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the double exile. the poetry of afghan women refugees in iran

anna vanzan

The Afghan migration to Iran started as early as the end of the 19th century. This phenomenon intensified from the 70s onward, due to the well-known turbulences in the Central Asian country which faced first the Soviet invasion and later the growing power of the ferocious Taliban regime.
Iran has traditionally represented an attractive destination for Afghan migrants, especially for those belonging to the ethnical groups, such as the Hazara, that share the same religion (Shi’a Islam) and speak an almost identical language to Persian (i.e., dari). The language factor has been crucial in facilitating the formation of an Afghan generation of boys and girls that took advantage of the Iranian educational system.
These educational facilities have been extended to women as well, so much so that, though the majority of women, who constitute about one third of the Afghan migration in Iran, are engaged in home activities such as sewing and embroidery, a significant number of them can pursue some cultural activities, including literature.
This new generation of educated and self-confident Afghan women has begun to be involved in literary productions, mainly poetry, where they express aspirations, anxieties, hopes and concern for their condition of women in Diaspora.

Poetry in Afghan society. Women as poets

Poetry, especially oral poetry, has always been the major form of cultural expression in Afghanistan and it has often represented a way to communicate one’s ideas, including social-political protest.
Since time immemorial Afghanistan has hosted poetry competitions where poets could compete in eloquence and culture improvising strong lyrics according to the literary and aesthetic canons of the Iranian literati.
Considering the deeply patriarchal structure of Afghan society, women’s presence in Afghan literature is, as can be expected, less conspicuous than that of their male counterparts, though female contribution is stated as early as the 10th century, when the daughter of the prince of Balk, Rabi’a was able to compose verses both in Arabic and in Persian. She became so famous that her poems were publicly read in literary circles and, on one of these occasions, a famous literati declaimed a poem by Rabi’a where she confessed her love for a slave; Rabi’a’s brother, who was present at the contest, became so furious on hearing his family name connected with a humble servant, that he ordered his sister to be conducted to the hammam where her veins were slit.
Before dying, Rabi’a wrote some verses on the bath walls with her own blood, mentioning her lover and accusing her brother.
Unquestionably, it could be sustained that Rabi’a’s fate came well before the present plight of Afghan women whose fate is drenched in blood, the same blood that they still use to write their aspirations and desires. In fact, so few Afghan women have managed to reach the forefront of the literary scene that a recently published anthology of Afghan poetesses since Rabi’a’s time lists only sixty names.
Moreover, the biographies of these women indicate that the publication of their works has begun only recently and that the majority were compelled to leave their homeland because of the political and social turmoil in which Afghanistan has been enveloped at least since the 1970s.
Afghanistan, therefore, proves to be an unsuitable place for women artists.

Afghan Women in Iran

As stated before, Iran is one of the favourite countries for Afghan migration, as both peoples share the language, Shi’a Islam religion and centuries of common history. However, the official attitude of the Islamic Republic of Iran towards Afghans has changed considerably.
During the years of the Soviet invasion Iran used to welcome the Afghans as “Muslim brothers escaping from an anti-Islamic regime”. After the defeated Red Army left Afghanistan and after the unrest which followed the rise of the Taliban, the Iranian authorities became suspicious of the Afghans who are considered possible instruments of social-political unrest manoeuvred by foreigners and inevitably bound to increase social friction and create problems among the local population.
Nevertheless, a vast number of Afghans, including women, have been able to benefit from the Iranian educational system, pride of the Islamic Republic.
Although there are undeniable difficulties for Afghans to access Iranian educational resources, it is indisputable that at the same time Afghans, and especially Afghan women, would have had no educational opportunity at all in their homeland. Besides, if we consider the matter under a gender perspective, Afghan women did not only benefit from the educational system, but also gained advantage from the general atmosphere promoted by Iranian women of gender awareness and of social, cultural and economic advancement. In Iran, Afghan refugee women live in a traditional Islamic society where females constitute 62% of the University population and where women can exert any kind of profession, from high level teaching to the direction of feminist newspapers and associations, from medical positions to NGO management.
Though Iranian women are still struggling for their rights, their advancement and prominence in the society are such that they could not pass unnoticed by Afghan women, who have been deeply affected by their Iranian sisters’ success.
Iranian women mainly express themselves through literature – their success in this field become the most outstanding event in the contemporary literary scene of Islamicate societies – consequently it is not surprising that Afghan women have also resorted to literature to give voice to their sentiments, experiences, expectations and fears for the future. Helped by the presence in Iran of literary circles founded and run by Afghan migrants (such as the Afghan Writers’ Cultural Centre in Mashhad ) and by their activities (ranging from the publication of magazines to the organization of literary festivals), Afghan women have become a new social-cultural phenomenon which challenges the stereotype of the “passive and segregated Afghan woman”.
In Tehran, in September 2005, at the third annual Qand-e farsi (Sweetness of Persian) Literary Festival for Afghan refugee writers, the majority of the participants, and, about two thirds of the 28 finalists, were women, nine of whom won one of the thirteen prizes. (Olszeswka 2005: www.badjens.com/afghan.lit.html.)

