A brave woman is cut down in her prime. From the BBC:
A well-known Afghan poet and journalist has died from her injuries after being beaten, police say.
Officers found the body of Nadia Anjuman, 25, at her home in the western city of Herat.
A senior police officer said her husband had confessed to hitting her during a row.
But it is said that "the family", which I suspect means "her husband's family", refused to allow a post-mortem, which makes it highly likely that he will not pay any price for his action.
I couldn't find any English-language information about her on the web. If you're a reader who knows of sites in other languages, could you leave a comment with the link? It would be a small memorial.
Postscript: Thinking of Muslim women poets, the one who immediately sprang to mind was the Bangladeshi Taslima Nasreen/Nasrin who has stood up against fatwas, death threats and societal pressures to proclaim the reality of women's position in her society.
She wrote:
Even a mangy cur of the house barks now and then,
but over the mouths of women cheaply had,
there's a lock, a golden lock.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Justene
In the land of Desperate Housewives, it is often easy to forget how desperate is the plight of women elsewhere.
2 - Victor Lana
The husband doesn't have to be Muslim to be dangerous. All over the world men are still raising their hands to women. This is a disgrace and all men, if they really are indeed male, should be outraged that wives, mothers, and daughters are being abused.
If men do not make a stand against this kind of thing, then they are as cowardly as the bastards who hit their wives and daughters. Shame on them all!
3 - Kalil Jalili
Its a web site in Persian with a picture of Nadia and two of her poems.
4 - kalil jalili
a great person
a great poet
a great loss
5 - Kemal Yavuz
Nobody can accept this kind of attitude... Women are crowd of men, at least it should be... Being a muslim cant explain such events, everybody knows that women are being threatened by men all over the world without any religious thoughts... everybody please be aware of the humankind and commonsense and dont accuse whole people who live in same territory.
6 - mary mcdonald-lewis
I have an opportunity to read any poems of Nadia Anjuman in a performance in Portland OR this weekend if I can find them in English. If you have them, or know the URL to them, please list it here so I can track them down...
Thanks very, very much,
Mary McDonald-Lewis
7 - Captain Anarchy
Yikes! This is total travesty! ANY domestic violence is intolerable, but let's not forget that the wheels of time are slow and we need to be patient with those cultures who do not yet adhere to western, privledged and/or lofty societal goals. In a global village such as ours, let us pray for the victim and the victimizer(s). Remember Nadia for her personal contributions and struggles. Peace be with you all.
8 - Ramin
Hi,
I was amazed by her poets published in bbcPersian.com
I couldn't stop of thinking of her for the last two days, indeed.
Here is a link
9 - Natalie Bennett
Thank you very much to those who provided links. Unfortunately I can't read the Persian, but it is good to have some form of memorial. And in future if anyone sees some translations I'd be delighted to hear about them. Thanks again. Natalie
10 - vera
Peace
I too would love to find a link to her poetrybook, Gulidodi. I can't seem to track down.
The link Ramin put up is not working for me...
thanks
11 - alienboy
VERA: The link Ramin supplied is working now.
12 - Lillian Heytvelt
Is there any place to find her poems in English? I want to read her work ... to give her my attention.
13 - gary lemons
In Memory of Nadia Anjuman
1980--2005
Dark red flower--it grows in the night.
Grows in the sorrow at the edge of loss.
Grows in the mirror of human faces
Watching one another weep.
The flowers is covered to protect
It from the sun, from the men whose
Hands sweat to think of picking it.
She came to poetry the way a storm
Comes to a clear sky over a desert morning.
The clarity of first light giving way
To upthrust of heat reflecting from sand.
The invisible forms into a fist, clenches
The sky into wind, into a threat
That blows the sand into the machinery
Of violence transporting death
Between intimate groves of skin.
In the family there is the hand that pours
The tea. There is the hand the feeds
The animals. There is the hand that holds
The child. But above all there is the hand
That delivers the blow in the name of God.
This is not sunrise. It is is sunset.
The beginning of the time when
All things disappear, even from themselves,
In pieces relinquished by the failing light..
.
Open the book left among dunes, open
To the pages that thunder with voices
Permitting the hand’s unrestrained fury.
Nadia. Dark red flower. First book.
First glimpse of a new world behind
A veil of blowing sand and settler’s prayers
She will tell us what it means to be a woman
Filled with trapped light. She will tell
Our children and theirs what it means
To be a woman in a place where women
Are worshipped and hunted for their skeleton.
We are alone when the poem appears.
Everything is alone when it understands this.
From that moment we are joined.
What happens to one happens to all.
