An American Bride in Kabul: A Memoir

by Chesler, Phyllis

  Kamile always comes brightly to life whenever I talk about the bravery and charm of Muslim feminists. She leans forward, smiles, and starts to speak—but Abdul-Kareem usually interrupts her and changes the subject. He is not that interested in what his wife might have to say, nor is he interested in what interests her—at least, not when I am there.

  She expects me to mount a spirited defense of women’s rights. I do what I can. Reluctantly I begin to tell Abdul-Kareem about some of the work I have done with or in support of Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and dissidents. I express how horrified I am by the state of Afghan women. He responds by attacking American culture and American women.

  “Phyllis, my dear,” he begins. “Do you think that American women are happy? Look at them, half-naked, running after men, having to hunt down a husband on their own, they can’t even keep him, they all get divorced. The grandparents live too far away to help with the grandchildren. Why should they bother? Americans throw their old parents out in the cold, just like the Eskimos do.”

  He goes on. His family indulges him. No one dares interrupt him. He is the patriarch, and Afghan family rules still apply, even in exile in America.

  “Abdul-Kareem,” Kamile ventures, “I want to hear about Phyllis’s work.”

  “But I am talking,” he explains.

  Kamile tries again.

  “Phyllis knows Muslim feminists, from Egypt, Syria, and Turkey.”

  Abdul-Kareem continues talking.

  Kamile keeps rolling her eyes. She whispers to me, “C’mon, talk to him. Tell him he is wrong.”

  Finally Kamile says, “Abdul-Kareem, let Phyllis speak. She knows many Muslim feminists who are unhappy in their countries, who want change. Maybe America is not the paradise for women, but, really, do you think how Turkish or Egyptian brothers treat their sisters is right? They steal their inheritance money and their property and then try to marry them off for more money to horrible men. Is that right?”

  I step in as her knight, prepared to do battle for my lady. But I also smile a lot and try to find points of agreement. I even propose toasts.

  I raise my tea cup and say, “Here we still are, together and safe. May we all remain healthy for many more years. Here’s to Kamile’s health—and here’s to many more meals together at your dinner table.”

  On this day Abdul-Kareem refuses to step around our differences. He launches attacks and refuses to concede a single point. The ceremonially courteous Afghan digs in his heels and dares me to protest. He says, “The so-called Westernization of Muslim women has not really led to their liberation. They dress and drink like whores and call that freedom. They are fools.”

  “Abdul-Kareem,” I say, “are you really back to this again? Will Muslim women be free only when they wear face masks or full body coverings? Is it freedom from the West that has you mesmerized? Afghanistan was never conquered by the West, and Afghan Muslim women were never free.”

  Abdul-Kareem is shrewd, worldly, and jovial, but, like many Afghan men, thin-skinned when it comes to criticism. He loves to criticize others, beginning with other Afghans. He easily sees through people and enjoys criticizing them.

  Abdul-Kareem praises unreservedly all the important people who have treated him as an important person. He praises his private high school and college in America and all his American surgeons and physicians. Other than that, he enjoys delivering scathing criticisms of America, Americans, Afghan leaders, women, and especially feminists. He is sometimes right.

  I once took him along with me when a Muslim feminist was delivering a lecture. I had hoped that he would hear her on the issues that I often raised. Afterward his only comment was this: “She is an opportunist who is more interested in money for herself than in helping Muslim women. She will take no risks.”

  To my chagrin he turned out to be right.

  As assimilated as Abdul-Kareem may be, he is incapable of praising any woman—unless she is an actress, the wife of an important man—or his daughter. Abdul-Kareem is not pro-Taliban. He is in favor of female education and careers. His daughter lives as a free woman and has a career. Yet his blind spots and prejudices about gender apartheid are typical; many other educated Afghan men share his views and his tactics.