I am an Afghan in Iran and I am a Woman: the Double Exile

As one would expect, the burden of exile is one of the most common themes in the writing of Afghan women refugees, a subject matter shared with their male colleagues with whom they experienced the losses of the war and the trauma of ethnic marginalization. Though life conditions are, by far, better in Iran than at home, the Afghans suffer the limits and restrictions imposed on refugees and the general distrust the Iranians feel towards them. It is undeniable that most Iranians have strong prejudices against Afghan people whom they consider to be unfaithful, liars, prone to theft and even involved in drug trafficking.
Iranian scorn is widespread also among the literati. As early as 1991, the Afghan poet Mohammad Kazem felt the need to publish a poem in an Iranian newspaper where he accused Iranians of being indifferent to the condition of Afghan refugees (Olszewska 2007, 211). This initiative raised controversial feelings among Iranian intellectuals and managed to increase their awareness of the Afghan presence and to enhance the support for Afghan authors who were invited to literary festivals and found it easier to publish their work.
Nevertheless, many Afghans in Iran are still subjected to racism. Most Afghan poets, both male and female, are aware of this situation. In fact they still suffer from and speak about the pain of exile though belonging to the second generation of Afghan migrants. Fa’eqeh Javad (b. Kabul 1975), for instance, who (polemically?) adds to her name the epithet “Mahajer” (“immigrant”, or “refugee”), expresses her nostalgia by making a repetitive use of Afghan place names in her poems:

Migration accentuates Fa’eqeh Javad’s homesickness and affection for her homeland. She expresses these sentiments in another much longer poem, i.e., “…and I think about love with all my youth” (…va man ba tamam-e javani be ‘eshq fekr mikonam), where Afghan cities have a central place in the long list of things and feelings that make her think of love: Kabul, Qandahar, Herat, Mazar become, in Javad’s imagination, sorts of lovers to be hosted on her mattress. (Mirshahi 2000: 80-82)
The theme of endless exile and subjection to perennial move is deeply felt by Mahbubeh Ebrahimi (b. Qandahar, 1975), probably the most famous Afghan poetess in Iran. In one of her poems called “The frontier” (Marz) she explores the pain she felt when, close to the border on the way to expatriation, she found herself torn between the new land and her home town:

Ebrahimi reiterates the anguish of becoming a migrant in the poem “The airport” (Forudgah). She is with someone who is leaving (her) and she transforms this sad situation into the allegory of the entire Afghan Diaspora where people are tried by endless migration with their lives ruled by cold numbers. On a wet night void of moon and stars someone is carrying two old sacks and twenty- year tiredness, ready to travel for about six hours without even caring for the final destination, as the only certainties are the flight and the seat numbers (Mirzahi 2006: ibid.). Though someone else is departing, she is the one who is left alone, deserted and helpless in the migration process. Undoubtedly, women are the ones who pay more for the Afghan tragedy.
Solitude, poverty, anguish for their children’s hunger and, above all, the desperate need for someone to rely upon become powerful and dominant themes in the writing of Afghan poetesses.
According to Mahbubeh Ebrahimi’s poem by the same name (Sobh), “Morning” to an Afghan woman means, to put on thechador to go out in search of bread and milk, to wash dirty clothes, and, in addition to all that, to be prisoner in a little room, oppressed by dark clouds inside. However, the author incites to resistance and recommends poetry as the way to overcome troubles and not to succumb to the grip of unhappiness: […] recite a sonnet (ghazal), and do not die under the hands and feet of sorrow, oh song! (Mirzahi 2006: ibid.)
It is worth noting that in her poetry, Ebrahimi, as well as the majority of these Afghan poetesses, does not sacrifice prosody and metric rules in favour of the contents as she maintains the poetic conventions while expressing the urge to lament and protest. Generally, these Afghan writers master perfectly the millenary canons of Persian poetry, even if, sometimes, they make incursions into the she’r-e now (the new wave of Persian poetry which cares less about rhetorical images and rhymes). One could say that as a rule, Afghan poets of both sexes adhere generally to classical Persian poetry rules. The novelty of this female poetry written in exile lies in the concepts it expresses and in the revolutionary way of Afghan women to place themselves at the centre of the scene.
It is evident that the social, historical and political circumstances and the close contacts with the Iranian women’s movements have stimulated the Afghan women’s awareness of gender issues, which, in their poetry, are still mingled with basic primary needs.
Simin Hosseinzadeh, who arrived in Iran from Kabul in the early 90s, writes in her “From behind the jihad’s fortress (Posht-e sangar-e jihad):

