Dear Noorjahan,
You were born with a mission.
Your parents named you Noorjahan Akbar- The Great Light of the World. They never were shy about their expectations. That made you stronger and bolder. It allowed you not to shrink yourself. It allowed you to think big, to dream bigger, and to work until you break your back- sometimes almost literally.
Your parents taught you to read, to write, to organize. They taught you to be brave. As a woman in this world, you needed that. They taught you to march for women’s rights, to stand with survivors of violence and rape, and to defend the right to free thought and speech. Your sisters taught you to be unashamed. Your brothers taught you to fight.
But no one ever taught you to protect you when shit hit the fan.
You were born enraged.
You saw how around you women cowered because of the Taliban, because of their own husbands, brothers, and fathers, and because violence and war always seemed only a breath away.
You saw how little girls learned to bend their shoulders as their breasts developed because they learned to hate and hide their bodies, so “men wouldn’t be tempted”.
You saw a fourteen-year-old girl who was kidnapped and raped for forty days and no one came to save her.
You saw how the men who called themselves heroes watched idly as your sisters got harassed, touched, sold off, stoned to death.
You started working when you were thirteen and like many young laborers, you were vulnerable. You were exposed to pain children should never be exposed to.
You saw yourself become small, as men you knew and men you didn’t know, felt emboldened to harm you, to touch you, to abuse you, simply because you were a girl in their world.
Despite all this, somehow the world expected you to remain intact. The world expected you to be a good girl- to be calm, and nice — — always fucking be nice. but you exploded.
You exploded without any regard for the many pieces of you that were going to be torn apart.
You were never trained to be obedient and quiet- just expected to be so. and when you failed- when you didn’t stay quiet, when moments of rage-filled your head with fire, when you began to explode — they called you Shalita, a bitch.
For years your family, your friends, and even you thought you had an anger problem. They joked about your temper. You began to question your own goodness because you were gaslighted into believing that there was no reason to be enraged. Like many other women, you were expected to smile even as your body became a battlefield.
Through hard work, you taught yourself to channel your anger into action, but even today, sometimes doubt seeps into you and you question yourself. When someone calls you a slut for writing about rape, when people attack you for the simple fact of being a woman who chooses who to love or how to dress, you question your own anger, not their hatred. You spend days, beating yourself up for “losing it again”. Why did I have to respond to that comment? Why did that hate email take up so much of my time and energy? Why? Why? Why? Can’t I get just let it go?
I’m writing today to let you know that you don’t have to let it go. Your moment of rage, of tear-filled anger, of blood rushing to your head, are valid. Your anger as a woman has led you to organize protests, to question warlords, to help change laws. It is not your anger that is the problem. It is theirs. It is the anger of toxic men that has set the world ablaze, not yours.
I’m writing today because I love your rage and I want you to love it more often, more openly, more productively. Don’t let anyone question your right to be angry, to speak up, to challenge the ways of the world.
Be thoughtful in how you express anger. Be thoughtful in how you challenge patriarchy. Be thoughtful in how you speak. But not to appease those who are using the firecrackers inside your head to light you on fire. Rather be thoughtful so you can succeed in smashing the patriarchy. And because the best revenge is your success.