conservatives, she was given the International Woman of Courage Award in 2017. She is committed to supporting the next generation of female filmmakers: the latest edition of her International Women’s Film Festival in Herat, which first launched in 2013, received more than 2,500 submissions.
She remains hopeful that she can continue to challenge and speak for Afghans, saying film is uniquely placed to change hearts and minds.
“Cinema can challenge inequality and injustice, it can turn social taboos into discourse, and it can invite people to dialogue,” she said.
“Our people need to criticize themselves, to talk about things that are forbidden. I believe that this society needs a revolution of thought and this cannot be done except with the help of cinema,” she added.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was