Out in the sand, in a place strange
To our head, familiar to our heart,
A poet is killed and some single
Momentous cell inside us dies.
Bright ghost gesturing to the sky.
Vultures circling. The ghost sing to them,
Her voice rising above the storm
Scattering her unwritten pages into
Our lives, the pages we
Must now enscribe with our blood.
14 - L.R.R. McGuire-Smith
I’d like to memorialize the sad death of this Afghani intellectual, murdered by her poet husband-perhaps with the collusion of her own mother. It may become certain that “Family Shame/Honor” and the culturally dictated subservient status of the female in Afghanistan's society extended even into the intellectual circles of the University system. I don't know, but I was moved by the loss of her unique voice, this so very, very sad-I read about her when I was at the polls recently presiding as an Election Judge in Houston, Texas, U.S.A. It grieved me to read that she'd been battered and died of her wounds cutting short a songbird's gift. All that is left is for poets everywhere to mourn the silenced dreamer. No doubt I will need to revise this-but I dedicate it with love to a woman I only knew through her words and her death for speaking them.
(This is a poem celebrating personal and intellectual freedom for all women and all voices of dissent whether male or female.)
by L.R.R. McGuire-Smith)
(A Poet’s Death)The Killing of Nadia Anjuman: The Dark Flower Becomes Light
She died for truth and poetry
She died for her integrity
She spoke of truth
and freedom dear
She spoke of dreams
her captors feared.
He could not best her
in a war of words
and so he crushed her
that small song bird
But when he struck her
he sealed his fate
his lovely poems
were turned to hate
And so “Dark Flower”
died for her rhyme
her fate was sealed
her words-her crime
Her rival
her husband
a poet too,
will someday mourn
the poets he slew
for when he killed her
he killed himself too
but should he repent
she'll see him through
her soul's not spent
it will return as dew
to water all poets
who seek words true
But when she died
her soul did fly
as the poet’s all whispered
about that guy
“He has no honor, who made her die!”
More tears would fall, but not all would cry
For some would secretly turn away
and with a shrug they’d smugly say-
“Of course he had the right to hit-
she’s naught but a woman
she refused to submit!”
They’ll never agree that her husband transgressed-
their cruel misogyny,
sin un-confessed
That she was a woman
was her only wrong
But killing her
made no man strong.
To them a woman
just an inferior being
Their eyes are blind
There is no seeing
The soul has no sex,
it's ethereal being
Dark Flower’s death
became her freeing.
Though a madman kills
a poet pure
her soul transcends
her words endure
She gave herself to the written word
her spirit lives on
we poets heard
Her murderer sacrificed his soul’s noblesse
When he wounded a spirit
of great gentleness
Her blood cries out now
from the Earth-
“I was naught but a woman,
But I had worth!”
But for more than that
she was oppressed
she was the poet
whose words would wrest
foul hatred from a jealous breast
although that wasn't her heart's quest
'twas her ill fate
to frame words best
He compared himself
and came out worst
to silence her
would make him first
So he killed a poet
he could not best
and further words
won't assuage her death
A flood of words leaves us more bereft
Now his worthless poetry
he must amend
He’s trampled beauty,
and killed Love’s friend
He’s forever broken
what words won’t mend
Of radiant Dark Flower
he’s made an end
He’s broken and bent
love’s gentle flower
He’s in her grip now
under her power
She’s oozing sap
her life force taken
base cruelty’s slap
pure love forsaken
And so his poetry will resound
unheard
He’s infamous now
He killed the songbird
She died for love
yet could not foresee
her death
would birth
more poetry
I mourn her loss
Yet I am glad
she's freed from bondage
and all that's sad
She's part of heaven
her heart's now glad
She singing now and dancing poetry
she’s escaped beyond
into eternity
Dark Flower dancing
in the night
Dark Flower dancing
transformed To Light
Dark Flower shining
-a star so bright
(a blessing on her soul-rest in peace)
15 - Carrie
I was driving down the highway when I heard of the death of Nadia Anjuman. My heart screamed out! This must stop.
We must begin to see that the murder of any woman, such as Nadia, is caused by the man's fear of the woman. We have no need to kill those we do not fear. Fear is the basis for anger.
Today I pray that my grandchildren will never hear of the killing of women by men. May men learn to love the power of women and to see it as God given.
In Memory of Nadia Anjuman.
16 - luise rechen
Only heard one short note on this on NPR. Why is our media silent?
