Chris Stephen in Kabul
IT MAY go down as the greatest con-trick of the Kabul "liberation" - the assurances by the new government, the Northern Alliance, that they are giving women a better deal.
The Taleban have fled the city, but the burqas are staying. Fear haunts women who have known acid thrown in the faces of the unveiled. But it is accompanied by fear of the returned alliance factions, whose anarchic rule of rape, humiliation and killing drove both men and women into the arms of the Taleban.
For the benefit of the photographers swarming around the city centre, a few women oblige by taking off their veils, a sort of "look - no problems" gimmick. Also for the benefit of the foreign press - and the US government - women announcers now read the news on Radio Afghanistan.
The reality is rather different. Taleban or no Taleban, almost every single woman in Kabul, and in the rest of the country, continues to wear the burqa, a humiliating dress that forces them to walk with pigeon steps to avoid falling over, and see through a 30-degree field of vision.
The sudden departure of the harsh Islamic rulers does indeed offer new hope and opportunity for repressed Afghan women. But many say fear and tradition will slow the transition of women’s rights.
Yesterday also brought a chilling warning from a women’s group that bitterly opposed the Taleban and ran secret missions to keep women’s rights alive. "The retreat of the terrorist Taleban from Kabul is a positive development," said a statement from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. "But the entering of the rapist and looter Northern Alliance into the city is nothing but dreadful and shocking news."
Women were not allowed to live as human beings under the Taleban, said RAWA’ s Marina Mateen, in an interview from Pakistan. Now 21, she left Afghanistan aged 11, but has returned on secret missions.
But under the country’s previous rulers, brothers and husbands cut young women’s throats rather than see them raped by the warlords and their men. The rape of young girls was common, Ms Mateen said, and there are stories of women throwing themselves from buildings rather than submit.
"We know their nature, the crimes committed, the lootings, the executions, the revenge, the abduction of girls, the killings," she said. "We experienced them before. There were many women who welcomed the Taleban, even my own aunt."
There were reports of families fleeing the captured city of Mazar-i-Sharif, she said, for fear of what would happen to wives and daughters.
The burqa became the best-known symbol of the Taleban’s restrictions on women, who were banned from working outside the home except in healthcare. Schools for girls over age eight were closed.
At one point, the Taleban even tried to exclude women from all hospitals, except for a poorly equipped, 300-bed women’s clinic. An outcry from the International Committee of the Red Cross forced them to reconsider, but women were allocated fewer beds and in wards separated from men .
All that changed - superficially - when the alliance swept into the capital this week. The alliance said the burqa was no longer required, and some alliance officials said schools for girls would be reopened.
Radio Afghanistan - the alliance’s broadcast service - hired three women to read the radio news and promised to resume television services.
However, Afghanistan is a conservative society, with standards of behaviour quite different from those of the West or even neighbouring Pakistan.
Government decree or not, social pressure will keep many women veiled.
"It’s not their decision alone to make. They have their husbands, fathers and brothers to think of," said Mohammed Shah in Kabul. "In our tradition, a woman can’t take her burqa off like that and show her face, while everyone else is covered," he added.
"We are planning to take it off, but not now," Shazia said, her face hidden behind a burqa. It was difficult to see the eyes within. "We are a little afraid."
Her fears, and those of other women, are based on deep suspicions of the alliance. Despite its statements to the contrary, it includes some factions whose views on women aren’t much different from the Taleban’s.
Abdur Rasool Sayyaf, a senior Northern Alliance official, has publicly opposed women having the right to vote.
Sehar Saba, of RAWA, said: "In the past they have shown that they are also fundamentalists."
"They have just captured these areas. The women really don’t know what to do. Today they throw away their burqas and tomorrow they will start treating them like the Taleban treated them."
Nilofar Parian, 40, said she will wait a few more days before discarding her burqa. Ms Parian recalled the previous power-shift in the capital eight years ago, when men threw acid at the faces of uncovered women.
"We’re afraid there might still be some Taleban around," she said.
A middle-aged woman struggling down the street with two small children in tow, was elated over the Taleban departure.
"Of course we are happy," she said, throwing back her veil as she spoke. "They were cruel and inhuman to women. I am educated. Look at the children of Afghanistan. No education for boys or for girls."
Still, Shafiqa wasn’t ready to remove her burqa. "It’s not our tradition to go out openly," she said.
Meanwhile, as a group of reporters rattled through the streets in a white and yellow taxi, a woman of indeterminate age stepped out to cross the road.
The car was going fast, as fast as is usual in the traffic madhouse that has descended on Kabul since liberation on Tuesday. But the driver pumped not the brake but the horn, his car still bearing down on her. The woman, her light blue burqa now flapping in the wind, had to scurry out of the way, stumbling and nearly falling as she did so, her steps limited by the width of the dress. For the women of Kabul, Liberation Day is a very relative concept.
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