However, Hosseinzadeh is proud of her origins and aware of the heritage left by Afghan women:

Simin Hosseinzadeh takes strength to fight daily battles from the memory of Nahid and Halali, two women martyrs killed during the civil war. This memory makes her feel the moral obligation to carry on living in spite of the difficulties she faces so that her sisters’ sacrifice will not be void.

Another poetess, Zahra Hosseinzadeh, applies the metaphors of poetry to express her condition of a woman who struggles among everyday difficulties and links it to the allegory of sewing, since both poetry and sewing are occupations suitable for a woman. In her “The leopard inside brackets” (Palang tu-ye parantez) Zahra Hosseinzadeh speaks of a girl who sews nicely and fills her life with philosophy and sonnets (ghazal) but feels like a leopard inside brackets, be they open or closed. For a long time, due both to other people’s and to her own fault (“you should recognize that all of us have worsened”), she has not been able to write anything else but a fragment (qet’eh). However, there was nothing else she could do but learn to be patient (“learn the book of patience from the birds”) while sewing new clothes for the betrothal. (www.kabotarechahi.persianblog.ir/)
Although disenchanted by (Iranian?) people’s indifference Zahra Hosseinzadeh does not give up nor surrender, but she makes her own change of strategy by choosing traditional jobs such as sewing and embroidering (the most common activity among Afghan refugees in Iran) as a way to maintain herself and pursue a literary career. Although she might be “in brackets”, she is still a leopard, a strong creature capable of fighting.
A new gender awareness makes Afghan women bold to the point where they dare to use images and language in a way that has no precedent in Afghan female poetry. For instance Mariam Torkemani writes:

These audacious verses are multipurpose. On the one hand, Torkemani advocates a woman’s right to be happy even if she is barren, in disagreement with the traditional common believe in all Muslim cultures that “paradise is under a mother’s feet”; referring to this and not attending religious places would suggest a rebellion against (Muslim) religion, although it is not religion itself which she blames, but rather the traditions and the superstitions somehow connected to it.
On the other hand, Mariam Torkemani says she comes from a cultural world that recognizes women’s liberty; therefore there is no need to ask for external (Western) help in order to restore Afghan women’s rights and freedom.
These concepts are expressed with a strong, almost violent language. The poetess does not give birth to a baby and she “spits it out” (tof kardan). Torkemani turns to the act of spitting in another poem, a sign of open scorn for someone/something that recurs in female Afghan writing. The face of poetess Maral Taheri’s, for instance, turns into a spit when she walks in the streets with her nameless boyfriend as an act of contempt towards those people who consider her much less valuable than [her] mother’s red handkerchief . At the same time, Maral Taheri challenges the society that considers inconceivable walking freely with a male friend. (Mohammadi 2006: ibid.)
Sometimes criticism by Afghan poetesses pervades the whole poem that is transformed into a protest manifesto against women’s conditions. In her “She was really my other half” (Derast nimeh- ye man bud) Zahara Hosseinzadeh writes:

In this poem, some of the common plights afflicting Afghan women come to the forefront.
Because of the extreme poverty, young women are often sold by their own families and are totally deprived of the right to education (literacy rate among women in Afghanistan is only 21%), in their early teens they become mothers (the birth rate in the country is 6.75 per woman) but their husband have the right to repudiate them at a whim, leaving them with no support.
Afghan women, in other words, are looked upon as commodities or as spoils of war. In this gloomy landscape girls have no future; they just perpetuate their mothers’ sad fate. Besides, Afghan women are disillusioned by their men’s promises to change the situation, and Afghanistan remains a violent and dangerous place because the men do not give up their fights and vendettas:

