the land won't forget

 

Germany Pale Mother | Helma Sanders-Brahms | 1980 Eva Mattes

When the men come, set yourself on fire - 

Warsan Shire

 

 

What I would say to my two daughters if I was a mother in Afghanistan, a role that very easily could’ve been mine.

What would I say to the women who come to my door, asking for a list of my daughters and their ages? Across Afghanistan, families had far more boys than girls these days.

 

I would take both Layla and Jasmine to the bathroom,  I would explain that men are coming. They have terrible intentions, and they use a biological weapon rather than a man made one. Because of the intimacy of the violence, we must be drastic in our protection.

I would give them each a buzz cut over the sink, wiping their tears, making noises not too dissimilar to the sea crashing on the shore- shhhhh- ahh shhhh-

They would feel their soft brown hair between their fingers, mourning for their tortured girlhood. The sound of their hair hitting the concrete floor, a tender note. Overwhelmed with the sudden change in tone of the neighbours and news casters, they cried harder.

 Last week Layla and Jasmine still had money from Eid and were planning to go to the Kabul Street Markets.

 Now?

 

I’d brush my open palm over my daughters shaved heads, soft and gently prickly and pray over them a protection that apparently old testament God has only given to men. Now Layla and Jasmine each turn to look at each other and admire the lightness of their eyes as there is an expanse of cheek and forehead. I’d get them an old two piece and hats from my neighbour, who have several tall sons. We clean the hair away together, in silence.

Rolling up their cuff and sleeves, the sky would be darkening, the men would be coming soon. I hear their teeth chatter with anxiety. Every girl has heard horror stories, whispering in the playground, hushed whispers during laundry.

 Their cruelty, their love of female pain. Strange, frightening stories about guns being used or family members being forced to watch. Who do I have to protect Layla and Jasmine from? The Americans- trigger happy yankees? The British and their virtue signalling? Or the Taliban? Trained to kill and destabilise by several international institutions?

 

I’m sure every mother and father in this street lined row of dinky, dusty huts has thought about fighting back, pure afghan warrior rage. The rage that has pushed back so many armies and emperors over the years.

But rage is no match for AK47’S slung lazily over the men’s shoulders. No match against the CIA and Pakistani intelligence working like a band of brothers.

 

The air has dropped cool, evening blue, no tv. The evening brings the news that the men are here again for their endless war.

Keep drinking hot tea and wait,

 they wouldn’t take you, not over my dead body.

 

"Who knows how long it would take them to come and search house-by-house and take girls - probably rape them. I may have to kill myself when they come to my home. I've been talking to my friends. This is what all of us, all of us, are planning to do. Death is better than being taken by them-  Anonymous Hazara girl.