[ diplomatic spouses ]
Reclaiming Afghanistan Hakimis Embody Country’s Past Success, Its Future Hope by Gail Scott
A
lmost every day in Washington, she can open the newspaper or turn on the TV and hear about her country. Sultana Hakimi is the wife of Afghan Ambassador Eklil Hakimi, most recently Afghanistan’s deputy foreign minister for political foreign affairs. Before moving here, the Hakimi family lived in both Japan and China while the ambassador filled Kabul’s top posts in those two nations. “Americans are interested and sympathetic to our country, our people,” Sultana Hakimi told The Washington Diplomat.“And curious.They sometimes ask if I ever wear a scarf over my head.” The answer: “Yes, it depends. I do respect our Afghan culture and wear a scarf for national holiday celebrations here and usually in Afghanistan when I’m not inside my own home or a home of my family or close friends,” said this Muslim mother of three who joined her husband here with their daughters in April. “So many people have been so helpful to our country. When they hear what life was like under the Taliban, especially for women and girls, they sometimes even cry.” The brutal conditions Afghan women did and continue to endure helps drive Sultana’s focus here in Washington. “With whatever free time that I have, I want to help the women and children at home, especially to empower the women. Afghan women make up 50 percent of our population and they have so much to offer to our country and their families.” Sultana, 42, is a shining example of women’s empowerment herself. She holds a master’s degree in engineering and has worked as a banker and an accountant.To that end, she believes that education is the most important ingrediSultana Hakimi and her husband, Afghan Ambassador Eklil Hakimi, center, pose with two of ent in restoring her country to the heights of its 5,000-year history before the Soviets their daughters, Sameena, 16, a senior at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, and and the Taliban held it hostage in recent decades.“The children are our future.” 12-year-old Sabiha, who attends Edmund Burke Elementary (their third daughter, Zahra, is 18 For now, the couple’s own three girls keep this diplomatic wife busy. Sameena, 16, is a senior at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, 12-year-old Sabiha attends months). The Hakimis met while studying for their master’s degrees in engineering in Kabul. Edmund Burke Elementary, and Zahra, only 18 months, is fast becoming a toddler. young, college-educated newlyweds, the Hakimis decided to leave Afghanistan and “I am lucky to have some help,” explained Sultana.“My mother came over with me accept his parent’s invitation to join his family in Orange County, California. She and her and the girls and stayed to help us get settled in. I also have Danny, a wonderful woman husband had met while getting their master’s degrees in engineering at the Polytechnic of Chinese descent who is great with the girls and is a fabulous cook too.” University of Kabul and by that point he had already joined the Foreign Service. Sultana also loves to cook and spend time with her family.“Time with our children “It had become very scary; I couldn’t go out,” Sultana is my best time. My favorite room is the kitchen. I love recalled. “The men had to go out and bring home the it when we are all home together; everything is so food. We had no electricity, no school and we, as For 30 years, Afghanistan’s peaceful then.” women, couldn’t work. Even though we had more Interestingly, to relax, Sultana turns to ping-pong. “I rooms in our home, we huddled together in one room people, way of life and grand old even have my own paddle. In fact, I have two, one for — we couldn’t relax or read because of the rockets.We my partner,” who is often her husband, also an accomdidn’t know what would happen next. We worried culture were under attack. plished player. every time a man in the family went out whether he Sultana described her own childhood as “perfect” would come back. — SULTANA HAKIMI — but only through the sixth grade, after which “One day, the opposition forces ceased fire for the Afghanistan’s descent into war began. wife of Afghan Ambassador Eklil Hakimi diplomats to leave. We decided this was our chance,” “My mother was a teacher of science and algebra at she continued.“We only had one-day notice. I had to go Malalai High School, the famous high school I also attended. My father, who had earned and say goodbye to my parents and my brothers. That was hard. We left by car for his doctorate in Germany, was a college professor in political science,” Sultana said. Peshawar, [Pakistan], a three-hour drive away. We each packed only a small suitcase “After that, even though it was still OK to live in Kabul at first, life out in the provbecause there were six of us in the car. We just closed the house and left everything inces became dangerous because of the civil war. Then the Russians came, and after there.” that in 1996, the Taliban” with their fundamental extremism.“For 30 years,Afghanistan’s Luckily, their home — with all its belongings and only a few broken windows and people, way of life and grand old culture were under attack.” minor damage — was waiting for them when they returned more than a decade later. During the height of the Taliban’s reign from 1996 to 2001, Afghan women virtually From Pakistan, they flew to California to join his parents and siblings. disappeared behind society’s closed doors. Female judges, doctors, teachers and shop“From the time we left, for the next six months, we had no fax, no phone calls, no keepers were all sent home. Women and girls could no longer go to school or work. email, no mail from my family,” she remembered. “We knew nothing. And I was espeDeath by stoning, among other atrocities, was the fate that awaited those who dared to cially worried about one of my brothers and his family. At that time, he lived in an defy the Taliban’s rigid rules. For Sultana, by 1992, daily life in Afghanistan had already become “unbearable.” As See SPOUSES, page 37
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The Washington Diplomat
December 2011