Courageously, Mahbubeh Ebrahimi’s verses denounce the main causes of continuous unrest in Afghanistan, namely the abuse of weaponry and the economy based on drug trafficking, in addition to the crucial fact that these activities are carried on by the Afghans themselves.
The result is that Afghan women are afraid to go back home because Afghanistan is one of the most heavily mine-infested countries in the world, where children may be blown up just by touching a doll-shaped explosive device.
Ironically, this poem was published in Ebrahimi’s last collection printed in Iran just before she and her husband decided to return to Afghanistan.
Afghan women are not engaged in pure criticism void of proposals because they have a clear idea about what they would like to have, especially in the field of affection and sentiments.
As Maral Taheri writes:

Afghan women are hungry for love too, a need they convey in various manners, through Persian poetry conventions, through open cries of protest and also through innovative images.
Often the poetesses combine all these instances and express their tumultuous sentiments using the much exploited images of classical Persian literature to ask for change but using blunt and sometimes even aggressive language.
Here is how Ziagol Soltani (b. Herat, 1957) expresses her condition:

In this text Soltani uses some of the most common figures of Persian poetry like the moth on the flame, the flute and the mirror, bending them to lament for the condition of a segregated woman who wants to be freed from her winter confinement to taste the green of spring.
An Iranian critic has argued that Afghan women writers talk about love under the deep influence of Iranian poetesses, especially that of Forugh Farrokhzad, the most beloved Iranian poetess (1935-1967) (Mohammadi 2007:
www.jadidonline.com/story/12022007/akmf/forough). Although there is a certain Iranian cultural chauvinism in this statement, Farrokhzad’s writing has influenced the Persian poetry produced in the last decades. Her plain speaking about topics considered taboo in traditional societies has inspired the youngest generations of poetesses in the Middle East and Central Asia, therefore it is logical to expect her influence on Afghan poetesses raised and educated on the Iranian plateau.
Some of the poetic images we have come across (such as Javadi’s “lovers hosted on the mattress”, or Ebrahimi’s being “prisoner in a small room”, or Taheri’s “walking in the street with a boyfriend”) evoke Farrokhzad’s imagery and provocations.
The dominant use of the first person in the examined writing and the clear indication that the narrating “I” is always a female subject, owe a tribute to Farrokhzad, the first Iranian who “speaks as a Woman and as an Individual” (Hilmann 1990: 148).
Afghan poetesses may also have learnt Shahrnush Parsipur’s lesson:

Fa’eqeh Javad’s writing reminds us of the wandering virgins in Women without Men the celebrated short novel written by Parsipur, that Afghan writers in Iran certainly know. However, the i
dea of exile entangled with love bears the imprint of Afghan poetesses whose soul is burdened with the pain of an insurmountable distance:

In this poem Shakirieh Erfani links love inextricably with displacement, as if feelings of love have been irreparably affected by loss and deprivation.
These Afghan women seem either to be far from their beloved, or to experience relationships which render them disillusioned and cause then to be abandoned:

In this poem Zahra Hosseinzadeh identifies herself with a devastated town, as if Afghan women would share the same destiny of their country, both betrayed and exploited by cruel men.
Motherly love is also frustrated, because Afghan children have been sent to fight an everlasting war with no name (the war against the Soviet, the Taliban, the civil war, or…):

Shakirieh ‘Erfani’s love for the missing son feeds desperate hope and on the stubborn confidence that her son would not stay deliberately away from her, because she nourished him in her womb. Afghan women love passionately and expect a return for their sacrifice, but, eventually, they are abandoned by their men, either because they want to, or because of the harsh circumstances.