  In 2007 an Afghan American anthropologist wrote to me. He praised an article I had written about my time in Kabul as the “only objective glimpse we have of upper class urban households in Kabul during the 1960s,” and urged me to “expand your account.” He thanked me for my “keen observations and insights about gender relations”—and then, unasked, began to lecture me about women. He told me that women are most exploited, abused, and demeaned in America and Europe. As proof, he referred to a “growing industry” of shelters for abused women in the West, not in Afghanistan. I saved his emails, but I did not tell him what I thought. I will do so here and now.

  I am one of those second-wave feminists who, for the last forty-six years, is on record opposing pornography, trafficking, and prostitution; bemoaning the vulgar eroticization of women, including female children both in the West and worldwide.

  Does this anthropologist really believe that women are not abused and demeaned in Afghanistan and in other Muslim countries? We have at least criminalized domestic violence in the West and have tried to prosecute the perpetrators; we have given some minimal shelter to victims of sexual assault, forced prostitution, and domestic violence.

  In Afghanistan, with a few exceptions, girls and women are sent to jail when they run away from the most gruesome torture at the hands of their in-laws, husbands, and parents. Their spirits are broken, and many are victims of honor murder long before they can find shelter anywhere in the land.

  I might agree with the anthropologist on one issue. The religious commitment to preserve the multigenerational family, which is true of all religions—not only Islam—is a positive and prowoman ideal for traditional women. But this is only an ideal, not a reality, and the price, female-only chastity, obedience, and a lifetime of domestic servitude and multiple pregnancies, is extremely high.

  I do not believe that the antidote to Western seminudity is to force women into ambulatory body bags.

  I favor modesty for both men and women, and I am aware that the Qur’an does, too. However, the burqa is not merely modest. As I’ve written, it is a sensory deprivation chamber, a moving prison-shroud that renders women socially invisible. Are Muslim men immodest because they do not wear burqas?

  When they were young, Abdul-Kareem’s children looked up to me and asked me many charming questions; they hung on my every answer. Now they are in their forties, and both they and the times have changed. I think they are disappointed by my refusal to sufficiently criticize the West and angry that I support Israel’s right to exist. Jameela is suspicious of my research into honor killings and has argued with me about this once or twice.

  I love them both. Once, in my home and at dinners in Manhattan, they kept insisting that I visit Istanbul. They told me that it is the best party town in the universe.

  At another kind of party I meet three Turks. One is a wealthy Turkish intellectual who was “born a Muslim but is not a believer.” She says, “I am afraid for my husband. We are known as proud Turkish secularists. My husband is a journalist. He is the type the ‘beards and the scarves’ will come for first. He refuses to consider leaving.”

  The other two, Turkish Jews, are grandparents who have already left Turkey. They tell me, “Our children have so many beautiful homes, such an enchanted life, that they do not see the danger coming. It is up to us to establish a beachfront in America. Perhaps one day they will have to run to us.”

  All three Turks are worried by the rapid Islamist gains in their country. They wonder whether they, their children, or their grandchildren will be impoverished, imprisoned, or even murdered for their intellectual or religious beliefs.

  I cann
ot think of Istanbul as a party town—at least not at this time and not for me. I could be wrong. I have a colleague who lives there who confirms that the city is still vibrant and wonderful.

  Now Kamile whispers to me, “Please find out whether what Abdul-Kareem is saying about Kemal Atatürk and Recep Erdogˇan is true.”

  I assume she is talking about Erdogˇan’s increasing acceptance of Islamist fundamentalist values.

  And so I ask, “Abdul-Kareem, don’t you think that Atatürk [who modernized Turkey] is turning over in his grave?”

  Abdul-Kareem responds rather savagely: “Let Atatürk spin. He was a fool. He wanted the West to like him so he became superficially like the West. He forced women to smoke, drink alcohol, and wear Western clothing. What is good about any of that? Granted, women deserve to go to school, but what Erdogˇan is doing is much better. He is letting women go to school and allowing them to wear hijab. And he has freed Turkey from the military.”

