When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, Manizha Bakhtari had only been Ambassador to Austria for seven months. As a diplomat without a government, she is now defying the Taliban and fighting for the rights of Afghanistan’s people.
written by Sarah Heftberger
On the day of the collapse of the Afghan government, Manizha Bakhtari had just met a colleague and his wife for a coffee in Vienna’s city centre. They had invited her to forget, at least for a short moment, the stress and worries of the last few months. “The period before the downfall of our government was also not easy for us because we were already aware that something might happen, even though at that time, I could not imagine that the government would collapse completely”, she remembers in an interview with Diplomatic SOCIETY. Even 24 hours before the “Fall of Kabul”, when numerous provinces had already been taken over by the Taliban, she still had hope. However, one day later, the first reports on social media came in that President Ashraf Ghani had fled the country – to “avoid bloodshed”, as he later stated. “When I read the news in the café, I got up immediately, said goodbye and ran to my apartment. There, I was pacing around the house for hours. I asked myself so many questions: What shall we do? Shall we close the Embassy? Shall I leave? It was such a difficult moment for me.”
Finding ways
The first few days after the fall were no less turbulent. The government officials had left the country without any instructions on how to proceed, but following an emergency meeting, Bakhtari and her team decided to stay and to continue working. “It was our responsibility”, she says in the interview. The first challenge was to find new premises for the Embassy as they could no longer afford the beautiful building in the first district they had, until then, occupied. “We no longer received payments from Afghanistan, obviously”. With the help of a member of the Afghan community in Vienna, they found a house in Ottakring that suited their needs. Within two weeks, they set everything up. However, Bakhtari had to let go some of her staff. Of the 25 employees, only seven remained. “At that time, I never thought that we would last four years”, she says.
During the same period, she received an e-mail from the Austrian filmmaker Natalie Halla, who had seen Bakhtari’s interview that was broadcasted on the Austrian channel ORF a few days after the Taliban takeover. She had then contacted her to ask if she would be interested in making a documentary about her and the situation in Afghanistan. “At first, I politely declined. We were in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know whether or how to continue”, Bakhtari tells Diplomatic SOCIETY. But Halla was persistent. “During a meeting, I realized that she had good intentions. It became clear to me that she is firmly determined to defend and advance women’s rights in Afghanistan. We had so much in common, and I noticed that she is a very smart and strong woman.” So Bakhtari agreed, without knowing what would come next for her. What was planned as an account of the initial weeks of transition turned into three and a half years of filming. The result: a powerful and inspiring documentary about “The Last Ambassador”, the challenges she is facing, her efforts to fight for women’s and girl’s rights and the dire situation in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over power. “It is more than a personal story, it portrays a whole country, a people whose voices have been silenced. And I feel like this documentary invites the audience to take a moment and think about Afghanistan. It is a reminder that the problem is not gone. Afghans are still suffering, especially girls and women”, Bakhtari explains. The first time watching the documentary brought up mixed feelings for the mother of four. “I was crying when I saw the raw footage”.
It soon became clear to the film team that the documentary would certainly attract attention. Especially the graphic depictions of the days after the collapse of the Afghan government, when thousands of people desperately tried to get on a US aircraft to flee the country. At least two people are seen holding on to the already moving military jet and falling to their deaths shortly after take-off. Or the videos in which you can see countless girls crying after learning that they can no longer go to school, or the brave women protesting against Taliban being shot at. “These terrifying images were reality for Afghan people”, the Ambassador emphasizes. More than four years have passed since these recordings were made – and the situation for Afghans, especially for women and girls is more precarious than ever.
The disappearance of women from public life & “Daughters Programme”
In their first interviews and press conferences, the Taliban representatives promised to respect women’s rights, even urging them to join its government. “Our sisters, our men have the same rights; they will be able to benefit from their rights”, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said. These statements were contradicted by the countless directives issued by the Taliban since they returned to power. Just in September, they banned books written by women from Afghan universities. For more than four years now, girls are not allowed to attend schools after year 6, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where secondary and higher education is forbidden to girls and women (unesco.org). Furthermore, women are barred from most jobs and public spaces such as parks or gyms, which leaves them confined to their homes. Protests are also no longer possible in the country – “it would be far too dangerous”, Bakhtari says. There are numerous women who reported that they were beaten, abused and jailed as well as threatened with death by stoning after taking to the streets to protest.
“Women are simply not there. Just a fraction of them can work in public jobs like nurses or doctors and these women are the result of 20 years of democracy, they still had the chance to receive education. But what about the future?”, Bakhtari asks. “Even if the Taliban would leave tomorrow, it would take around 12 years to have another generation of female doctors”, she adds.
