Afghan Film "Osama" Depicts Taliban Tyranny Against
Women
Stephen Kaufman
Washington File Staff Writer
02/13/2004
Washington -- U.S. government leaders and Afghanistan's
ambassador to the United States gathered at the Washington office
of the Motion Picture Association of America February 12 for
a special screening of "Osama," the first film Afghanistan
has produced since the Taliban regime took power in Kabul in
1996.
The event, co-sponsored by Senators Hillary Rodham
Clinton (Democrat from New York) and Kay Bailey Hutchinson (Republican
from Texas), called attention to the five years of suffering
women endured under Taliban rule.
The film tells the story of an Afghan girl forced
to disguise herself as a boy named Osama in order to find work
and feed her family. It has received international acclaim,
winning the Golden Globe award for best foreign film in 2003.
"Tonight we will experience for one hour
what Afghan girls experienced for five years," said Afghanistan's
Ambassador to the United States Said Tayeb Jawad at a reception
before the screening. Noting the connection between the film's
title and the name of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Jawad
said, "Long before September 11th, that name has terrorized
and victimized the Afghan people."
"The actors in ‘Osama'
have lived and experienced the pain that they portrayed on the
screen," he said. The film's thirteen-year-old star, Marina
Golbahari, once lived as an illiterate street beggar in Kabul,
and "her eyes and expressive face connect the audience
to the determination, struggle and hardship of Afghan women
and children," he said.
Many other cast members were inhabitants of orphanages
and refugee camps, according to a September 16, 2003 article
by the Reuters News Agency.
Jawad said the film also showed the revival of
Afghanistan's rich culture and art. It is the feature film debut
of director Siddiq Barmak, who shot the film over six months
on a small budget, often using borrowed equipment.
Nevertheless, said Barmak, in his September interview
with Reuters, "Afghan cinema has a good future."
"I think it's a good way to introduce my
country to the world. I think it's a good messenger, a good
bridge between people for understanding each other," he
said, adding that his film was a reaction to the horror of life
under the Taliban.
Afghan women's activist Farida Azizi told the
audience that although the film's plot might appear abnormal
to western audiences, "when I lived in Afghanistan I saw
many girls who pretended to be boys just to survive and support
their families. Those brave girls risked their lives every day."
During the Taliban regime, Azizi secretly taught
women basic business skills and found health care for the critically
ill until she was forced to flee her country after the authorities
threatened her family. Despite improvements following the regime's
ouster in late 2001, she said Afghan women still need support
to get education and training, especially in the country's smaller
villages.
Under Secretary of State for Global Issues Paula
Dobriansky described the film as "one of the most moving,
gripping and sobering testaments to the horror of life under
the Taliban," where women were prohibited from attending
school, working, or making basic lifestyle choices such as the
freedom of movement or marriage.
"‘Osama' does not have
a happy ending," she said. "As with all too many people
who lived under the Taliban, the main character in this film
has some very traumatic experiences. But you can take some solace
in the fact that ... the culprits identified in this film are
gone from power, and our coalition is working with the people
of Afghanistan to ensure that the egregious human rights violations
are never again the norm in that country."
Dobriansky said post-Taliban civil society in
Afghanistan "is making a comeback and is thriving,"
and praised the country's new constitution, which guarantees
equal rights for women and men. She also noted that Afghan girls
had returned in large numbers to the classroom.
Senator Clinton mentioned the work in Afghanistan
of the non-profit organization Vital Voices (http://www.vitalvoices.org/),
for which she and Senator Hutchinson serve as honorary co-chairs.
The organization works to end worldwide human rights abuses,
expand women's roles in society and increase their success as
entrepreneurs.
Clinton announced the establishment of a Vital
Voices Afghan-Iraq Women's fund, which will be used to support
programs aimed at women's engagement in the democratization
process in both Afghanistan and Iraq, and said United Artists,
the U.S. promoter of "Osama," would be the first to
make a donation.
In Afghanistan, she said, Vital Voices has already
implemented a project to employ Afghan widows as seamstresses
to make school uniforms for girls, with the cooperation of the
U.S. Department of Labor led by Secretary Elaine Chao.
Speaking at the film screening, Secretary Chao
said the project was part of a $6 million grant from her department,
and has enabled Afghan women and girls to attend school, find
work, and "build better lives for themselves and their
families."
Chao also called attention to the plight of Iraqi
women, having recently returned from a visit to a women's rights
center in Hilla. The center, she said, was one of seventeen
that have been established in that country to provide women
with education and training in business skills and democratic
participation. "These women are hungry for democracy and
they want to participate fully in all aspects of their government,"
she said.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs,
U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
