Afghan girls show how powerful music can be

When the call came, she was home at Kunar for her holidays. Negin Khapalwak had just got admission into the Afghanistan National Institute of Music, the only music school in her country. But there was a problem. The then 14-year-old had not yet told her parents that she had applied.

When she was nine, Negin’s father had sent her to live in a Kabul orphanage — not because she was an orphan but because that was the only way he could ensure she would learn to read and write. Kunar was then a Taliban stronghold and while the boys could study in the mosque, the girls had to stay home, out of sight.

By the time the Taliban regime had fallen, female literacy was barely 17%. It was unusual for a girl to get an education; to get a musical education even more so. For the next five years, Negin says, she couldn’t go home because her own uncles had threatened to kill her.

At 18, Negin became her country’s first woman lead conductor. “I had heard music on the radio, but I had never seen a girl play,” she says.

Ahmad Sarmast, a burly man with a soft voice, had returned home from exile after the fall of the Taliban. Music was no longer banned, but it remained taboo, particularly for girls. Sarmast’s mission was to restore his country’s 1,000-year-old musical legacy, enrolling the most disadvantaged — orphans, street vendors, girls — first. The idea for an all-women’s orchestra came from one of the students. Starting with five girls, the Zohra orchestra, named after a Persian goddess of music, now has 26; the youngest is 13-years-old.

The girls wear a burnished determination. Nazira, her country’s first cello player, had never seen a musical instrument. Marjan used to sell chewing gum on the streets. Her relatives are furious that she’s learning music. But, she says, she wants to be a ‘good teacher for the future of our girls’.

Threats abound. In 2014, a bomb blast left one person in the audience dead and Sarmast temporarily deaf. Following a recent Europe tour, some parents objected to the publicity, worried that it might provoke new attacks on their daughters, says one of the teachers.

The opposition to Zohra comes from those who are threatened by what the orchestra represents: Gender equality, girls’ empowerment, dignity and working together to address social challenges. “They are aware of the transformative power of music and this scares them,” says Sarmast.

And sometimes the girls are just girls. At the HT Leadership Summit where they had performed earlier in the day, a sighting of actor Salman Khan at dinner leads to excited whispers. But the girls are too shy to go up to him. Someone mentions it to Khan who graciously comes forward and poses for photos.

Let’s just say the shrieks were not exactly musical.