Home, Land, Security by Carla Power

Author:Carla Power [Power, Carla]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2021-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

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ALL THE TIME AFIFA spent surfing ISIS propaganda sites took its toll on her schoolwork. Before, she’d ranked second in her class, but now she was having to take remedial courses. Her friends marked the change. “What’s wrong with Afifa?” they’d ask. “She’s suddenly so lazy.” But school felt trifling, and daily routines boring, next to the glories of Syria.

Desperate to fund the trip, Afifa entered a photography contest for the prize money. She didn’t win, but when she read about British and French girls her age going alone, she decided she wouldn’t wait for either her family or the funds. She wasn’t sure how she’d do it, since her mother refused to hand over her passport, but one day she came home from school, filled a backpack, and ran away from home. In a note for her parents left by the front door, she wrote, “We must go to Syria. We must do hijra,” recalled Zahra. “Please handle all the formalities for me to leave school. I’ll only come home if you can show me the letters saying you’ve done so.”

It worked: the next day Zahra signed the papers for Afifa to drop out of school. When friends asked her why, Zahra said it was because Afifa wanted to be an entrepreneur, a career that didn’t require a high school diploma. She told the school officials that her daughter would now be home-schooled.

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