willemite

Gale Tzemach Lemmon offers us a profile in courage about a young woman who defied the daunting odds in Taliban-controlled Kabul to established a business that offered employment, income and hope to her family and neighbors, at a time when all three were in very short supply.

One of the many awful aspects of the extreme form of Islam practiced by the Afghan Taliban is their complete subjugation of women. Women are not allowed to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male relative. They are not allowed to work outside the home. When in public, women must at all times wear the head-to-toe-covering burkah, also known as a chadri. The list of forbiddens goes on like a list of biblical begats, and shifts with the moods of local commanders. When the Taliban took over control of most of Afghanistan in 1996, they made their version of Sharia the law of the land, and a dark age (or a darker age, anyway, as it had not been a frolicsome garden spot before) fell over the land. However, even in the darkest of times, there are always some points of light. Kamela Sediqi was one shining example.

Sediqi and her family were Tajiks, the second largest ethnic group in the country. The Taliban are Pashtun, the largest. Remaining resistance to Taliban rule was centered north of Kabul among groups of largely Tajik ethnicity. Believing that all ethnic Tajiks were thus suspect, the Taliban engaged in a widespread campaign of oppression, particularly against Tajik males. Sediqi’s father, even with over thirty years in the Afghanistan military, knew that his service was of less significance to the Taliban than his Tajik ancestry. He fled to the north, placing leadership of the family in the hands of the young Kamela, a recent graduate of the Kabul Teacher Training academy. As new head of her family, Kamela struggled to find some way for the family to earn income. The education system was in tatters, particularly for women, so teaching was not an option. Although she had no experience with tailoring, she recognized that there was an unmet need and, with the assistance of her expert-seamstress sister, Malekheh, and her many other sisters, she began a small business sewing clothing for sale by local tailors.

Soon demand for her family’s products exceeded the family’s ability to produce them, so Kamela began taking on trustworthy neighbors. Everyone who worked at her home was thrilled to have any work at all, given how difficult it was for women to work in this males-only world. Still, Kamela had to contend with the ever-present threat of beating and/or arrest by roaming groups of sharia enforcers. Lemmon tells how the business thrived and kept growing during the trying time of Taliban control. After their removal from power in 2001, her business boomed, branching off into various other directions. Kamela’s little sewing shop had become a considerable concern. She was also recruited by the NGOs that had returned to Kabul, to try to find ways to use her expertise to educate a new generation of entrepreneurial women.

Lemmon does an excellent job of keeping herself out of the story, recreating Kamela’s tale from 1996 to the present, but mostly until the 2001 US retaliation for 9/11. It reads very quickly. She communicates quite well the sense of ubiquitous danger and fear that permeated the country. One of the great concerns present today is that the Taliban will return to some measure of power, and women’s hard-fought gains will be lost. It is not an idle concern.

There are many stories to be told about Afghanistan and the Taliban. Lemmon’s tale is very revealing, about what is possible with intelligence, craft and determination, even when faced with overwhelming opposition. Kamela’s small business triumph is a pretty big deal, showing one way in which elements of the devastated Afghan economy can rebuild.

However, it is not the only deal. I found that Lemmon’s business-centric view of the world may have caused her to overlook some things. Lest one believe that this is a story of a poor girl making good, Kamela did not come from a poor family. In the very beginning we are introduced to her as a teaching institute graduate, which speaks of the availability of resources beyond the norm in this poor country. That the family had a spare apartment that they rented to a doctor for income indicates more of the same. Surely, her father’s decades of service in the national army contributed to that. While the family may not have been wealthy by American standards, they were pretty well off by Kabul standards. This takes nothing away from Kamela’s bravery or accomplishment. We work with what we have. But the significance is in what one extrapolates from the experience.

I get the impression that Lemmon sees entrepreneurship in almost religious terms. If only we would let people make businesses everything would be fabulous. The educational and financial opportunities Kamela enjoyed were not available to many women. She had a leg up. Which is ok, unless one seeks to use the example of Kamela as the sole model for how to rebuild. Then it becomes dishonest. Kamela is a remarkable individual. Well if she could do it, why can’t you? And that is how I fear this book might be used, as a means of promoting a particular ideology. Entrepreneurship can be hugely creative and productive but it is not the only tool in the toolbox. Public and NGO programs have a significant place in economic reconstruction, whether the scarred surface is Kabul or Brownsville.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana is a readable, interesting look at one aspect of life under Taliban tyranny, and any such effort that fuels hope for a better future is most welcome.