A crusading Afghan woman

Filing a nomination to stand in next year’s Afghan presidential elections is, unless you happen to be one of the ‘chosen few’ backed by your personal ‘private army’, akin to signing your own death warrant. And when the person who files, a complete unknown in political circles, happens to be a woman, then she really is putting her life on the line.

This harsh reality has not, however, prevented Ms Khadija Ghaznawi Kurshun, an amazing international and national businesswoman in her own right, from doing exactly this. Personally knowing how very determined she is, this writer knows that, come what may, death threats and all, Khadija will fight through until the bitter end.

President of the Ibrahim Asia Group of Companies and with fingers in so many business pies that it is impossible to list them all here, Khadija is a force to be reckoned with and to be a front seat passenger with her, as I was, as she drives her Lexus 4x4 through the muddy streets of Kabul, sunglassed, demurely enveloped in her chador, music on full blast, windows open, grinning at startled police and army guys on checkpoint duty, is the experience of a lifetime.

Putting herself in the limelight by filing a presidential nomination is a huge step for this widow from Ghazni who usually lives very low-key and who, when I had the pleasure of staying with her two years ago, much preferred life in an ‘invisible’, medium-sized apartment-cum-office without a guard in sight to the life in fully staffed mansion she could have so easily chosen to lead.

“To be a woman in Afghanistan is far from easy at the best of times,” she told me then. “To be a woman on her own, a woman who runs businesses and deals with men on a daily basis, is harder than ever as, until they learn better, they do not take me seriously but I haven’t reached this position without much hard work and, I know, I have made many enemies along the way. Still, this is how I chose to live: a life as close to freedom as is possible for any woman in Kabul during such troubled times.”

“Come,” she orders me. “I have a business meeting to attend and I want you to come with me and then we will go out for dinner. I don’t feel like cooking at home tonight.”

“You want to know who I am?” she replied to the stern faced, heavily armed, young man, who stopped her and demanded an identity as she drove through a heavily barricaded area late night. “I am your next president and, if you open the barricade and let me drive through, I will remember you.”

He — and I — thought she was joking but, maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t!

Published in The Express Tribune, October 16^th, 2013.

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