strove to present an image of Afghanistan in the path of “catching up” with Western civilization. Hence Soraya participated with him in hunting parties, riding on horseback, and attending some cabinet meetings. She appeared in the king’s lodge during military parades. It was with her support that King Amanullah was able to campaign against the veil and polygamy. “At a public function, Amanullah said that Islam does not require women to cover their bodies or wear any special kind of veil. At the conclusion of the speech, Queen Soraya tore off her veil in public and the wives of other officials present at the meeting followed [her] example” (Ahmed-Ghosh 2003a, 4).
Figure 3. King Amanullah and Queen Soraya during their stay in England. Photograph published in the Illustrated London News, March 24, 1928. Source: http://www.phototheca-afghanica.ch.
Figure 4. Afghan ladies in European dress. Photograph published in the Illustrated London News, November 3, 1928. Source: http://www.phototheca-afghanica.ch.
That the king put so much emphasis on banning the veil is not surprising: the modernizing elite hastening to show images of women throwing off their veil is a common leitmotif of Orientalist discourses. As Meyda Yegenoglu (1998) argues, the figure of the woman who cannot be seen yet who troublingly can hold the Westerner in her own unseen gaze operates as the ultimate trope of the Orient that the West desires to penetrate. The desire to unveil her reveals “the unique articulation of the sexual within cultural difference in Orientalist discourse” (Yegenoglu 1998, 47). As the caption of a photograph published in November 1928 in the Illustrated London News (Figure 4) demonstrates, the level of progress achieved in Afghanistan was primarily measured by women’s unveiled appearance, the veil symbolizing the traditional, subservient domestic roles of Muslim women. However, in practice, women did not literally embrace European norms but creatively interpreted them by combining Western hats with face veils.
This exhibition of modern feminine fashion largely inspired by Europe became part of national rituals aiming to symbolically bolster the idea of “modernization,” especially for the rest of the world. For instance, the queen’s visit to Turkey in 1929 made the headlines of Cumburiyet, an Istanbul daily paper sympathetic to the goals of the new republic’s modernizing regime in which photographs of her wearing a sleeveless summer dress with hair, face, and shoulders uncovered were displayed (Shissler 2004, 113). The circulation of images of upper-class women dressed in European clothes and their public visibility at official ceremonies represented a radical step in a society where most women had historically been segregated from men and protected from the gaze of outsiders.
However, the introduction of women into public life was undertaken to serve other ends than the development of women’s autonomy. This public performance of European lifestyles through clothing “played a symbolic role in the determination of the definition of the regime, beyond its significance from the point of view of women” (Göle 1996, 64). These new clothing habits served to exalt a new civilization, a new way of life, and new behavior patterns. As in Turkey where Atatürk banned the Ottoman fez and replaced it by the hat, Amanullah made it compulsory for men to wear European suits when entering the capital city and for women to remove their chadari in specific areas of Kabul. These laws were significant in conveying Afghanistan’s aspiration to be part of the union of contemporary nations. Hence, Kabul was used as the shop window of reforms, which were mostly cosmetic and in reality had limited impact outside of the city. Corruption and governmental injustices practiced in rural parts of the country rendered these public ceremonials outrageous to villagers (Zulfacar 2006, 31).
In Amanullah’s view, women could only be emancipated through Westernization led by the upper class, the queen, and her sisters (Centlivres-Demont 1994, 336). Many women from Amanullah’s family publicly participated in women’s organizations and went on to become government officials later in life. For instance, the Anjuman-i Himayat-i-Niswan (Association for the Protection of Women) was established in 1928 by Seraj al-Banat and Queen Soraya to encourage women to demand the rights provided by King Amanullah’s reforms of marriage customs and restrictive social practices (L. Dupree 1973). With the support of Queen Soraya, women were encouraged to get an education and, as an initiative to that end, fifteen young women were sent to Turkey for higher education in 1928.
These societal reforms were further accelerated following a six-month trip around Europe that Soraya and Amanullah took in 1927–28. On their return the royal couple initiated a program of new reforms, including the creation of a constitutional monarchy, an elected assembly, a secular judiciary, and, most significantly, compulsory education for both sexes and plans for co-educational schools. However, the European tour of the royal couple was received with hostility in their own country (Majrooh 1989, 94). While Soraya and Amanullah were touring Europe, conservative forces at home began a campaign condemning their personal life and their modernization programs as anti-Islamic. Images of the queen unveiled and wearing Western clothes, presumably distributed by the British eager to destabilize a regime that had defeated them during the third Anglo-Afghan war, circulated in the tribal regions of Afghanistan (Ahmed-Ghosh 2003a, 5). According to Louis Dupree (1973, 452), “Amanullah struck at the roots of conservative Islam by removing the veil from the women, by opening co-educational schools, and by attempting to force all Afghans in Kabul to wear Western clothing.”
As the reform increased in momentum, resentment grew among conservative religious leaders. The revolt quickly spread and a tribal army moved on Kabul, recruiting supporters on its way. The king’s neglect for the creation of a national army to support his programs at a moment when Afghanistan was barely united as a nation left him disarmed with no choice but flight (L. Dupree 1973, 450). Despite his last minute attempts to negotiate with tribal leaders and his efforts to tackle public discontent by withdrawing some of his reforms, Amanullah was finally overthrown and replaced by a new generation of kings who avoided pushing the women’s agenda to the detriment of tribal rules.
After his eviction in 1929, his successor Habibullah Ghazi insisted upon a return to conservative customs regarding women. “He demanded that women remain behind the veil under strict male control and that girls’ schools, together with all other vestiges of the women’s movement, be suspended” (N. H. Dupree 1984, 319). Zahir Shah, his successor, introduced limited reforms that remained nonbinding in order to avoid the opposition of the mullahs. The institutional model deployed to promote women’s rights remained rooted in royal initiatives, with upper-class educated urban women gradually joining as the country started to develop its economy.
The Reign of Zahir Shah and the Decades of Daud, 1953–73
By the midcentury, massive foreign and technical assistance from the Soviet Union pushed Afghanistan forward on its journey toward modernization. Women were encouraged to participate in the economic effort in order to support the country’s development goals. The 1940s and 1950s saw the first women nurses, teachers, and doctors (Ahmed-Ghosh 2003a, 6). In 1950–51, university faculties reserved for women were created in medicine, the sciences, and the humanities—parallel to those exclusively for men—in the newly founded Kabul University (Centlivres-Demont 1994, 338).
A number of women’s associations with members recruited in the liberal upper and middle classes were created. The Muassasa-i Khayriyya-i Zanan (Women’s Welfare Association, WWA) was established by Zaynab Inayat Siraj and Bibi Jan, both members of the royal family. Although it tried to promote unveiling, the emphasis of WWA was to encourage income-generating activities and to modernize women by providing literacy, family planning, and vocational classes. In 1953 it established the journal Mirman. In 1975 WWA became institutionally independent and changed its name to the Women’s Institute (WI). The WI
