‘I heard a scream and realised it was me’: Afghan women’s rights pioneer on a decade of progress, and a return to the Dark Ages

I was born in Afghanistan in 1948. My aunt chose my name. Mahbouba means “beloved”. If you take the “a” off the end, it becomes a man’s name. I didn’t like my name in the beginning – why would I be given a name that was just one letter away from being a man’s name? But as I grew up, I began to like it because of its meaning.

I’m the eldest of four and have a sister and two brothers. When I was about six years old, I told my father I wanted him to respect my personality. That set the tone. He had tears in his eyes when I said that. He was very progressive, so was my mother.

I grew up in the best years in Afghanistan, when Mohammed Zahir Shah was king. The country was poor, peaceful and beautiful. My father was a doctor and I was proud of passing the exams to study medicine, but I ended up graduating in history from Kabul University.

There was a young socialist movement that started in Kabul and I joined as a student. It was – and still is – poverty that bothers me more than anything else because poverty prevents you from becoming who you have the capacity to become, because your attention is focused on feeding yourself and your children and having a roof over your head. Education and innovation go out the window.

Comfortably numb

I met my husband in Kabul. He was the son of a businessman. It was a love marriage. Perhaps if it had been arranged it would have lasted longer, but it lasted just a few years.

Mohammad Daoud Khan became our first president in 1973, replacing the monarchy. And in 1978, the revolution happened; it was a Communist movement mainly started by Russia. The Russians came in officially in 1980, but the movement was already there.