WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.350 align:middle line:90% 00:00:01.350 --> 00:00:03.273 align:middle line:90% Hi, my name is Eliza. 00:00:03.273 --> 00:00:05.190 align:middle line:84% I'm supposed to be there with you guys tonight 00:00:05.190 --> 00:00:09.162 align:middle line:84% and so ridiculously disappointed for many reasons. 00:00:09.162 --> 00:00:11.370 align:middle line:84% First and most importantly, you have an amazing group 00:00:11.370 --> 00:00:12.630 align:middle line:90% of people gathered. 00:00:12.630 --> 00:00:18.750 align:middle line:84% Secondly, it is 70 degrees there and it is spitting it 00:00:18.750 --> 00:00:19.980 align:middle line:90% from the sky here. 00:00:19.980 --> 00:00:23.070 align:middle line:84% It is so snowy and disgusting in New York, 00:00:23.070 --> 00:00:25.500 align:middle line:90% and I am so disappointed. 00:00:25.500 --> 00:00:29.790 align:middle line:84% Anyway, but to get to the celebration of these really 00:00:29.790 --> 00:00:33.450 align:middle line:84% fantastic, remarkable, and unusual, and fierce, 00:00:33.450 --> 00:00:37.670 align:middle line:90% and biting, and funny poems. 00:00:37.670 --> 00:00:39.930 align:middle line:90% A landay is two minds. 00:00:39.930 --> 00:00:41.550 align:middle line:90% It is 22 syllables. 00:00:41.550 --> 00:00:44.940 align:middle line:84% There are nine syllables in the first line, 13 in the second. 00:00:44.940 --> 00:00:47.460 align:middle line:84% It ends with the sound "ma" or "na." 00:00:47.460 --> 00:00:48.150 align:middle line:90% That's it. 00:00:48.150 --> 00:00:49.260 align:middle line:90% Those are the rules. 00:00:49.260 --> 00:00:51.600 align:middle line:84% They take on five principal subjects. 00:00:51.600 --> 00:00:53.160 align:middle line:90% They take on war-- 00:00:53.160 --> 00:00:55.170 align:middle line:84% "jang," that's the word in Pashto. 00:00:55.170 --> 00:00:56.580 align:middle line:90% They take on love-- 00:00:56.580 --> 00:00:57.270 align:middle line:90% "meena." 00:00:57.270 --> 00:01:02.040 align:middle line:84% They take on homeland, "watan;" separation from homeland, 00:01:02.040 --> 00:01:04.140 align:middle line:84% "biltoon;" and most importantly, they 00:01:04.140 --> 00:01:07.320 align:middle line:84% take on the issue of "gham," suffering, particularly 00:01:07.320 --> 00:01:10.020 align:middle line:84% the suffering that is a woman suffering 00:01:10.020 --> 00:01:13.350 align:middle line:84% for a Pashtun woman in Afghanistan. 00:01:13.350 --> 00:01:18.240 align:middle line:84% So these poems are thousands of years old. 00:01:18.240 --> 00:01:21.310 align:middle line:84% No one's quite sure where they come from or when. 00:01:21.310 --> 00:01:24.660 align:middle line:84% The thinking is they probably-- they're pre-Islamic. 00:01:24.660 --> 00:01:28.150 align:middle line:84% They arrived in the region about 5,000 years ago 00:01:28.150 --> 00:01:32.350 align:middle line:84% and were carried via the Indo-Aryan caravans who 00:01:32.350 --> 00:01:32.850 align:middle line:90% arrived. 00:01:32.850 --> 00:01:34.747 align:middle line:84% And the thinking on how they may come to be-- 00:01:34.747 --> 00:01:37.080 align:middle line:84% because there's a form of call and response often within 00:01:37.080 --> 00:01:38.250 align:middle line:90% the poem itself-- 00:01:38.250 --> 00:01:42.370 align:middle line:84% is that it goes something like, first line might say, hey, 00:01:42.370 --> 00:01:44.400 align:middle line:84% we're turning right at the oasis. 