{"id":73752,"date":"2024-08-27T17:22:30","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T21:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/?p=73752"},"modified":"2025-08-11T10:57:45","modified_gmt":"2025-08-11T14:57:45","slug":"why-we-must-shout-and-sing-against-oppressors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestoryexchange.org\/why-we-must-shout-and-sing-against-oppressors\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Must Shout \u2013 and Sing \u2013 Against Oppressors"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Taliban has forbidden women in Afghanistan from singing or reading aloud in public. What else can one do but shout back? (Credit: Defense Visual Information Distribution Service<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

For Afghan women<\/a>, there is now no more solace to be found in prayer, or song<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not outside of the home, or with others, anyway. The Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalist group that has controlled the central Asian nation with an increasingly clenched fist since reclaiming power in 2021, issued a new set of rules this month that further restricts the women under its rule. A woman\u2019s voice has now been declared as something \u201cintimate\u201d by the government \u2013 and as such, women can no longer read aloud, pray or sing when they are in public or around people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t stop there, either. Women are also required to conceal themselves from head to toe whenever they leave their homes, and are no longer permitted to even look at men who aren\u2019t their husbands or blood relation. And the girls and women who fail to comply with any of this face detention<\/a> \u2013 or worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInshallah we assure you that this Islamic law will be of great help in the promotion of virtue and the elimination of vice,\u201d spokesman Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq, who represents the ministry responsible for the edict, said of its decree<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This all comes as part of a broader set of new \u201cvice and virtue\u201d laws, expressed to the public as a 114-page, 35-article document. And it\u2019s the latest in a years-long string of outright attacks on women\u2019s autonomy and rights in Afghanistan. These new requirements follow a ban on education<\/a> for girls and women; restrictions<\/a> on women\u2019s participation in sports; and the forced closure<\/a> of beauty salons throughout the nation \u2013 among other rights, shamelessly revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roza Otunbayeva, head of the United Nations\u2019 efforts in Afghanistan, referred to these limitations collectively as \u201cintolerable\u201d in a press statement<\/a> issued Sunday. \u201cIt is a distressing vision for Afghanistan\u2019s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid had the audacity to fire back. \u201cWe urge a thorough understanding of these laws and a respectful acknowledgment of Islamic values,\u201d he said<\/a> in his own statement. \u201cTo reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gall of these men, to speak of supposed arrogance in others, as they brandish ill-gotten power<\/a> to forcefully mold the world to their regressive liking. A world where people suffer, and women disappear, as they sit comfortably and visibly in seats of control.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
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\n \n \"Shakiba\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n \n Afghan Women: ‘We Are Not Fragile’\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n

A Chorus of Dissent<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

As a professional singer, I often consider my own instrument\u2019s capabilities and limitations \u2013 and the definitions of “power” and “strength” in a musical context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conclusion I\u2019ve come to, after years of experience and contemplation and conversations with wise women in the industry, especially, is that true power and strength come not from the volume or size of one\u2019s voice \u2013 though yes, there is joy and freedom to be found in taking up considerable space<\/a> \u2013 but from simply utilizing and embracing our voices in general. In speaking and singing out at all, in whatever ways our cords and spirits allow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s more incredible, still, when we bring voices together to make joyful noise \u2013 perhaps one of Earth\u2019s best examples of strength in numbers. It needn\u2019t even be \u201cgood,\u201d so long as it comes from a place within, from a place that is true. That is strength and power, manifest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghan women are now bravely showing that they agree. Using the hashtag #AWomansVoiceIsNotAwrat (\u201cawrat\u201d or \u201carwaa\u201d refers to the private parts<\/a> of a person, according to Islamic rules), Afghan women are now widely sharing videos of themselves, alone or together, indoors and outdoors alike, in which they sing, and read \u2013 in which they fight back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I will sing the song of freedom,\u201d posted<\/a> one Afghan woman, as she shared a 30-second clip of her proud voice in action. Others came together in their homes to do the same<\/a>. In one especially moving video<\/a>, a group of over two dozen women stood together in the open air \u2013 some faces covered, some not \u2013 to join together in song, as music blared and drums thumped and women raised their red-painted hands high, a symbolic protest of oppression and brutality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And one Afghan poet, who posted anonymously<\/a> to protect herself, expressed her anguish in writing \u2013 while refuting the new laws by then reading her work aloud. \u201cI want to be in solitude, away from everyone. To free myself from all these troubles,\u201d she said. \u201cTo breathe anew and become lost. To become calm, my soul full of light.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gender apartheid<\/a> \u2013 of which the Taliban is undoubtedly guilty \u2013 means the collective loss of not just their gorgeous voices, but also women\u2019s wisdom, their beauty, their talents. It means losing their very essences. Their souls. In 2022, when we spoke<\/a> with former Afghan pop star Shakiba Teimori, she recalled the backlash after performing with her hair flowing free before the Taliban even returned to power, and her subsequent need to escape the country when they reclaimed Kabul, the capital city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, she plainly stated the most critical thing she\u2019s lost in her flight from oppression: \u201cMyself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The world simply cannot answer that with silence. They lose too much. We all<\/em> lose too much. ◼️<\/p>\n\n\n

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Related<\/h4>\n <\/div>\n \n
\n
\n \n \"H.E.R.\n <\/a>\n <\/div>\n
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\n \n 13 Protest Songs by Women Artists to Light Your Social Justice Fires\n <\/a>\n <\/h3>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Taliban has now banned Afghan women from singing and using their voices in public. The only ethical response is to drown the tyrants out, Candice Helfand-Rogers writes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":73753,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":false,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19648],"tags":[21322,19645,21321,19714],"class_list":["post-73752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-cultural-resistance","tag-opinion","tag-oppression","tag-womens-rights"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nRead About the Taliban\u2019s Ban on Women\u2019s Voices, Singing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Taliban has banned Afghan women from singing in public. 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