Biography & Autobiography Women
Outspoken
My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan
- Publisher
- Random House of Canada
- Initial publish date
- Feb 2024
- Category
- Women, Afghan War (2001-), Political
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781039007079
- Publish Date
- Feb 2024
- List Price
- $36.00
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Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
The impassioned memoir of Afghanistan's Sima Samar: medical doctor, public official, founder of schools and hospitals, thorn in the side of the Taliban, nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, and lifelong advocate for girls and women.
“I have three strikes against me. I’m a woman, I speak out for women, and I’m Hazara, the most persecuted ethnic group in Afghanistan.”
Dr. Sima Samar has been fighting for equality and justice for most of her life. Born into a polygamous family, she learned early that girls had inferior status, and she had to agree to an arranged marriage if she wanted to go to university. By the time she was in medical school, she had a son, Ali, and had become a revolutionary. After her husband was disappeared by the pro-Russian regime, she escaped. With her son and medical degree, she took off into the rural areas—by horseback, by donkey, even on foot—to treat people who had never had medical help before.
Sima Samar's wide-ranging experiences both in her home country and on the world stage have given her inside access to the dishonesty, the collusion, the corruption, the self-serving leaders, and the hijacking of religion. And as a former Vice President, she knows all the players in this chess game called Afghanistan. With stories that are at times poignant, at times terrifying, inspiring as well as disheartening, Sima provides an unparalleled view of Afghanistan’s past and its present.
Despite being in grave personal danger for many years, she has worked tirelessly for the dream she is convinced is an achievable one: justice and full human rights for all the citizens of her country.
About the authors
SALLY ARMSTRONG is an award-winning author, journalist, and human rights activist. She is the author of four bestselling books: Ascent of Women: A New Age Is Dawning for Every Mother’s Daughter, The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor, Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, and Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan’s Women. Armstrong was the first journalist to bring the story of the women of Afghanistan to the world. She has also covered stories in conflict zones from Bosnia and Somalia to Rwanda, Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Jordan, and Israel. She is a four-time winner of the Amnesty International Canada media award, the recipient of ten honorary degrees, and an Officer of the Order of Canada. She was born and raised in Montreal, lives in Toronto, and spends the summer in New Brunswick.
Excerpt: Outspoken: My Fight for Freedom and Human Rights in Afghanistan (by (author) Sima Samar; with Sally Armstrong)
PROLOGUE
by Sally Armstrong
It began as a quest and turned into an odyssey. The Taliban had taken over Afghanistan in late September 1996 and forbidden education for girls and working outside the home for women— basically putting women and girls under house arrest. During that time, I was the editor in chief of the Canadian magazine Homemaker’s, and we covered many important issues of the day. I heard about a woman who was defying the Taliban edicts, keeping her schools for girls open and her medical clinics for women running. I wanted to interview her for a story I was writing about this incomprehensible return to the Dark Ages. But first I had to find her.
My quest included dozens of phone calls and scouring the news for the name of this woman. At last, I talked to human rights expert Farida Shaheed in Lahore, Pakistan, who said, “Come over here and we’ll discuss this.” Despite an editorial budget seriously strained by the cost of a flight, I left immediately.
I met Shaheed at her office, where women were being educated about the duplicity of their religious-political leaders. Shaheed was a fountain of information, teaching me the ABCs of militant fundamentalism. But then she told me, “I can’t give you the name of the woman you seek—she’s in danger of being killed.” At about 5 p.m., when I was despairing my decision to fly across the world, Shaheed said, “There’s a flight to Quetta tomorrow at 9 a.m. You should be on it. Someone will meet you in the arrivals lounge.”
It was an easy flight to this city about 700 kilometers west of Lahore. By the time the plane landed my curiosity was thoroughly piqued. When I walked into the arrivals lounge a woman approached me, smiling. She extended her hand and said, “You must be Sally. I’m Sima Samar. I believe you’ve been looking for me.”