00:01:44.400 --> 00:01:47.040 align:middle line:84% And then the response would be, right, I understand. 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:49.530 align:middle line:84% We're turning right at the oasis. 00:01:49.530 --> 00:01:51.210 align:middle line:84% So it was a form of communication. 00:01:51.210 --> 00:01:53.430 align:middle line:84% That's the thinking, but no one is quite sure 00:01:53.430 --> 00:01:55.710 align:middle line:84% where these remarkable poems come from. 00:01:55.710 --> 00:01:57.090 align:middle line:90% And over time, they morph. 00:01:57.090 --> 00:02:00.000 align:middle line:84% They morph like rap music, and some words are swapped out 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:03.120 align:middle line:84% and other words, more relevant words, are swapped in. 00:02:03.120 --> 00:02:06.090 align:middle line:84% And that's really a remarkable process. 00:02:06.090 --> 00:02:09.960 align:middle line:84% And you will hear of those poems the same thing. 00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:12.360 align:middle line:84% I will tell you a little bit about one. 00:02:12.360 --> 00:02:14.770 align:middle line:84% Here's a common way in which they're swapped out. 00:02:14.770 --> 00:02:19.230 align:middle line:84% So a poem might begin, "Send my salams to the Mullah. 00:02:19.230 --> 00:02:23.100 align:middle line:84% Tell him to let my beloved put down his book and come home." 00:02:23.100 --> 00:02:24.810 align:middle line:84% That's a very old landay, and it's 00:02:24.810 --> 00:02:27.418 align:middle line:84% about-- it's a poem to the Mullah, who it 00:02:27.418 --> 00:02:28.710 align:middle line:90% would be the religious teacher. 00:02:28.710 --> 00:02:31.080 align:middle line:84% And it's from a woman singing to her beloved, 00:02:31.080 --> 00:02:34.680 align:middle line:84% tell my beloved to put down his book and come home. 00:02:34.680 --> 00:02:36.780 align:middle line:84% A more recent rendition of that poem 00:02:36.780 --> 00:02:38.850 align:middle line:84% is, "Send my salams to the Mullah. 00:02:38.850 --> 00:02:42.570 align:middle line:84% Tell him to let my beloved put down his gun and come home." 00:02:42.570 --> 00:02:45.030 align:middle line:84% And so the word in the first book, 00:02:45.030 --> 00:02:49.050 align:middle line:84% "kitaab," has been swapped out for the word gun, 00:02:49.050 --> 00:02:50.280 align:middle line:90% "topak," in the second. 00:02:50.280 --> 00:02:53.730 align:middle line:84% And that iteration reveals a great deal 00:02:53.730 --> 00:02:56.730 align:middle line:84% about an Afghan woman's understanding of the role 00:02:56.730 --> 00:03:02.130 align:middle line:84% of violence and religion, and the change that's 00:03:02.130 --> 00:03:04.950 align:middle line:84% going on right now that's gone on for decades in Afghanistan. 00:03:04.950 --> 00:03:07.380 align:middle line:84% These poems, as much as they take on the Taliban, 00:03:07.380 --> 00:03:09.360 align:middle line:90% they take on the Americans. 00:03:09.360 --> 00:03:10.830 align:middle line:90% They take on drone attacks. 00:03:10.830 --> 00:03:14.040 align:middle line:90% They take on sex. 00:03:14.040 --> 00:03:15.750 align:middle line:90% They take on love. 00:03:15.750 --> 00:03:18.570 align:middle line:90% They are remarkable. 00:03:18.570 --> 00:03:21.930 align:middle line:84% Another, "Unlucky you who didn't come last night. 