17 - Kalil Jalili
Nadia Anjuman:
A great person
A great poet
A great loss
In reply to feedback #14 made by L.R.R. McGuire-Smith which says that her own mother was involved in her death. Its not true and I have read this wrongly acusation in so many web pages as well as some major news site like ABC. I know this for sure cause Nadia Anjuman was my next door neighbour back in Afghanitan and I have talked to her mother and brothers few times since this tragedy happened.
Its a sad thing that Nadia died, but what makes me more sad is people involving her weeping mother in her death.
Thank you for undrestanding
18 - Khan
People please stop Judging other people from outside the world of their own, who knows exactly what happened with Nadia Anjuman? It can be a game it can be anything.
In Holly Quraan it says "Man are commenders for women if women doesnt accept what a man (husbend) says, the husbend has the rights to first make her undrestand by words then stop cooperations and even can beat her to make her undrestand"
So if any one says that beating women is cowardness I, Quraan and God dissagrees with this because God says to beat your wife if she doesnt accept what you say.
If these muslim rules will be avoided because of the wrong idea that women has the same level of rights as man, as it is implemented in Europe, America, Australia and some countries in Asia then very soon you cant find even an 8 years old girl vergin and wife swapings and selling wifes and their naked pictures which is mostly hated by God will expand every where.
19 - Dave Nalle
Then you, Quran and God, are barbaric and don't deserve to coexist with civilized people, Khan.
Dave
20 - Asi
I've been thinking of Nadia's tragic death for two days now...
It has affected me deeply, and I cannot explain why, since I'm very much aware that women experience cruelty and domestic violence on a daily basis all over the world. I've been searching for any information and/or her book in English and I was glad to find this article and discussion honouring her memory.
The fact that even opinions such as Khan's (above, posted Nov 15) are allowed in this space, is great proof that Nadia and everything she represented (freedom of speech, equality, civility) will always prevail in the end.
21 - L.R.R. McGuire-Smith
Dear Khan-Please read the INTRODUCTION to this tribute over again. I said "I don't know" and "I may need to revise this" and "may" about the facts of the case. I only celebrate her life and her sad death-that's my last word on it-she did not deserve her death. No matter who did it, the sea of humanity has been robbed of a great pearl. PERIOD
22 - L.R.R. McGuire-Smith
Dear Kahlil: I would refer you to the same post for a re-examination of what I wrote-it has been simply ignored that I said "I don't know" or I may need to revise. Only GOD KNOWS EVERYTHING! I have only slanted informatin to rely on-either from the western media or from the land of the east. I am sympathetic to Muslim conderns, but I am not a Muslim, I am a Christian. I thank you for understanding also. I hope all who mourn her are comforted-me included. Thanks! L.R.R.
L.R.R. McGuire-Smith
23 - Rossana Chiarelli
I discovered Nadia's existence a couple of hours ago, while browsing a magazine during my shopping. I only read a short extract of a poem in the article, though I already feel I know her and that the loss of her voice - and indeed her life - cuts a deep wound in my being.
We truly are connected, all of us, not only to Nadia but also her husband as well as individuals such as Khan, who left a message too. One thing Khan said that I want to support is: "Please stop judging other people from ourside [your] world" - and I remind myself of this too. No, I don't agree with Khan's view of life but I can see, through his earnest belief, where Nadia's murderer is acting from.
It's not by judging him, or those like him, that I do justice to Nadia's life. I do condem the killing of another human being (be they man or woman) and even more so I condem the wrong teaching that leads ordinary people to believe that one is superior to another and has the right to kill them in the name of God. This kind of compassion is the starting point to open dialogue between minds that seem to be worlds apart. It gives me hope and strength to engage with my heart to that of those who, like Khan, have the boldness to speak out even in sites when they're totally outnumbered.
Perhaps the fact that Khan chose to write here can give the more liberal thinkers an opportunity to ponder how we can practically promote true democracy in our daily lives and teach those who know nothing about it how painstaking it is to build true equality and freedom.
With Nadia's death we can clearly see that democracy cannot be built quickly and forcefully by 'liberating' a country from dictatorship. There isn't a quick route to freedom and it is by engaging on a personal level with one another (starting from 'I') at EVERY opportunity, that we can pave true democracy for everyone on earth.
We have to free our minds first before a whole nation can understand that we are all equal.
Rossana Chiarelli
http://www.sgi-uk.org/
24 - eliza griswold
Dear Kalil:
I am a poet and a journalist who would like to write about Nadia's life and death and since you knew her as a child, I'd like to speak to you. Would that be possible? Best, Eliza
25 - Reza Jalali
Can someone please direct me to where I could possibly find a copy of her book? Such a sad loss. But we need to continue to speak on her behalf and those of other victims of domestic violence. Thanks