  Perhaps Abdul-Kareem has a point, yet what is his real point? Kamile smokes, drinks, and wears Western clothing. Her long-ago demonstration of her ability to earn a living, drive a car, and live independent of her family is an accomplishment that signifies her hard-won dignity.

  Abdul-Kareem sees these personal freedoms as forms of Western imperialism. He is saying that Kamile has been duped by Atatürk, who only wanted to please the West. What Abdul-Kareem says may be specifically calculated to challenge my feminist views or to shame Kamile, who vocally idolizes Atatürk.

  But Abdul-Kareem has stood by her loyally. In his way he is quite devoted to her. They are each other’s constant companions.

  Abdul-Kareem usually spends hours conjuring up an Afghan feast. Today, on 9/11/11, he orders a meal from the local Turkish restaurant. As we pass around the rice dishes, Kamile is quiet and Abdul-Kareem continues to criticize American foreign policy—even as he expresses his admiration, even love, for President Obama.

  As we begin to eat, I look directly at Kamile and begin to talk about my research into honor killing.

  Abdul-Kareem interrupts me, stating that such research is racist in that it singles out one ethnicity when all ethnicities are equally to blame.

  “If you want to tackle something important, research racism, look at America itself. That’s something that the Phyllis I once knew would be doing.”

  As usual I say, “Abdul-Kareem, I am not talking about racism in America or about the history of African slavery in America. I am talking about honor killings.”

  The elegant Mr. Abdul-Kareem turns nasty. In a harsh and scornful tone he says, “Did you personally interview the allegedly murdered girls? No. Did you perform the autopsies yourself? No. Did you talk to their families, understand their point of view? No. Did you work with the police? No. So you are just guessing.”

  “I am not on trial,” I respond, “and I do not have to answer hostile questions at a family dinner.”

  Whenever the subject of honor killings comes up, Abdul-Kareem always says that he has never known any to have taken place in Afghanistan.

  When I name names, dates, cite a particular newspaper story (his favorite medium) on this topic, Abdul-Kareem ultimately says, “I will not talk about that.”

  Or he says, “Well, there are so many crimes of this nature happening around the world, this is only a very small part of that.”

  Abdul-Kareem pretends that he has not read my work, including whatever I have written about Afghanistan in the past. But I know that he has read every word because every so often, right out of the blue, Abdul-Kareem will either concede that I finally got something right or he’ll criticize me on some small detail that I presumably got wrong.

  Once, when I was studying custody battles worldwide, I asked him about custody in Afghanistan. Our conversation was hilarious but instructive.

  Phyllis: Has any Afghan mother ever lost custody of her children?

  Abdul-Kareem: Never. Not once. Not that I know of.

  Phyllis: According to the Sharia, a father is entitled to his children when the boy is seven and the girl is twelve.

  Abdul-Kareem: No, no. It is only “at puberty.” But what father would remove children from a good wife? What would he do with them?

  Phyllis: What if the mother did something unheard of—like commit adultery?

  Abdul-Kareem: Under Sharia women can also sue for divorce if their husbands commit adultery or are impotent or refuse to support them or are cruel.

  Phyllis: I don’t think this is true, but you have not answered my question. Alright, when the rare divorce does occur, who keeps the children?

  Abdul-Kareem: Divorce never occurs. It doesn’t have to. Even when the men of my father’s generation took a second wife, they didn’t divorce or abandon their first wives and children. That would be too Western.

  Phyllis: What if a woman really disobeys her husband? Can that lead to divorce or to her loss of custody?

  Abdul-Kareem: Wives don’t disobey their husbands. Why would they? Now, if a mother is genuinely incompetent, if she completely neglects her children—

  Phyllis: Neglects her children?

  Abdul-Kareem: Perhaps a mother is overly devoted to her own family. Perhaps she insists on visiting her mother every single day. Perhaps she leaves her children in the hands of servants too much. Perhaps she is not making sure that the children are being kept from evil influences. Even such a terrible mother will be given time to change her behavior. The Kauzi [the mullah] might counsel her husband to give her six months to change her ways. Our mullahs are against divorce. Everyone is.