00:03:21.930 --> 00:03:25.410 align:middle line:84% I took a hard wooden bedpost for a man." 00:03:25.410 --> 00:03:29.130 align:middle line:84% Seamus and I came to these poems through a collection 00:03:29.130 --> 00:03:32.970 align:middle line:84% from the '70s and '80s by an Afghan intellectual and freedom 00:03:32.970 --> 00:03:35.880 align:middle line:84% fighter, a man named Sayd Majrouh, who was assassinated 00:03:35.880 --> 00:03:37.590 align:middle line:90% by a precursor to the Taliban. 00:03:37.590 --> 00:03:41.460 align:middle line:84% And Majrouh collected poems in Pakistan 00:03:41.460 --> 00:03:44.280 align:middle line:84% from women who were Afghans in exile. 00:03:44.280 --> 00:03:48.810 align:middle line:84% And his collection, called "Songs of Love and War" 00:03:48.810 --> 00:03:49.770 align:middle line:90% in English-- 00:03:49.770 --> 00:03:51.780 align:middle line:84% actually, "Songs of Love and Suicide" 00:03:51.780 --> 00:03:54.870 align:middle line:84% is the correct title before translation. 00:03:54.870 --> 00:03:56.730 align:middle line:84% It's really a remarkable piece of work. 00:03:56.730 --> 00:03:59.220 align:middle line:84% And Seamus and I thought a couple of years ago, 00:03:59.220 --> 00:04:00.456 align:middle line:90% you know what? 00:04:00.456 --> 00:04:02.190 align:middle line:84% What if we were to go back and we 00:04:02.190 --> 00:04:04.350 align:middle line:84% were to look at the dark humor of Afghan life, 00:04:04.350 --> 00:04:06.030 align:middle line:84% we were to look out at Afghanistan 00:04:06.030 --> 00:04:09.180 align:middle line:84% through Afghan eyes, as opposed to putting our own 00:04:09.180 --> 00:04:13.560 align:middle line:84% on the situation, and we were to look at the impact 00:04:13.560 --> 00:04:18.120 align:middle line:84% that more than a dozen years of international occupation 00:04:18.120 --> 00:04:22.220 align:middle line:84% and war has had on the culture and the life of Afghan women 00:04:22.220 --> 00:04:23.880 align:middle line:90% as sung through these poems. 00:04:23.880 --> 00:04:29.280 align:middle line:84% And so we came across the story of a young woman whose 00:04:29.280 --> 00:04:33.030 align:middle line:84% name was Rahila Muska, and she actually 00:04:33.030 --> 00:04:35.490 align:middle line:90% had taken her own life. 00:04:35.490 --> 00:04:37.530 align:middle line:84% On the internet, there was a tiny squib 00:04:37.530 --> 00:04:40.350 align:middle line:84% about this young woman who took her own life because she 00:04:40.350 --> 00:04:44.220 align:middle line:90% wasn't allowed to write poems. 00:04:44.220 --> 00:04:45.480 align:middle line:90% And that's all. 00:04:45.480 --> 00:04:47.730 align:middle line:84% This was reported by something called "The Afghan News 00:04:47.730 --> 00:04:50.130 align:middle line:90% Network," which is a tiny NGO. 00:04:50.130 --> 00:04:54.060 align:middle line:84% And so we got in touch with the NGO, 00:04:54.060 --> 00:04:56.760 align:middle line:84% and it turned out that this young woman, who called 00:04:56.760 --> 00:04:57.960 align:middle line:90% herself her Rahila Muska-- 00:04:57.960 --> 00:04:58.860 align:middle line:90% it's a pseudonym. 00:04:58.860 --> 00:05:02.660 align:middle line:84% It means "love smile--" had been a secret member 00:05:02.660 --> 00:05:06.170 align:middle line:84% of an Afghan women's literary circle, which met openly 00:05:06.170 --> 00:05:09.890 align:middle line:84% in the capital of Kabul, and secretly in most 00:05:09.890 --> 00:05:11.780 align:middle line:90% of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. 