Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan’s First Female President?

[SoCalDem]

By Laura Lynch ⋅ October 21, 2011 ⋅ Post a comment

http://www.theworld.org/2011/10/afghanistan-woman-president-fawzia-koofi/

Fawzia Koofi is in the committee that is examining legislation outlawing violence against woman. (Photo: Laura Lynch)


From the day she was born, Fawzia Koofi’s life has been marked by a struggle to survive.

Hers is a life story that in many ways mirrors the history of Afghanistan over the last three decades. Now she is embracing a new dream for herself and her country. Koofi wants to become the next president. Koofi’s story, the story of a life lived on the edge of death in Afghanistan, begins with a letter written to her two daughters.

Dear Shurha and Shahrazad,

Today, I am going on political business to Faizabad and Darwaz. I hope I will come back soon and see you again but I have to tell you I may not. There have been threats to kill me on this trip. Maybe this time these people will be successful. Koofi’s letter is included in her new memoir. The words are touching, intimate and frightening. It reflects the threats, assassination attempts and danger she has faced throughout her life, most recently from Taliban fighters.


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It is a tense time in Kabul. A senior politician was recently assassinated and when Koofi greeted me, she looked visibly fatigued. She shared a dream she had the night before. “I couldn’t sleep the whole night and I had different kinds of dreams,” she said. “I believe in dreams. So I dreamed that I could not see. I’m struggling to see.” Struggling could be a word that defines Koofi’s existence.

As a newborn, the 19th of 23 children in the household, her mother left her out in the sun to die. Koofi survived that and the trials and violence that followed. In the rugged terrain of the northern province where she grew up, she watched her father beat her mother. She knew from an early age that politics was a dangerous game. Her father, a member of the Soviet backed parliament was killed by mujahedeen warriors before she turned four. She also lost her husband and two brothers through the years of conflict.

Now, she has become her father’s political heir.

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