Afghanistan unveiled.

On November 16, PBS will broadcast Afghanistan Unveiled on its Independent Lens series. The film was made by a group of young Afghan women who were the first to be trained as journalists after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

Read the essay below to learn more about one of these women, Mehria Azizi. Answer the questions that follow on a separate sheet of paper.

In 1984, when Mehria Azizi was born, a civil war raged in Afghanistan. Rebels known as mujahedeen (holy warriors) fought government forces backed by the Soviet Union. When the rebels beat the Soviets, they turned on each other. Violence tore apart Mehria's hometown of Kabul, Afghanistan's capital. After stray gunfire killed her mother, 8-year-old Mehria was left to care for her family.

As a teen, Mehria secretly started a school in her home for neighborhood children. By then, the country's new leaders, called the Taliban, were forcing Afghans to follow a strict interpretation of the Koran (Islam's holy book). Members of the Taliban forbade women to teach or attend school.

In 2002, after U.S.-led forces defeated the Taliban, Mehria joined a film crew that traveled to Badakhshan, a remote area in the northeast corner of Afghanistan. There the crew documented the challenges women faced. Mehria and the other young female journalists did not cover their faces as conservative Muslim women do. Instead, they wore simple headscarves.

The filmmakers found it difficult to interview the women, many of whom wore the traditional chadri (also called burka), a long garment that covers the body and face.

In the film, one sees Mehria challenging a man who insists that the Koran forbids a woman to show her face to anyone but her family. "Any person who is that ignorant is beyond comprehension," Mehria says of the man. Remembering her mother as "a victim of hate," Mehria vows to "never accept that ignorance and intolerance should hide my face ever again."

Today, Mehria is a full-time journalist in a changing Afghanistan. "A lot of people are uneducated, and they do not believe that a woman should talk in front of the camera," she told JS. "Many other people, they are proud of [what I do]."

Despite the turmoil her country has faced, Mehria now has high hopes for a better future. "In Afghanistan it is always fight and fight and fight," she says. "Now, I hope it will become better and better, that we will be flee, and I will become a woman. [Before,] it was like a dream. But now my dream is true."

QUESTIONS

1. What is Mehria's hometown?

2. What life-altering event occurred when she was 8 years old?

3. What did Mehria do that might have gotten her into trouble with the Taliban?

4. What is Islam's holy book?

5. What was Mehria's mission in Badakhshan?

6. What item of clothing do you think Mehria will not wear?

7. What was Mehria's disagreement with the man from Badakhshan?

8. Why do you think Mehria equated the man's "ignorance" with her mother's death?

9. What challenge, as a female journalist in Afghanistan, does Mehria face?

10. Mehria says that her dream has come true. What do you think that dream was?

ANSWERS

1. Kabul

2. Her mother was killed, and she was forced to care for her family;

3. She operated a school for neighborhood children,

4. the Koran

5. She was part of a documentary film crew investigating the lives of women there.

6. the chadri, or burka

7. They disagreed over whether women must cover their faces in public.

8. Answers will vary. Students may point out a connection between the "ignorance" of violence and restrictive religious beliefs.

9. She must overcome the religious belief that women should not speak or operate a camera in public.

10. Answers will vary.