00:05:11.780 --> 00:05:13.940 align:middle line:84% So in places where families wouldn't 00:05:13.940 --> 00:05:16.160 align:middle line:84% allow girls to go to school anymore, 00:05:16.160 --> 00:05:20.990 align:middle line:84% poetry is a form of ongoing self-empowerment, expression, 00:05:20.990 --> 00:05:21.980 align:middle line:90% and education. 00:05:21.980 --> 00:05:26.390 align:middle line:84% And so girls will call in in secret to basically 00:05:26.390 --> 00:05:31.280 align:middle line:84% a mobile phone that's dedicated to as a kind of poetry hotline. 00:05:31.280 --> 00:05:33.650 align:middle line:84% And these girls will call in and read their poems 00:05:33.650 --> 00:05:36.710 align:middle line:84% and talk about their lives, when they're able to do so. 00:05:36.710 --> 00:05:40.190 align:middle line:84% And the women of Mirman Baheer are this organization 00:05:40.190 --> 00:05:43.670 align:middle line:84% in the capital, who are teachers and scientists and scholars, 00:05:43.670 --> 00:05:45.080 align:middle line:90% listen to these young women. 00:05:45.080 --> 00:05:48.620 align:middle line:84% And Rahila Muska had been one of them, 00:05:48.620 --> 00:05:52.340 align:middle line:84% and she used to call in secret, and apparently, her poems 00:05:52.340 --> 00:05:53.210 align:middle line:90% were very beautiful. 00:05:53.210 --> 00:05:56.240 align:middle line:84% But the women of the organization, of Mirman Baheer, 00:05:56.240 --> 00:05:59.600 align:middle line:84% never wrote them down and only one poem survived her. 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:01.490 align:middle line:90% And that poem is a landay. 00:06:01.490 --> 00:06:04.010 align:middle line:84% And that poem goes something like this-- 00:06:04.010 --> 00:06:05.120 align:middle line:90% "I call. 00:06:05.120 --> 00:06:06.260 align:middle line:90% You're stone. 00:06:06.260 --> 00:06:09.440 align:middle line:84% One day you'll look, and I'll be gone." 00:06:09.440 --> 00:06:11.600 align:middle line:84% That poem was the only one to survive her 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:14.900 align:middle line:84% because it was passed mouth to mouth, ear to ear. 00:06:14.900 --> 00:06:15.920 align:middle line:90% She didn't write it. 00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:17.030 align:middle line:90% She sang it. 00:06:17.030 --> 00:06:19.280 align:middle line:84% It was part of the tradition of landays. 00:06:19.280 --> 00:06:21.620 align:middle line:84% And at any time, there are about 40,000 00:06:21.620 --> 00:06:25.850 align:middle line:84% in circulation in Afghanistan, and women sing the ones 00:06:25.850 --> 00:06:27.450 align:middle line:90% that mean the most to them. 00:06:27.450 --> 00:06:29.660 align:middle line:84% Finally, Rahila Muska called into the group 00:06:29.660 --> 00:06:32.630 align:middle line:84% and she told them that she was calling from a hospital bed, 00:06:32.630 --> 00:06:34.220 align:middle line:84% and that she had set herself on fire 00:06:34.220 --> 00:06:36.860 align:middle line:84% because her father wouldn't allow her to write poetry 00:06:36.860 --> 00:06:41.450 align:middle line:84% and her brothers had beaten her up, and she was going to die. 00:06:41.450 --> 00:06:45.092 align:middle line:84% And Seamus and I went to Afghanistan in 2012-- 00:06:45.092 --> 00:06:46.550 align:middle line:84% not with the thinking that we would 00:06:46.550 --> 00:06:48.855 align:middle line:84% find her family or her story, but really 00:06:48.855 --> 00:06:51.230 align:middle line:84% with thinking that we would tell about the role of poetry 00:06:51.230 --> 00:06:52.610 align:middle line:90% in young women's lives. 