From the Fall to Today: "We are still reading — even in the dark"

It has been four years since the fall of my homeland, yet I still haven’t been able to digest that day — the day the sun fled from our sky and the heavens grew darker than ever. I have never been able to accept why women must not work, why they must not study. Why is this nation so hostile toward women? When we ask, they say: “We have a religious reason.”

But didn’t the Holy Qur’an begin with “Iqra” — “Read”? Didn’t the Almighty say “Read” for all, not just for men? God Almighty said “Read” — He didn’t say, “Only men may read.” He addressed everyone.

These dark-minded people have created a law that exists neither in religion nor in logic — a law made only for their own benefit, a law that locks women inside four walls.

It should be said that in these four years, not only women, but many men as well, have been crushed under the weight of this oppression. They too have endured great hardships and deprivation — men whose voices of protest were silenced, who lost their jobs, who stood shoulder-to-shoulder with us and paid the heavy price of these years.

It’s been four years since I last went to school. My younger brother, who is three years younger than me, is now in eleventh grade, while I am still stuck in tenth. The day I learned that girls would not be allowed to take the university entrance exam, I wasn’t even preparing for it yet — but right there, while washing dishes, my tears poured down like rain.

I remember girls at school who had brilliant talent, but today they are stuck behind closed doors, while boys are free to move forward simply because they are boys.

These four years have taken more from us than just school — they have taken the park, the zoo, even the right to ride a bicycle or drive a car. One day, I longed for air and freedom. That night, I dressed as a boy, hoping to be seen as the identity they wanted me to have.

We went cycling. The wind hit my face, and I felt like I was breathing again. In that moment, I felt alive.

But suddenly, the black-turbaned enforcers passed by. My heart pounded — not from fear, but from rage. Rage that to ride a bicycle, I had to hide who I was.

Another day, I stood at the entrance to the zoo. The guard said: “Women are not allowed.” That same day, I saw men freely walk inside. I felt the same in the park. For four years, we have been deprived of the grass, the scent of trees, the sound of carefree laughter.

This feeling of being unseen is like an old wound that never stops reopening.

But we did not only cry — we read. We read in the dark, in home classrooms, in online classes, in every book we could find. Even with the doors closed, we earned certificates of achievement. For us, that is victory. And then we grew. We became stronger.

Because we know: if women learn and grow, no one can rule with darkness and ignorance. No one will be left for the Taliban to raise. My generation and I are fighting with nothing but a pen and a sheet of paper.

We read so the next generation will not cry for the chance to go to school. We read so that future girls will ride bicycles in daylight, wearing their own clothes.

We read so that no one will be left outside a zoo or a park simply for being a woman.

People of the world, do you know what it feels like to watch those younger than you enter university without obstacle, simply because they are boys — while you are left frozen in the middle of your education?

Do you know what it feels like to step somewhere and have the path blocked before your eyes, to hear: “Women are forbidden to enter” — while men can walk right in?

Do you know what it feels like when, on an ordinary day, only boys are allowed to walk the streets toward schools and courses, while girls must rot behind the windows of their homes?

No… you do not know. No one knows — except our generation, the children of this wounded land who have tasted, in their flesh and blood, the bitterness of this humiliation and injustice.

And yet… we are still reading, even in the dark. And we will never, ever allow them to achieve their aim.

Four years have passed — years whose hardships cannot be described in words. But these same years have also witnessed something remarkable: inner growth. Not in a classroom, not in a school, but within the four walls where they tried to silence us — we became stronger.

We learned that continuing itself is a form of resistance. Every day we read, every day we wrote, every day we stood. We discovered we were stronger than we thought.

They tried to cut us off from the world, but with a book, a pen, and a sheet of paper, we brought the world of learning into our homes.

We will continue. We will continue so that no girl will ever again cry for the chance to go to school. We will continue so that those who love darkness will be blinded by our light.

We will continue — because we are still reading, even in the dark.

— Badakhshi