Quotes from Afgan Women
As they waited to cast their historic votes:
- “If Karzai becomes president, maybe we will get some land and be able to go to Mecca. What we need is Islam, which is peace.”
- “In the line waiting with me, there were women from all the different groups: Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara. For the first time, women are having a say in the future of Afghanistan. We are fed up with war.”
- “I came to vote for Karzai to bring peace and make sure the young men have jobs,” said a woman in a yellow burqa. She said she was relieved that the Taliban’s draconian interpretation of Islamic law, which saw millions of women and girls forced out of work and education and whipped in the street for showing as much as an ankle, had been swept away.
- “A man with a scarf around his head asked me where I was going. He said: ‘If you vote, I will see it from your thumb and I will cut off your hand,’” she said.
She said she could not afford to take a taxi home to avoid the man, but would pay no heed.
“We don’t want those people. They did nothing for us.”
Bravery comes in may forms.
