I always forget how pastoral the bus ride to Albany is.
Jerin I took the Greyhound up there on Saturday to attend a council meeting for New York NOW. En route, admiring the miles of unbroken forest, the sudden gorges and the creeks far below, I engrossed myself in the memoir of Malalai Joya - A Woman Among Warlords.
We’d seen her appear the night before at the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan, in conversation with Eve Ensler. Lauded by BBC News as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan,” and named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2010, Joya is a devoted human rights activist, an uncompromising advocate for women, and a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament, to which she was the youngest individual ever elected.
Though of course familiar with the work of Ensler, I knew shamefully little about Joya prior to the discussion, as has been the case with the majority of the presentations and lectures I’ve attended recently. It didn’t take long for her to make a fan of me, in the text of her book, if not the incredible presence she carried on stage.
Twenty-five years old and 5 feet tall, she stood up to speak at a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003 and without skipping a beat denounced, to their faces, the mass-murdering warlords and regional dictators whom NATO had managed, incredibly, to install in the legislature. She’s survived five assassination attempts and travels under guard. A progeny of the refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan, she operated as a teacher in secret girl’s schools, hiding her books under her burqa to avoid detection by the Taliban, and later established a free medical clinic and orphanage in her home province of Farah. Last month, when our genius government attempted to deny her an entry visa on the grounds that she “lived underground” and was thus “unemployed,” Joya became the centerpiece of a massive public campaign that ultimately succeeded in getting the decision rescinded, hence her appearance in Manhattan Friday night.
Giving thanks to the people who’d assisted her, Joya expressed her gratitude to the American people, who once again had forbidden their government to speak for them.
Reflecting on her words as the scenery of central New York slid past the slimy, Greyhound window, I found myself drifting back to October of 2001, when, as a 19-year-old kid fresh out of high school, I watched the words “America Strikes Back!” explode across the screen of whatever Southeast Alaskan television set I happened to be staring at and felt like my nation had sold its collective soul to hell.
To have known at the time that a hero such as Joya could have stepped from the wreckage and thrown that hell back in my government’s face, while at the same time empowering my fellow citizens with the knowledge that our leaders’ inferno-bound path wasn’t one we were forced to follow, might have given me a small margin of comfort.
Failing that, she certainly gave me a lot to think about right now.
Jerin I took the Greyhound up there on Saturday to attend a council meeting for New York NOW. En route, admiring the miles of unbroken forest, the sudden gorges and the creeks far below, I engrossed myself in the memoir of Malalai Joya - A Woman Among Warlords.
We’d seen her appear the night before at the CUNY Graduate Center in Midtown Manhattan, in conversation with Eve Ensler. Lauded by BBC News as “the bravest woman in Afghanistan,” and named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2010, Joya is a devoted human rights activist, an uncompromising advocate for women, and a former member of Afghanistan’s parliament, to which she was the youngest individual ever elected.
Though of course familiar with the work of Ensler, I knew shamefully little about Joya prior to the discussion, as has been the case with the majority of the presentations and lectures I’ve attended recently. It didn’t take long for her to make a fan of me, in the text of her book, if not the incredible presence she carried on stage.
Twenty-five years old and 5 feet tall, she stood up to speak at a constitutional assembly in Kabul in 2003 and without skipping a beat denounced, to their faces, the mass-murdering warlords and regional dictators whom NATO had managed, incredibly, to install in the legislature. She’s survived five assassination attempts and travels under guard. A progeny of the refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan, she operated as a teacher in secret girl’s schools, hiding her books under her burqa to avoid detection by the Taliban, and later established a free medical clinic and orphanage in her home province of Farah. Last month, when our genius government attempted to deny her an entry visa on the grounds that she “lived underground” and was thus “unemployed,” Joya became the centerpiece of a massive public campaign that ultimately succeeded in getting the decision rescinded, hence her appearance in Manhattan Friday night.
Giving thanks to the people who’d assisted her, Joya expressed her gratitude to the American people, who once again had forbidden their government to speak for them.
Reflecting on her words as the scenery of central New York slid past the slimy, Greyhound window, I found myself drifting back to October of 2001, when, as a 19-year-old kid fresh out of high school, I watched the words “America Strikes Back!” explode across the screen of whatever Southeast Alaskan television set I happened to be staring at and felt like my nation had sold its collective soul to hell.
To have known at the time that a hero such as Joya could have stepped from the wreckage and thrown that hell back in my government’s face, while at the same time empowering my fellow citizens with the knowledge that our leaders’ inferno-bound path wasn’t one we were forced to follow, might have given me a small margin of comfort.
Failing that, she certainly gave me a lot to think about right now.
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