Amnesty in Afghanistan

It's another Amnesty International awareness campaign this week focused upon Women's right's, our monthly topic.

I always find that there's alot of stigma surrounding Women's rights. Anyone fighting for women's rights seems to be automatically deemed a feminist, as thought they might be promoting legislation to wipe the Earth clean of men. Really, all most people are, are freedom fighters.

Women in Afghanistan have very little basic human rights, far fewer than anywhere else in the world. Giving women access to education, access to health services and security from rape and physical abuse isn't such a crime, is it?

For this month's Amnesty post I've just written a short story about a female victim of domestic abuse, and here it is:

She stood trembling. Her eyes barely registered herself. It was her normal morning self; slanted sleep-drugged eyes, straw-slung hair and a crusty trail at the corner of her lips. It was the same her, but just so so different. She couldn't quite pinpoint why. Why should one night change everything? Why shouldn't it change everything?

The mirror wasn't as kind as those ugly watery reflections of the mud puddles in the street. They contorted her in the most complimentary of ways. And now, as she gazed through herself, this clarity, this glass like still, took her exactly as she was. Completely broken and wholly fragmented.

A hole, just above her stomach bled cleanly through the cream of her jumper. She lifted it, savouring the woolen kiss of the fabric. Her breathing intensified. The moment was like the birth of a newborn; so fragile, breath-taking yet so irrevocably frightening.

It began to emerge. A purple stain with green smudged rims. The work of an inexperienced painter. She hazarded a touch, reaching so slightly forward with her fingers. Their cool tips stung the enraged heat of the bruise. She drew back quickly and tugged her jumper back down. How would she explain this one? How did anyone explain this one?

Chocolate Finger Children

Lined in symmetry, like those chocolate Cadbury fingers you get, rigid, unmoving and sometimes - dependent on the weather - glued to the black carton of the package. There are those perfect, slender bodies which have made it to the present in perfection, regardless of the mishaps of trade and travel. Then there are others; obliterated in transit, many of which now lay dormant in a muddle of their own crumbs which greedy saliva dipped fingers haven't yet picked up.

Hungry? It's a nice image, isn't it. A consumer habit of desire for anything sweet, mouth-watering and hole-filling. And, when they're on offer, these things are even better. 2 for £1 tastes so much nicer than 1 for £2 . 74 . But, now what if I told you that this image is a depiction of Syria. Those white chocolate fingers are not cute biscuits at all. Not the boxed, sugar coated confectionery delights which you've most probably already made a mental note to put on the shopping list. These are children; the children of Syria. And they're dead among others who they don't even know. Not their parents, not their families. Just people. Other children. Other victims. They are dead. And there are more dying everyday.

It's hard to put your finger on the exact sentiments. It's not everyday that you think to ask yourself; how would poisonous gas feel if it was corroding my insides? How would it feel to go to sleep with the blasts of guns you didn't even know existed? The shredding of houses of people you knew and the houses of those, you didn't? How would it feel to know that that was all 'ok'?

People say you can't imagine it. But, you can. You can't know it. You can't, unless you've experienced it, know how it feels. But you can try to imagine. The sooner people put themselves in the positions of others, instead of dismissing tragedy through the it's-not-happening-to-me syndrome by faining disbelief and parading how you couldn't even dare think about what it would be like, the sooner we would get humanitarian responses. I'm sorry if this comes across heavy. But I think we need to take those pensive moments.

So now think to yourself. You can do it. Imagine being on the wrong side of the Syria. What is the wrong side? Imagine being a mother or a father, in modern Syria. I did;

She Can Only Do It With The Sirens

  I watch her stumble. Fat feet, too flimsy to hold up all that body. Or, maybe, just too weak. She can't go to sleep. Not until she hears the blasts. I spent half of that first year of her little life, shielding her ears. When she cried, I thought she couldn't take it. The war; it's too scary, even for me. I sat quaking. Half waiting for the room to collapse, for next door to disintegrate.  The rest of me was already willing to die. But I couldn't do it myself. Only being killed made dying seem less cowardly. 
  She cried; Laila did. She needed to sleep. Can't you just stop?! was closer to a lullaby than I've ever sung her. My baby needs rest! I do too! But it was one night, when the tension was particularly riotous, when men walked right by our room, when a little boy a couple of doors down shrilled and then just stopped, when the police struck and the whole ambulance unit was deployed; that was the night she slept right through. Her first night for seven months, properly asleep. And then I knew; she could only do it with the sirens. 
  And now, now she needs the rubble. Can't hold herself straight if she's not walking on the upturned street. Can't balance if there isn't a thick wire of plumbing in the middle of the road. Can't move if she's not walking towards a burnt out car. That's the only reason she's moving forward, when she should be doing the opposite. She should have her little fingers in mine and be letting me lead her backwards. But she's going forward. Further and further away from me.
  This is home for her. This dismal existence. And Laila; she can only do it with the sirens.