  Phyllis: There must be one Afghan woman who once lost custody of her children because she was married to a cruel man or because she disobeyed him in some way.

  Abdul-Kareem: Give me some time to research this minor question for you.

  He was not always like this. Once, he laughed at hypocrisy among Afghans and condemned Afghans for stupid and incompetent behavior. Sometimes he still does. A few years ago, when I invited him to join me at Asia House to hear President Hamid Karzai speak, I was afraid that Abdul-Kareem’s nonstop loudly whispered comments about the Afghan president would get us thrown out.

  “What kind of costume is he wearing? He’s a Pushtun, not an Uzbeck. Why is he wearing an Uzbeck coat? Is he a clown of some kind? What has America bought and paid for?”

  “Shh-hh,” I said, “they will ask us to leave or start taking photos of you.”

  But he kept grumbling all the time Karzai was speaking.

  When I first saw homosexual men holding hands on the streets of Kabul, my Afghan family, including Abdul-Kareem, told me that I was exaggerating or misunderstanding what I had seen with my own eyes.

  When I, and a handful of others, including Amnesty International and the author Khaled Hosseini, initially broke the stories of the gay male “dancing boys” of Afghanistan, the existence of Afghan warrior-pedophiles, orphaned Afghan boy sex slaves, and the inevitable epidemic of prison-like homosexuality in a woman-hating culture—Abdul-Kareem refused to discuss these matters with me.

  But once he saw the 2010 PBS and BBC documentaries on dancing boys in Afghanistan, listened to NPR’s program, and read all about it in the New York Times, he simply acted as if he had known about this all along. Thus, without referring to any of our previous conversations (really nonconversations) on this very subject, he now told me all about the dancing boys.

  “But,” he insisted, “you must realize that this is true only of Kandahar. It is true nowhere else.”

  I understand why he needs to disagree with me. I’m the wife who got away, the wife who delivers public lectures all over the world and who writes books. He cannot take me on in public. The only place he can argue with me and attempt to assert dominance, superiority, is privately, when I am at my most vulnerable, because I am trying to be nice, trying to honor our fami
ly-like connection.

  From his point of view it is bad enough that he has lost everything. He is also saddled with a feminist first wife who insists on exposing things that are meant to be hidden, certainly from infidel and non-Afghan eyes. Internal divisions, terrorists, and the world’s superpowers have laid waste to his country. Now the infidel destroyers are enjoying themselves, criticizing and feeling superior to the country they failed to help.

  We finish our dinner and are drinking our tea. But the atmosphere has gotten tense. It is not pleasant. I try to bring us together. Looking at Kamile, I say, “I want to toast again to your health and to our continued relationship.”

  Kamile beams. “You are like family, like a sister to me,” she says.

  In 2007, when Abdul-Kareem went back to Afghanistan to sell the best and the last of his family’s land “to rich and unbelievably vulgar drug lords,” he had Kamile call me right after he had called her, to assure me that he was alright. They both thanked me for my genuine concern.

  In a strange way I am still a member of this family—a distant member to be sure, but my status as Abdul-Kareem’s first wife is an identity that will never change and one that is never challenged. Our relationship and my relationship to his family, including his second wife, did not conclude with an annulment. We have remained in contact.

  In fact my biological son has grown up knowing Abdul-Kareem’s family. I attended the various graduations of Abdul-Kareem’s children. They attended my son’s wedding, I hosted some lovely dinners for us all.

  Over the years Abdul-Kareem would always come to pick up me up to drive me back to his suburban home. If he could not do so, one of his grown children filled in for him. And then someone would insist on driving me back. Whether this was overly protective or not, it was an Afghan custom that I came to appreciate.

  I was always proud that an American Jew could have a long-term tie to an Afghan Muslim.