OPRAH OF AFGHANISTAN
Mozhdah breaks barriers
In this rags-to-righteousness story, author Roberta Stayley charts how Mozhdah Jamalzadah went from being a child refugee arriving in Canada to hosting the barrier-breaking Mozhdah Show for two years and earning the moniker “the Oprah of Afghanistan” in her 20s.
Tackling such taboo subjects as divorce and domestic violence earned the dynamic young broadcaster a fierce fan base matched only by an even-fiercer opposition.
As the book documents, there came a time when it was no longer safe to continue working in Kabul. But by the time that occurred, her reputation was such that she sang at the White House, met her idol Oprah Winfrey and accomplished much more.
With her career in her ancestral homeland cut short, Jamalzadah continues her activism from abroad, pursuing a musical and acting career from her Vancouver home.
The cover image of her wearing the blue burqa turned up to reveal her face is loaded with defiance and contradictions.
When her family — educated and modern — took a midnight bus from Afghanistan to Pakistan, her mother, Nasrin, wore the full burqa to pass as an obedient, passive peasant wife through the many checkpoints along the way.
Jamalzadah discusses how a symbol of female subjugation that had become a means to freedom impacted upon her later choices from everything to how she appeared on TV to how she lives her life today.
“During the civil war, the whole country changed and a whole Soviet-style surveillance culture developed that had everyone looking over their shoulder,” Jamalzadah said. “Then during the Taliban era, there was this element of fear added to it. Even afterwards, there would be moments when rumours or news would go around that would get everyone in a state of heightened tension again.”
Coming to Canada from that unsettled war zone was an impulsive decision. Her father was warned the police were coming for him; the family made it to Pakistan as refugees, and life was basically hand-to-mouth. Permitted to immigrate to Canada, the family landed in Oshawa, Ont., where everything from high-piled snow to rampant classroom racism took its toll on the impressionable young Mozhdah.
Moving to Vancouver proved a much different experience in the more multicultural classroom and population mix.
The passages about bullying and the hardships of the immigrant experience in Voice of Rebellion prove to be a potent antidote to the bigoted masses making up their own headlines in social media that the mainstream press often proliferates.
How the family rebuilt itself through diligent work, smart business decisions and dedication out of nothing is inspirational enough. But where Jamalzadah takes it is exceptional.
Setting to music her father’s protest poem — titled Dukhtare Afghan, about acid attacks on girls walking to school — Mohzdah became a chart-topping singer and was invited to perform the song in front of the Obamas at the White House. The status she attained from the song and other musical appearances lead to the offer to host a show on the new 1TV station in Kabul.
Heading back to her ancestral homeland, she found herself directionless again.
“It’s the story of my life. This complete cultural shock of being somewhere completely different all over again, trying to define my space there all over again and again,” she said. “Here, I’m seen as ethnic, as an immigrant, an English-as-a-second-language speaker.
“In Afghanistan, I’m this Westerner in their eyes trying to speak Farsi for an entire one-hour show. That was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
But she did it, and the show was a game-changer in Afghanistan.
Inspired by the Oprah Winfrey Show, the Mozhdah Show was unlike anything on the air. Topics ranged from domestic violence to the lives of spandis: young people who begged on the street waving burning cans of herbs at motorists to ward off evil. The programs hit a nerve in a war-torn country emerging from a tumultuous few decades. Not everyone loved it, but she kept at it. Then an assault by a co-worker and mounting serious death threats made it impossible to continue.
“All of that changes you as a person, and the strength you gain coming out on the other end of it doesn’t come without a cost,” she said.
“I went there really optimistic, naively thinking that I could help and make things possible and, perhaps because of that, it actually did for a time. When it didn’t, it set me back and I almost fell into a very dark hole where I couldn’t see the light, or get myself back up and be where I was before.”
She stresses the experience gained from her time in Kabul reinforces her convictions that there are good people everywhere being taken advantage of by people in power manipulating situations to their benefits.
If anything, the experience has opened her eyes to the fact that issues such as the subjugation of women are global in nature, that bad apples fall from all trees regardless of their cultural or religious practices and the main thing is to keep standing up to the negative and work toward the positive.
“Of all the things that me and my 19-year-old producer brought in as subjects for the show, nothing was as rewarding as introducing the concept of positive thinking,” she said.
“Decades of war has instilled a very negative mindset in everyone, and everything is negative and in denial. So for a couple of episodes, I talked about how positive thinking could change your day, your life, your way of thinking, and even that met with serious opposition.”
But she says people still comment how important raising the topic was.
She thinks there is a platform for spreading the word to future generations of young people “messed up, depressed and bullied by social media,” as well as hearing the immigrant voice around all manner of issues in the news.
Jamalzadah hopes that Voice of Rebellion will inspire other young women to pursue the difficult, but rewarding, path of breaking down barriers and developing dialogue around difficult issues. The way her story reads, it’s not difficult to imagine a scriptwriter phoning to option it for a new series on one of the many streaming services out there.
Given that she posts regular videos on her label Ethnobeast’s YouTube channel, it’s obvious we haven’t heard the last from this rebellious voice.
Of all the things ... brought in as subjects for the show, nothing was as rewarding as introducing the concept of positive thinking.