“Playing for Freedom: The Journey of a Young Afghan Violist,” by Zarifa Adiba, Part 2 of 2

In 2016, Zarifa Adiba received a full scholarship to attend Yale University in the US for the summer program “Yale Young Global Scholars.” “I applied for International Security and Affairs. Because in the future, I want to study politics. I want to make music a primary education (subject) for all the kids around Afghanistan.” “I met a lot of people. They had a different world. But at the same time, I liked this world, and my siblings should have this kind of life.” “It is just so upsetting and heartbreaking that in the 21st century, there is a country named Afghanistan, where millions of the population are women and girls, and they cannot go to school.” “That in Afghanistan, for the last 20 years, the government made women, and women’s rights, kind of a business between them and the West, and didn’t really do anything concrete. Today, I’m in the (United) States, but all my heart, all my soul, all my goals, all my dreams, are back in my country. But today, I’m a refugee again. It is just so hard to see from outside what is happening there and not being able to do anything except talking about it.”

“I have studied feminism for the last three years. If today, women around the world, all of them, were to stand (up) for what is happening to women in Afghanistan, I think that we could solve this problem very, very quickly. But nobody talks about it. That’s how the situation of Afghanistan is. They’re helpless.” “Music is banned, music is ‘haram’ (an Arabic term for forbidden). And I don’t understand why, because in Islam, it is not forbidden. It’s one of the most beautiful, the most peaceful tools for love, for hope, joy, happiness, and they call it forbidden.” “If people are kind to each other, I think that a lot of humanity’s problems would be solved. I would really ask people to please talk for Afghan women. Whoever thinks that something unjust is happening to women in that part of the world, just raise your voice a little bit, not a lot, just a bit to see what’s happening.”