And that’s when the odyssey began. For the next week, I followed Sima around the hospitals and schools she was operating for women and girls. I discovered that she is the quintessential Afghan woman: she’s strong, she adores her country, and she’s had to fight for everything she’s ever had. Sima Samar was only twelve years old when she learned the meaning of the words author Rohinton Mistry would later write that life was poised as “a fine balance between hope and despair.” At that tender age she began to fight to alter the status of women and girls in her country. She fought the traditional rules for girls in her own family. She fought the Soviets, the mujahideen, the Taliban. She fought every step of the way to get an education and become a physician, to open her hospitals and schools for girls, and to raise her children according to her own values.
The article I wrote resulted in more than twelve thousand letters to the editor from women demanding action for the women and girls of Afghanistan. Some of the letter-writers started Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, and similar associations sprang up around the world. They all asked Sima to come and speak. After 9/11 and the subsequent defeat of the Taliban, US president George W. Bush invited her to the State of the Union address in 2002 and introduced her as the face of the future of Afghanistan. At every podium in Europe, in Asia, in North America, she told her heartwrenching story and was received with standing ovations, cheers and promises. She was a journalist’s dream, sharing her stories with authenticity, passion and even humor. Little did I know that when my journalistic quest was finished the odyssey would continue for more than two decades.
As our friendship grew, I became her witness—when the Taliban threatened to kill her; when the government that formed after the Taliban was defeated in 2001 tried to sideline her; when she defied the naysayers and became the first-ever Minister of Women’s Affairs; and when she started the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC). I traveled to the central highlands with her to see her far-flung schools in action, and I was with her family when suicide bombers struck at the meeting she was attending at the Serena Hotel in Kabul.
When Sima visited Canada, she met my family and even swaddled my first grandchild. And when I visited her country, I sat on the floor cross-legged around the dastarkhan at dinner with her family and learned more about Afghanistan and Afghans than I ever could have imagined.
I watched her fight back, bristled at the threats she received and grinned at her audacity. When it comes to justice and equality, she simply does not take no for an answer. I remember one occasion when the Taliban demanded she close her schools for girls and said if she did not, they would kill her. She replied, “Go ahead and hang me in the public square and tell the people my crime: giving paper and pencils to girls.”
I urged her to tell her own story when the Taliban, following on disgraceful backroom deals made with the United States, returned to power. While the world saw the twenty-year international intervention in Afghanistan as a failure, the truth is that during those twenty years, life expectancy in Afghanistan went from forty-seven years to sixty-three years, the boys and the girls went back to school, and nation-building began. That isn’t a failure—it’s a miracle. Sima was one of the leaders behind those remarkable changes, and I told her that the future of her country might depend on the honest telling of the chronicle of women, tradition, human rights and justice. What’s more, she was in a position to know exactly why the government eventually collapsed. I saw her life of resistance and resilience as a cautionary tale to others who allow deception and misinformation about culture and religion and gender to overrule the history and ultimately the will of the people. This is her story.
