Serena Dandini (photo by Gianmarco Chieregato).
dwe have to keep talking about it. It’s little, but if we turn off the spotlight and our attention on what is happening to Afghan women, girls and girlsthe thick night they were thrown into will turn into perpetual darkness.
The latest dramatic news concerns the fate of Matiullah Wesa, also known as “the teacher of the little girls”. He was arrested, and nothing more is known about him. His crime, through his Pen Path association, is that of having wanted to continue despite the bans of the Taliban on believing in the importance of the right to education for girls.
I invite you to go and look online for a photo of his super sidecar equipped as a traveling libraryan incredible means by which he climbed over the mountains to bring books, pens and educational materials to the most remote villages.
He parked outdoors and the small trailer magically transformed into a mobile library, an outpost of culture from which Wesa lectured the girls, deprived of any other contact with the world.
Matiullah Wesa in front of his sidecar/library (photo Getty Images).
Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s activist for South Asia, together with Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, are clamoring to know the reasons for her arrest and to be guaranteed regular legal assistance.
The Taliban continue to deprive women of all rights and just recently they have also closed the Zan Library, which means “woman”, therefore “the library of women”, the last little light in Kabul, a place that still allowed girls to get information and read.
One of its founders, Laila Basim, is an amazing fighter, who continued to struggle despite being fired by the Ministry of Economy and preventing her from working. Beyond the inhumane conditions to which the female gender is subjected in Afghanistan, as Basim declares: «Preventing access to education in half of society not only increases illiteracy, but also causes great damage to the economy… A illiterate society is doomed in the end”.
That’s why this week I’m not recommending a particular book but all possible books. We who have the freedom to choose give a book to our daughters and sons, reminding them of the magic and power of reading.
And maybe choose a small independent bookstore, where you can find a passionate bookseller who will be able to advise you for the best. Rights must always be exercised also in order not to lose the habit: even one that seems obvious to us like the right to education.
All articles by Serena Dandini
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