Free The Favored Daughter by Fawzia Koofi

streets.
    But overall, most people in Afghanistan were happy that the Russians were gone and still hoped that the mujahideen would settle their disputes and form a decent government.
    For me, however, these political changes marked a very depressing period in my life. I was 16 years old, and suddenly, if I wanted to travel around the city, I had to wear a burqa for the first time in my life. The mujahideen were not religiously fundamental and they did not impose the wearing of the burqa. The need to wear it was more a matter of safety. With so many male soldiers around it just wasn’t a good idea for a young girl to show her beauty on the streets.
    It was very common for women like my mother, my aunts, and my elder sisters to wear a burqa. But younger women like myself didn’t identify with the traditions of wearing them. In the old days a burqa was a sign of nobility, but it also had practical uses. It was designed to protect a woman from the harsh elements, the burning sun, dusty sand, and fierce winds. I know that many people in the West today see the burqa as a sign of female oppression and religious fundamentalism. But I don’t see it that way.
    I want the right to wear what I think is best, but within the confines of Islam. Covering the hair with a head scarf and wearing a long loose tunic that covers one’s arms, chest and bottom is enough to satisfy the Islamic rule of being modest before God. Anyone who says a woman must cover her entire face to be truly Islamic is wrong. A burqa is definitely not an Islamic requirement but is usually worn because of cultural or societal reasons.
    I am also aware that in some Western countries, wearing a face-covering burqa has become a political issue, with certain politicians and leaders wanting to ban it by law. While I believe that all governments have a right to determine the laws and culture of their own countries, I also believe in freedom of choice, and I think Western governments should let Muslim women wear what they want.
    As a young girl, however, I did not want to wear a burqa. One day my mother, sister, and I got dressed up in our nicest clothes for a party at my aunt’s house. I was very pleased and felt beautiful. I was even wearing a little bit of makeup. Before the arrival of the mujahideen I would have just put a head scarf on before stepping outside. But my mother had gone to our neighbor’s house and borrowed a burqa, which she insisted I wear.
    I was furious. I had never worn a burqa in my life, and here I was in my nicest clothes with my hair and makeup done, ready for a party, and she was insisting I cover myself in a heavy blue sack.
    I refused and we flew into a terrible argument. I argued, “Suddenly the mujahideen come to town and the whole world changes,” while my mother pleaded, cajoled, and threatened that it was for my own protection. She argued that the soldiers could not be trusted if they saw me uncovered and that I should hide myself to avoid unwanted trouble. I was crying, which only made me angrier because it ruined my makeup. I started doing that teenage thing where I decided that if I had to wear a burqa then I simply wouldn’t go to my aunt’s at all. Eventually my mother talked me around. I did want to go to the party, and having spent so long getting ready it would be a shame not to go. And so I begrudgingly pulled the burqa over my head and reluctantly took my first steps into the streets of Faizabad and this strange new world.
    Peering through the tiny blue mesh eye slot, I felt as though everything was closing in on me.
    The mountains seemed to be perched on my shoulders as if the world had somehow grown both much larger and much smaller at the same time. My breathing was loud and hot inside the hood and I felt claustrophobic, like I was being buried alive—smothered beneath the heavy nylon cloth.
    In that moment I felt something less than human. My confidence evaporated. I became tiny and