Editorial Reviews
“Sima Samar has written an extraordinary, gripping, and deeply moving book about the tragedy in Afghanistan. She helped restore the totally destroyed educational and medical system in the country, taught a new generation about human rights, including equal rights for women. Everything she touched in service of her country turned to gold, but only as long as it lasted. Her analysis of political events—as the US and Western powers first embraced Afghanistan and then abandoned it—is penetrating and heartbreaking. The question of who lost Afghanistan still reverberates in the corridors of power. Forever optimistic and forward-looking, Samar gives us answers on how to decipher the past and predict the future. Quite simply, Outspoken is a riveting book that will have you in tears.” —Ahmed Rashid, author of Taliban
“Breaking boundaries, Dr Samar’s story is a powerful testament to the undaunted struggle for the rights of women and girls, and its pivotal role in the quest for change and justice, even in the most masculine societies on earth.” —Manal al-Sharif, bestselling author of Daring to Drive
“While so many champion the idea of universal human rights in Afghanistan, few have done more than Sima Samar to try to make them a reality. This book doesn't just ask for dignity and a future for Afghans, especially Afghan women, it demands it: sometimes through logic and law but often through the passionate insistence of the narrator that she, an Afghan woman, thinks, feels and dreams too. Highly recommended.” —Ben McKelvey, bestselling author of The Commando, Mosul and Find Fix Finish
“Afghanistan, often referred to as ‘the graveyard of empires,’ has been described and explained at length by foreigners, usually men. This book provides an illuminating view of contemporary—I hesitate to say modern—Afghanistan, from a woman who weaves the personal and the political into the story of her successes and dreams, but who never gives in to despair. Sima Samar’s life and work stand in defiance to the dark rule of the Taliban, as a promise for a better future for all Afghans, even when the whole world seems to have abandoned them.” —Louise Arbour, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
“For two decades, Sima Samar was the conscience of democratic Afghanistan—a physician, human rights advocate, institution-builder, and justice-seeker. She embodied the ideals of her country’s revival after 2001 but paid a heavy price. Her story is essential and inspiring reading for all Americans, complicit as we are in a tragedy from which we must not turn away.”—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars
“Outspoken is a book of miracles, large and small. It’s a history book, an adventure story, a deeply personal memoir, and an inspiring work that propels you from your couch into action. Dr. Sima Samar gives bravery a face, from the night she saw her first husband taken away to be killed, to the many nights she risked her own life to save others. Illuminating the darkness in Afghanistan’s recent history, Outspoken provides astonishing insights and analysis. Honestly, I couldn’t put it down.” —Lisa LaFlamme, Journalists for Human Rights
“Afghanistan’s unsurpassably sad last half century ranks among the most dismal and disastrous episodes in all of human history. Sima Samar lived at the epicenter of this evil storm and has spent her life working tirelessly to improve the lives of her fellow Afghans, always holding on tenaciously to the hope for a better future. Outspoken is a book that is sobering, necessary—absolutely riveting.” —Paul Kennedy, former host of CBC’s Ideas
“Outspoken invites the reader into the heart of a country, to witness its people’s resilience and their strength. Despite the many treacherous paths Afghans have traveled over more than forty years of war, Sima Samar shows us the beauty of the Afghan soul and the wonder of Afghanistan. The very definition of courage, Sima Samar has fought tirelessly, through personal pain and tragedy, facing down successive repressive regimes—and even a few allied to the West—in her quest for justice. She is a hero indeed.” —Kathy Gannon, author of I Is for Infidel, former Associated Press news director
“In Outspoken, Sima Samar relates her lifelong struggles against patriarchy: as an Afghan girl, a medical doctor, a refugee in Pakistan who built hospitals and schools, a government official, and a human rights defender. Her story trenchantly illuminates what we must all learn from interventions in Afghanistan and serves as a warning to the world at a time when women’s rights are under siege.” —Emma Bonino, former EU commissioner and former foreign minister of Italy
“Outspoken is a must read for every woman—indeed for every person—who supports equality and human rights, especially for women and girls. Dr. Samar’s life is an inspiration; she speaks truth to power and has repeatedly risked her life for doing so. Feminists worldwide can and must learn from her experiences.” —Eleanor Smeal, president, Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher, Ms. Magazine
“Illuminating. . . . Sima Samar relates the embattled history of Afghanistan with lucid facts personalized with deeply felt impressions about her homeland’s perpetual unrest. The author opens readers’ eyes to the harsh realities of life for Afghan women. . . . Vital. . . . Samar’s lifelong legacy of resistance and resilience is palpably present in this memorable self-portrait.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Memoirs don’t come much more inspirational than this dispatch from medical doctor and activist Sima Samar detailing her women’s rights advocacy in Afghanistan. . . . Acknowledging that ‘most of the world sees us as a people at war,’ Samar carefully balances a steely indictment of her country’s repressive tendencies with an affection for her heritage. It’s a crucial complement to American narratives about Afghanistan, like Elliott Ackerman’s The Fifth Act.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
