March 05, 2008
By Catherine Masters
nzherald.co.nz
The talk has been of massacres and destruction, of broken roads and poverty, of fear and polluted water.
Dr Habiba Sarabi has remained a calm and charming figure, steadily responding to an array of questions similar to those asked by other journalists, questions she has patiently answered all week in her slightly broken English, during her visit to New Zealand.
In a room on the 21st floor of an Auckland hotel, with its sweeping views of the Auckland Harbour Bridge and sunny sparkling harbour, Dr Sarabi has suddenly had too She has only skimmed the surface. Her story is that of a woman who has faced down an adversity New Zealanders can only imagine with horror.
Dr Habiba Sarabi was the first woman
to govern a province in Afghanistan.
Dr Sarabi was raised outside of Bamyan in a time when, although many people did not want their girls to be educated, they were not killed for doing so.
She studied at Kabul University and became a doctor. She lived in Kabul when the Taleban took over and, as an educated woman, found herself in grave danger.
She took her three children, one of them a girl, and fled to Pakistan. Her daughter was 10 at the time.
The family had already lived through the Soviet invasion; they knew the noise of rockets "lunging" from one side of the city to the other.
But when the Taleban came, there was no other choice but to leave. Dr Sarabi returned, though, to set up an underground school for girls. She entered the country under cover of the burqa, a garment which represented oppression but allowed her freedom.
Wearing the burqa was still a "very bad experience". Dr Sarabi wears glasses but the burqa with the mesh covering the eyes made that impossible, so she was forever tripping over.much.
A comment about the tendency of Aucklanders to moan about their traffic woes and harbour bridge results in Dr Sarabi agreeing how incredibly lucky New Zealanders are.
"God bless you and save you and I wish you'll be lucky for [a] long time," she said, then turned away.Soon, it was apparent she was fighting tears. This ground-breaking politician was overcome with emotion. She got up and left the room but soon returned and brushed away apologies."No, no, no, it's okay," said the doctor who made history by becoming the first woman to govern a province in war-torn Afghanistan.
Later, she would say of the brief interlude when her country's plight became overwhelming: "Of course, we have many bad experiences ... sometimes we can be emotional."
This relentless fronting to the media is necessary because, although lives have improved in Dr Sarabi's province of Bamyan, the long way to go is daunting.
Without the presence of New Zealand troops, Bamyan would not be the relatively safe province it is, she says.
Dr Sarabi was in New Zealand for two reasons.
One was to offer a heartfelt "thank you" for sending our troops to protect and help rebuild the province.
The other was not exactly to beg, although she may not disagree this is what she is doing, but to put "fuel on the fire" of our country's positive relationship with Bamyan. What the province desperately needs is still more help, she says.
Bamyan is in the central highlands region of Afghanistan, a remote and isolated area with dizzying changes in temperature. It is also mountainous and beautiful.
The name is not known for this so much because Bamyan is where the Taleban went to such painstaking lengths to blow up giant, ancient Buddhas carved into the cliffs.
It is home to the Hazara people, mainly Shia Muslims, who were despised with a vengeance by the Taleban.
Dr Sarabi told of the suffering of the Bamyan people. "Taleban thought that Hazara people are not Muslim so they torture. There were several massacres in Bamyan, so they demolished all the houses and burnt houses, so very, very bad time, the people suffered a lot."
Yet the garment allowed her to work in her underground school "and sometimes I could bring the journalist under the burqa. Believe me, I did such a thing".
Classes would be held in people's houses but they would keep moving around to throw the Taleban off the trail.
Still, some of the teachers were caught. She recalls one woman who was stopped by the Taleban, whose husband was put in prison for allowing his wife to do such a job.
Though she could have stayed in safety in Pakistan, Dr Sarabi has always felt a sense of responsibility to help women, to "rescue" the lives of impoverished and oppressed people.
Rescuing lives is what still motivates her now she is governor of Bamyan.
"Sure, that's why I'm there. I'm always for getting more money, getting more aid for Bamyan, and this is because of Bamyan people, you know.
"In my country, the people who are in the high-ranked position, they could save a lot of property for themselves but I do not have anything, because this is my responsibility, to work for the people, to rescue them."
These days, while girls' schools burn in other parts of the country, in Bamyan it is safe to send your daughters to school.
The top priority now is road reconstruction and clean water, she says.
She is trying to figure out how to grow the economy of a dry, hilly area without great soil, an area which depends on agriculture and livestock.
Tourism is an option, and she says New Zealand tourists would be welcome in Bamyan. The tricky part is that to get there they have to go through Kabul.
The governor's adviser, Amir Foladi, reiterates the importance of the presence of the New Zealand military, who create a safe environment for reconstruction work.
He explains that, though the area is relatively safe, there are still warlords and power struggles. There are still criminals and poppy smugglers.
There are few trained soldiers and the new police force has very limited capabilities and equipment. And there are still some - a very few, he stresses - people who want to support the Taleban."That's why when we say Bamyan is the safest place, it doesn't mean there is no need for a military."
The international community is putting its priority on security in the south, "so sometimes it is discouraging people, that 'why we are not receiving any more attention or enough attention according to our needs [they think] okay, let's fire some rockets somewhere, maybe there will be attention"'.
Everyone laughs but this is the reality.
The very real fear is what may happen to Bamyan when the New Zealand troops leave.
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