Killing Is Normalized, Sadness Is Worn As A Pride, Death, And Sacrifice Are Encouraged, Life And Happiness Are Shamed Like A Crime! This Is Our New Normal in Afghanistan!
My sister, one year has passed. I have lived through this one year, and every day of this year has been imprinted on my soul. I felt every emotion and witnessed unbearable brutalities of disfigured bodies of young men, burn bodies of young women, and shoes of school children covered with blood. I also compared my pain with the family’s suffering. A young girl only has a notebook that remains from her; they could not even find her body. The eternal torment and waiting of one last time seeing your “Totey Jigar”. I endured hopelessness as a permanent state of mind. I have failed to make peace with this new normal. I have been unable to understand how your killing could be justified and what will convince me that justice cannot be served.
The government told us your killer’s name is Ismatuallah, and he lives in Logar province. It has been a year since the government has not sent anyone to Logar, a central province in close proximity to Kabul, and then our leaders claim nothing will happen to our people once the Americans leave. I want to keep that hope, I wish I could trust them, but I fail.
Your murder faded away as hundreds and thousands more did, and unfortunately, there is no sign these murders will stop anytime soon. Nobody has resigned from the government that to accept they have screwed up. No one has shame in their eyes and they believe they are successfully governing the country. They won’t admit that they failed to do their jobs, which caused your death and hundreds more that followed. There are no regrets from our politicians that they could have done things differently. They hold on to their positions and tweet empty condolences with each life brutally lost like yours.
I am sorry that you died for a political game that you and your generation have not been a part of. I am sorry that your life was snatched from you with a bomb blast for a Twitter war of politicians. A war of words and propaganda to show the foreigners which side is more violent. I am sorry that you have become the symbol to show the start of extreme violence on civilians. I am sorry that with your murder they want to scare and suppress your contemporaries. I am sorry that I failed to convey to you when you were still alive that in our country, political leaders do not care, they never did about common human life. They just hold on to their power.
I heard many things throughout this one year. I was told “your sister’s loss has now strengthened our resolve”, many assassinations followed yours. One should ask them, is this how Afghan resolve was strengthened? I was told, “your sister was a courageous woman, and she died for a just cause”. What cause are we talking about: Afghan women’s rights that were/are traded by local politicians and international powers for their own changing games? Or are we talking about human rights/civilian causalities in conflict zones? In split seconds, school children are mascaraed, civilians are collateral damage every day by the bombs from terrorists (now partners with the US government), and by the raids of Afghan Security forces. Civilians, the majority of whom include children and women, die in large numbers every day. Do you think there will be any war crimes prosecutions? I doubt it, therefore, I am so sorry that you died for nothing.
People consoled me that sacrifices are needed for changing society like ours. This has broken me the most. Sacrifice does not help any country or nation to come together. Losses like yours are glorified, but they destroy society from its roots. Losses like yours leave behind dead souls like me, completely paralyzed and disabled. How can anyone expect a society of the disabled to make peace with each other?
There is a hashtag created with your name that says #RestInPowerNatasha. There is no power in death and sacrifices. No woman should have to die to ensure the rights of other women; no woman should have to give sacrifice so that the next generation of women can live in freedom. This notion is wrong; every woman is here to live her own life, experience life, and get old. My Natasha, when one person is killed, it is considered the loss of one life, but it is not the loss of one life. We have completely got this one wrong.
I am told daily that “Lima you are so strong.” I am not strong; I do not see strength in suffering. Where is strength in the inability to witness all these brutalities and not been able to save a life or cure the hearts of broken families like ours? I have seen baba (father) dying every day; I see mana (mother) talking to your grave every Saturday as if you will respond to her someday. I watch the broken souls of our siblings who I am unable to comfort. I am a weak, broken woman who has lost all motivation for life because you murdered my sister and are killing my family with that every day. There is no strength in such a life. Strength is in a smile like yours, strength is in a dream of yours to become the Secretary-General of United Nations, and strength was in a life goal of mine of becoming a bestseller author. Strength is in life, not death.