00:06:52.610 --> 00:06:55.880 align:middle line:84% And instead, through this amazing organization 00:06:55.880 --> 00:06:58.950 align:middle line:84% and another called wadan that works with Afghan women, 00:06:58.950 --> 00:07:03.410 align:middle line:84% and then we were able to find Rahila Muska's family. 00:07:03.410 --> 00:07:05.390 align:middle line:84% And eventually, the story came out 00:07:05.390 --> 00:07:09.710 align:middle line:84% that, indeed, she loved poetry and she had sung in her poetry 00:07:09.710 --> 00:07:12.552 align:middle line:84% and written about a cousin to whom she was engaged, 00:07:12.552 --> 00:07:14.510 align:middle line:84% and her family wouldn't allow her to marry him. 00:07:14.510 --> 00:07:18.810 align:middle line:84% And so the poetry was love poetry, which was forbidden. 00:07:18.810 --> 00:07:22.280 align:middle line:84% It was also poetry about her own particular love, which was 00:07:22.280 --> 00:07:23.700 align:middle line:90% forbidden within the family. 00:07:23.700 --> 00:07:28.490 align:middle line:84% And after her brothers heard her reciting these poems 00:07:28.490 --> 00:07:30.710 align:middle line:84% to Mirman Baheer, they mistook that she 00:07:30.710 --> 00:07:31.880 align:middle line:90% was singing to a lover. 00:07:31.880 --> 00:07:34.970 align:middle line:84% And they ended up beating her quite badly, 00:07:34.970 --> 00:07:38.480 align:middle line:84% and her father destroyed all those poems in her notebooks, 00:07:38.480 --> 00:07:40.910 align:middle line:84% except he couldn't destroy the landay, which 00:07:40.910 --> 00:07:43.550 align:middle line:84% she had repeated many, many times 00:07:43.550 --> 00:07:47.550 align:middle line:90% to the women over the phone. 00:07:47.550 --> 00:07:50.810 align:middle line:84% So impartial and so hard, because there's 00:07:50.810 --> 00:07:52.290 align:middle line:84% so much about these beautiful poems 00:07:52.290 --> 00:07:54.290 align:middle line:84% that I would like to be there to share with you. 00:07:54.290 --> 00:07:56.540 align:middle line:84% And Seamus will certainly be doing so. 00:07:56.540 --> 00:08:00.470 align:middle line:90% And fast forward to-- 00:08:00.470 --> 00:08:02.100 align:middle line:90% well, one quick other story. 00:08:02.100 --> 00:08:04.580 align:middle line:84% So on our way to find this young woman, 00:08:04.580 --> 00:08:07.130 align:middle line:84% we went, as one does as a reporter, 00:08:07.130 --> 00:08:09.800 align:middle line:84% in a garrison town in Afghanistan, 00:08:09.800 --> 00:08:13.340 align:middle line:84% to an agricultural seminar, where about 200 women were 00:08:13.340 --> 00:08:19.010 align:middle line:84% sitting around with the leaders, who had been 00:08:19.010 --> 00:08:20.757 align:middle line:90% paid for by the United States. 00:08:20.757 --> 00:08:22.340 align:middle line:84% The leaders of the seminar were trying 00:08:22.340 --> 00:08:23.900 align:middle line:84% to convince them to grow anything 00:08:23.900 --> 00:08:26.510 align:middle line:90% besides poppy, besides opium. 00:08:26.510 --> 00:08:29.270 align:middle line:84% And the women listened and took their lesson 00:08:29.270 --> 00:08:31.670 align:middle line:84% about agriculture-- about tomatoes, I think it was, 00:08:31.670 --> 00:08:33.059 align:middle line:90% particularly that day. 00:08:33.059 --> 00:08:37.460 align:middle line:84% And at the end, we asked our young translator, 00:08:37.460 --> 00:08:41.390 align:middle line:84% who was a 20-something Afghan girl named Asma Safi, which 00:08:41.390 --> 00:08:42.610 align:middle line:90% means she was a virgin. 