Kabul Carnival. Julie Billaud
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the introduction of women into public life was undertaken to serve other ends than the development of women’s autonomy. This public performance of European lifestyles through clothing “played a symbolic role in the determination of the definition of the regime, beyond its significance from the point of view of women” (Göle 1996, 64). These new clothing habits served to exalt a new civilization, a new way of life, and new behavior patterns. As in Turkey where Atatürk banned the Ottoman fez and replaced it by the hat, Amanullah made it compulsory for men to wear European suits when entering the capital city and for women to remove their chadari in specific areas of Kabul. These laws were significant in conveying Afghanistan’s aspiration to be part of the union of contemporary nations. Hence, Kabul was used as the shop window of reforms, which were mostly cosmetic and in reality had limited impact outside of the city. Corruption and governmental injustices practiced in rural parts of the country rendered these public ceremonials outrageous to villagers (Zulfacar 2006, 31).
In Amanullah’s view, women could only be emancipated through Westernization led by the upper class, the queen, and her sisters (Centlivres-Demont 1994, 336). Many women from Amanullah’s family publicly participated in women’s organizations and went on to become government officials later in life. For instance, the Anjuman-i Himayat-i-Niswan (Association for the Protection of Women) was established in 1928 by Seraj al-Banat and Queen Soraya to encourage women to demand the rights provided by King Amanullah’s reforms of marriage customs and restrictive social practices (L. Dupree 1973). With the support of Queen Soraya, women were encouraged to get an education and, as an initiative to that end, fifteen young women were sent to Turkey for higher education in 1928.
These societal reforms were further accelerated following a six-month trip around Europe that Soraya and Amanullah took in 1927–28. On their return the royal couple initiated a program of new reforms, including the creation of a constitutional monarchy, an elected assembly, a secular judiciary, and, most significantly, compulsory education for both sexes and plans for co-educational schools. However, the European tour of the royal couple was received with hostility in their own country (Majrooh 1989, 94). While Soraya and Amanullah were touring Europe, conservative forces at home began a campaign condemning their personal life and their modernization programs as anti-Islamic. Images of the queen unveiled and wearing Western clothes, presumably distributed by the British eager to destabilize a regime that had defeated them during the third Anglo-Afghan war, circulated in the tribal regions of Afghanistan (Ahmed-Ghosh 2003a, 5). According to Louis Dupree (1973, 452), “Amanullah struck at the roots of conservative Islam by removing the veil from the women, by opening co-educational schools, and by attempting to force all Afghans in Kabul to wear Western clothing.”
As the reform increased in momentum, resentment grew among conservative religious leaders. The revolt quickly spread and a tribal army moved on Kabul, recruiting supporters on its way. The king’s neglect for the creation of a national army to support his programs at a moment when Afghanistan was barely united as a nation left him disarmed with no choice but flight (L. Dupree 1973, 450). Despite his last minute attempts to negotiate with tribal leaders and his efforts to tackle public discontent by withdrawing some of his reforms, Amanullah was finally overthrown and replaced by a new generation of kings who avoided pushing the women’s agenda to the detriment of tribal rules.
After his eviction in 1929, his successor Habibullah Ghazi insisted upon a return to conservative customs regarding women. “He demanded that women remain behind the veil under strict male control and that girls’ schools, together with all other vestiges of the women’s movement, be suspended” (N. H. Dupree 1984, 319). Zahir Shah, his successor, introduced limited reforms that remained nonbinding in order to avoid the opposition of the mullahs. The institutional model deployed to promote women’s rights remained rooted in royal initiatives, with upper-class educated urban women gradually joining as the country started to develop its economy.
The Reign of Zahir Shah and the Decades of Daud, 1953–73
By the midcentury, massive foreign and technical assistance from the Soviet Union pushed Afghanistan forward on its journey toward modernization. Women were encouraged to participate in the economic effort in order to support the country’s development goals. The 1940s and 1950s saw the first women nurses, teachers, and doctors (Ahmed-Ghosh 2003a, 6). In 1950–51, university faculties reserved for women were created in medicine, the sciences, and the humanities—parallel to those exclusively for men—in the newly founded Kabul University (Centlivres-Demont 1994, 338).
A number of women’s associations with members recruited in the liberal upper and middle classes were created. The Muassasa-i Khayriyya-i Zanan (Women’s Welfare Association, WWA) was established by Zaynab Inayat Siraj and Bibi Jan, both members of the royal family. Although it tried to promote unveiling, the emphasis of WWA was to encourage income-generating activities and to modernize women by providing literacy, family planning, and vocational classes. In 1953 it established the journal Mirman. In 1975 WWA became institutionally independent and changed its name to the Women’s Institute (WI). The WI had branch offices in ten provincial cities and grew to eight thousand members. However, despite its attempts at reaching out to rural women by opening offices in the provinces, the organization failed to take steps outside elite social classes (Majrooh 1989, 95). Kubra Noorzai, the institute’s director, was nevertheless elected to the National Assembly under President Daud and the organization began to promote gender equality through the state’s modernization policies (Emadi 2002, 91–92).
In 1959, the government of King Zahir Shah formally announced the voluntary end of female seclusion and the removal of the veil. However, it was left to individual families to decide how to respond to these greater freedoms and, outside the major urban centers, life for most women remained largely unchanged (Zulfacar 2006, 33). Nevertheless, in the following years the government introduced girls’ schools and medical facilities for women where they could receive training in both nursing and administration. The Constitution of 1964 granted significant rights to women, including the right to vote. However, the overall participation of women in politics remained extremely low.
Figure 5. “Rural nurse from village clinic near Kabul.” From Afghanistan: Ancient Land with Modern Ways (Afghanistan Ministry of Planning, 1969), 56.
As a result of the slow process of modernization initiated in the 1960s and 1970s, especially in the capital city, deeper changes began to take shape in urban areas. With new education and employment opportunities available, the urban population became more stratified. This period saw the emergence of an educated middle class in the major cities of Afghanistan. Women who found employment in the public administration began to develop new viewpoints and expectations. In the 1970s the stratum of urban elite women began to grow. These women had very different lifestyles from those of rural women, working alongside men in professional, technical, and support functions in government services and the private sector (Moghadam 1994, 863). The visibility of women in offices, in the streets, and at parties indicated a new habitus with gender mixing becoming the distinctive sign of the urban upper class.
In 1965, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a Soviet-backed socialist organization, was formed. That same year the women’s section of the party, the Democratic Organization of Afghan Women (DOAW), was created. Its main objectives were to eliminate illiteracy and ban bride-price as well as forced marriage. A few years after the republic was declared in 1973 a penal code (1976) and a civil law (1977) were introduced, “both of which followed the constitutional injunction that ‘there can be no law repugnant to the sacred religion of Islam’” (N. H. Dupree 1984, 310). These laws however maintained the ideal of patriarchal control, and women were kept in positions that did not challenge their “honor” as well as that of their family. By contrast, during the Communist regime, the more aggressive approach to women’s empowerment and the overtly secularist rhetoric that accompanied these reforms were decisive factors in the resistance that emerged all over the country.
Violent demonstrations took place in the country’s major cities, especially in universities where some unveiled women wearing short skirts became the target of acid attacks. Conservative religious reactions to women’s education and emancipation were