Conclusion

Experiencing Diaspora in Iran has undeniably changed Afghan women’s cultural and political identity. If, on the one hand, exile has reshaped the relationship of women refugees with their homeland at which, although still in turmoil, they look with nostalgia and yearning, on the other hand, Iranian women’s movement has significantly affected the perception of the gender issue of Afghan migrants.
These significant changes in Afghan poetesses’ writing are expressed in a dialectic tension between what women have left or lost and the anxious quest for redefining their culture and, ultimately, themselves.
Although Afghan female writers share the language and the literary traditions with their Iranian hosts, these do not seem to be the target audience they try to address. Afghan women are casting their message inside their own community in the hope it may bounce back to their homeland, whose culture they try to redefine.
Generally exile is a humiliating and traumatic experience, but Afghan women writers move inside this liminal space turning it into a creative and liberating dimension that enables them to write freely and to build new parameters of self expression.
This does not mean that Afghan women have found paradise in Iran. As stated above, Afghan women have been offered more educational opportunities in Iran than they would have in Afghanistan even if these educational opportunities are often denied to refugees. Though many Iranians, both at the official and the social level, look down on Afghans, many Iranian intellectuals and artists are well aware of the problems the refugees face, so much so that more than one Iranian film director has devoted a movie to these issues.
In particular, Mehrdad Talebnia Farid represents in his Afghan Children (Bachcheha-ye afghan, 2002) the sad story of a young female school teacher who organizes a private but still affordable class for Afghan children refugees. It is just a small room, but eventually the teacher has to close it because she cannot pay the rent. In the last scene, the teacher exhorts girls, in particular, to strive and keep on studying because, she says, this is the only way in which girls can achieve progress and freedom.
The Afghan girls who “did not give up” and stood up against unfavourable odds, managed to have their poems published in on-line magazines and/or printed in personal collections. Now these literary texts may cross the borders of the Diaspora community to constitute the beginning of a new mapping of literary imagination and of a new cultural policy and gender awareness. In present conditions in Afghanistan even if Afghan women were given a chance to return to their homeland it is unlikely that they could enjoy a secure future in the family and in social life, let alone in the cultural/literary scene. In the meantime, while staying in Iran, they can lay the foundation for a dialogue inside their own community that has to bridge the gap across the border to build the new Afghanistan.

Works Cited
Ebrahimi, Mahbubeh (2007) Badha khwaharan-e man-and (Winds are my Sisters). Tehran: Sure Mehr. www.atiban.com/article.aspx?id=1357.
Hillman, Michael C. (1990) ‘An Iranian Finally Speaks as a Woman and as an Individual’ in Iranian Culture. A persianist View. Lanham. University press of America: 145-172.
Hoodfar, Homa (2004) ‘Families on the Move: The Changing Role of Afghan Refugee Women in Iran’ Hawwa, 2, 2: 141-171.
Mahajer, Najaf ‘Ali (2004) Farhangnameh-e zanan-e parsiguy (Dictionary of Persian Speaking Women). Tehran: Avahdi.
Mirshahi, Mas’ud (2000) She’r-e zanan-e Afghanestan (Afghanistan Women’s Poetry). Paris: Khavaran.
Mirzahi, Zakiyeh (2006) “She’r-e zanan-e Afghanestan” (Afghanistan Women’s Poetry) Bokhara 44: 337-339. Rpt. in www.bukharamagazine.com/treatise.print_php?tre_id=312.
Mohammadi, Reza (2007) ‘Forugh Forrukhzad, sha’er-e ta’sir-gozar’ (Forugh Farrozkhzad, a Poet who Exerted nfluence).www.jadidonline.com/story/12022007/akmf/forough.
---(2006) ‘Zanan-e sha’er-e sunnat-shekan” (Tradition-Breakers Women Poets). www.jadidonline.com/story/11052007/fq/afghan_poets.
Olzeswka, Zuzanna (2007) ‘A desolate Voice’: Poetry and Identity among Young Afghan Refugees in Iran Iranian Studies. Special Issue: Afghan Refugees 40, 2 : 203-224.
--- (2005) ‘Stealing the Show: Women Writers at an Afghan Literary Festival in Tehran’ September 2005/Sharivar 1383. www.badjens.com/afghan.lit.html.
Parsipur, Shahrnush (1998) Women withour Men (Zanan bedun-e mardan), translated by Kamran Talattof and Jocelyn Sharlet. Syracuse. Syracuse University Press.
Rostam-Povey Elah (2007) ‘Afghan Refugees in Iran, Pakistan, the U.K. and the U.S and Life after Return’ Iranian Studies. Special Issue: Afghan Refugees 40, 2: 241-261.
Tober, Diane (2007) ‘My Body is Broken Like my Country’: Identity, Nation and Repatriation among Afghan Refugees in Iran’ Iranian Studies. Special Issue: Afghan Refugees 40, 2 : 263-285.

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Anno 5, Numero 22
December 2008

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