Zarifa: a Woman's Battle in a Man's World by Zarifa Ghafari

Author:Zarifa Ghafari [Zarifa Ghafari and Hannah Lucinda Smith]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Published: 2022-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Winning the job was only the start of the battle: it would take me another nine months to take up my office in Wardak. The official confirmation that I had got the job hadn’t even been issued before the protests against me began there. As soon as news spread on social media that a woman was in the running for the post, a few men began gathering and shouting slogans against me outside the governor’s office in Maidan Shahr. Of all the candidates, I had won top marks in the test and interview, and now it was down to President Ghani to sign the decree. This is when the social media gossip really soured. Some of my opponents said I had paid a bribe to get my high marks – a ridiculous accusation, since I barely had any money. Others said I was a friend of Bibi Gul, the first lady – I wasn’t – or that I had used sex to get this far. A classic! All over the world, women who rise up through the ranks are accused of the same.

At the same time I was also overwhelmed with messages of support from all over Afghanistan, and even abroad. Women were thrilled. Many men were, too. But in Maidan Shahr the protests grew. That day, dozens of people gathered in front of the governor’s office, some of them shouting that I wasn’t even from the city but from Wardak – that old problem again. By then, I knew the governor was also against my appointment, and he stopped answering my calls.

I met with Bashir and some of the radio team and other activists. Bashir thought we should be patient, bide our time and wait for the fuss to calm down. But then we heard that a much bigger demonstration against me was being organised, by the influential market trader, the same one who was organising for revenues to go to the Taliban. He was insisting that the ex-Taliban commander was the rightful winner of the post, and that nobody in the city wanted me. He had managed to rouse quite a crowd, who had set up a tent as their HQ inside the governor’s compound, close to the gate of the municipality office, and also blocked the main road to Kabul.

When the governor continued to refuse my calls, I decided: ‘Enough is enough. I’ll go to his office myself.’

Ignoring the crowd, I headed straight inside the building to find that the governor had left. His deputy told me to go home and wait a few more days.

‘We’re working on it,’ he said.

I didn’t believe him, resolving to return to the office every day until the governor announced my appointment, just to get me off his case. I turned and huffed back down the stairs, and as I stepped out into the sunshine, a roar went up in the crowd gathered outside, as if someone had turned a volume dial up. The shock of it stopped me dead, and

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