00:08:42.610 --> 00:08:45.860 align:middle line:84% She knew nothing about sex or marriage. 00:08:45.860 --> 00:08:47.420 align:middle line:84% We asked her, you know, Asma, can you 00:08:47.420 --> 00:08:49.430 align:middle line:84% ask these women if they know any landays, 00:08:49.430 --> 00:08:51.410 align:middle line:84% because we were just starting to collect them. 00:08:51.410 --> 00:08:54.410 align:middle line:84% And one woman, named Gulmakai stood up, 00:08:54.410 --> 00:08:56.630 align:middle line:90% and she recited something. 00:08:56.630 --> 00:08:59.510 align:middle line:84% And the women in the room laughed uproariously. 00:08:59.510 --> 00:09:01.460 align:middle line:84% They gasped first, and then they laughed. 00:09:01.460 --> 00:09:06.080 align:middle line:84% And it turned out what she had said 00:09:06.080 --> 00:09:09.470 align:middle line:84% was making love to an old man is like making love 00:09:09.470 --> 00:09:12.500 align:middle line:84% to a withered corn stalk, blackened by fungus. 00:09:12.500 --> 00:09:13.000 align:middle line:90% [LAUGHTER] 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:15.200 align:middle line:90% So that poem [INAUDIBLE]. 00:09:15.200 --> 00:09:21.620 align:middle line:84% It's not a landay, but it speaks to the rage and humor 00:09:21.620 --> 00:09:25.670 align:middle line:84% and the role of self-empowerment at the heart of these poems. 00:09:25.670 --> 00:09:28.192 align:middle line:84% Gulmakai gave us her phone number, but she-- the phone 00:09:28.192 --> 00:09:29.900 align:middle line:84% belonged to her brother and she was never 00:09:29.900 --> 00:09:32.550 align:middle line:90% able to speak to us again. 00:09:32.550 --> 00:09:34.910 align:middle line:84% So a woman could say something like that, 00:09:34.910 --> 00:09:37.400 align:middle line:84% and yet she has no right to talk on the phone. 00:09:37.400 --> 00:09:40.820 align:middle line:84% So tonight, Seamus is going to share his remarkable film, 00:09:40.820 --> 00:09:41.490 align:middle line:90% "Snake." 00:09:41.490 --> 00:09:45.380 align:middle line:84% One of the meanings of "landay" is a short, poisonous snake. 00:09:45.380 --> 00:09:47.780 align:middle line:90% And these poems do bite. 00:09:47.780 --> 00:09:49.440 align:middle line:90% We hope that you enjoy them. 00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:53.240 align:middle line:84% I wish that I was there with you. 00:09:53.240 --> 00:09:57.060 align:middle line:84% After we met, Rahila Muska, we did go back to Afghanistan 00:09:57.060 --> 00:10:00.140 align:middle line:84% another year to collect these poems in refugee camps, 00:10:00.140 --> 00:10:03.650 align:middle line:90% in villages, at weddings. 00:10:03.650 --> 00:10:06.780 align:middle line:84% And the stories are pretty wonderful. 00:10:06.780 --> 00:10:08.360 align:middle line:84% And I hope you'll hear them tonight, 00:10:08.360 --> 00:10:10.460 align:middle line:84% and I hope you'll enjoy these poems 00:10:10.460 --> 00:10:13.340 align:middle line:84% and think that, if anything, they certainly 00:10:13.340 --> 00:10:16.970 align:middle line:84% reveal that the stereotype of an Afghan woman as a mute, blue 00:10:16.970 --> 00:10:19.280 align:middle line:90% ghost couldn't be more wrong. 00:10:19.280 --> 00:10:20.870 align:middle line:90% So thank you very much. 00:10:20.870 --> 00:10:22.070 align:middle line:90% Bye. 00:10:22.070 --> 00:10:23.920 align:middle line:90% [APPLAUSE] 00:10:23.920 --> 00:10:25.000 align:middle line:90%