In response to the systematic exclusion of Afghanistan’s girls from education, Manizha Bakhtari founded the “Daughters Programme”, dedicated to “restoring the right to learn, grow, and dream (…)”. “It is a small private programme offering solid and concrete help, we established it in 2022 together with some friends”, she tells Diplomatic SOCIETY. The Ambassador herself supports three girls with whom she is in regular contact, encouraging them to study or to join underground or online schools and advising them on what to read or watch. “It gives them hope because they know that there is someone outside of the country that cares about them”. After “The Last Ambassador” was aired, the programme received donations that made it possible to expand their efforts in providing educational support to young girls.
“Previous life”
Bakthari herself was fortunate enough to be able to complete her education and studies in Afghanistan. She was born in Kabul on September 15, 1972, as the eldest of three daughters in a society that considers it a “misfortune” to have no sons. “However, my parents never minded. They loved us”, she remembers. Once, for her birthday, her beloved father Wasef Bakhtari – a well-known poet – gave her a book with a dedication saying: “For my daughter, who is better than 100 sons”. Bakhtari grew up during a time that nowadays is referred to as the “Golden Era” of Afghanistan. Women enjoyed relative freedoms, they could vote, appear unveiled and had increased access to education. Kabul was known as the “Paris of Central Asia” and a popular destination on the Hippie Trail – until 1978, when, first the Saur Revolution and then, one year later, the Soviet Invasion marked the starting point of decades of conflict and instability. “With the appearance of communism in the 70s, we witnessed a surge of fundamentalism – something that we did not have in this way before. It arose from the idea of resistance against the Soviet Union and Western powers supported it. They, for example, helped to establish thousands of religious madrassahs. The seeds of fundamentalism were sown at this time”, Bakthari explains.
Over the next ten years, the Afghan mujahedeen fought against the Soviet invaders, resulting in the deaths of countless Afghan civilians and the complete withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989. After 1989, Afghanistan endured a civil war between the mujahedeen resistance groups and the Afghan communist government, which was then overthrown in 1992. During this period, Bakhtari began to study at Kabul University. “In my first years of university, during the time of the Communist government, women were more or less supported. It was a very different life.” She finished her Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and later her Master’s Degree in Persian Language and Literature. Her younger sisters, however, were not that lucky. There was a war raging in the country. “And during war, you cannot attend school or university”, Bakhtari emphasizes. Moreover, with the emergence of the mujahedeen, everything changed. “Before they appeared, we did not even have a scarf in our house”. Initially, her mother used sheets to cover her three daughters and soon, one of Manizha Bakhtari’s sisters left the country to India.
“Because if we surrender to despair, then what is it that remains of us?”
Then, the Taliban emerged for the first time and seized power in 1996. During this time, Bakhtari co-founded the Parnian Publication Center and worked for the non-profit Cooperation Center for Afghanistan, where she focused on gender advocacy, travelling across Afghanistan to promote the implementation of global gender equality standards. In 2004, three years after the fall of the Taliban, she started lecturing at Kabul University. By then, she had already made a name for herself, as she was attending public programmes and events and had her own literature show on TV. This was probably one of the reasons why, in 2006, she received a phone call from the Foreign Ministry, asking her if she would be interested in working for them. The same year, she became Chief of Staff. “This time was heaven for girls and women in Afghanistan. There were so many chances and options”, she remembers.
In 2009, she was nominated to be Afghanistan’s Ambassador for Nordic Countries, based in Oslo. So, together with her husband and her four children, she left her home country. After six years of serving as the leading diplomat in Afghanistan’s Embassy in Norway, she went back to Afghanistan for one year. In 2018, her journey took her to Canada, where she worked for the Salvation Army – Belkin House in Vancouver and later for the Ishtar Women’s Resource Society. In January of 2021, Bakhtari was accredited as Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Austria, her husband, however, stayed in Canada.
Only seven months later, the United States completed their previously announced withdrawal from Afghanistan, officially ending America’s longest war. Within only a few days, the Afghan government collapsed and the Taliban returned to power, leaving Manizha Bakhtari in an unimaginably difficult time. Despite the emotional turmoil she faced and the fact that she no longer represented a state, the former journalist decided to continue. Four years have passed since then, and she is still fighting: against the international recognition of the Taliban and for the rights of Afghanistan’s women and girls.
A lost homeland
In the final scene of “The Last Ambassador”, she stands at the border to Afghanistan, on the Tajik side. She looks towards her home country, mourning the loss of both, her father, whose last wish to be laid to rest in Afghanistan could not be fulfilled, and her own homeland. And yet, she manages to hold on to hope: “Because if we surrender to despair, then what is it that remains of us?”
Learn more about the Daughters Programme:
www.wasefbakhtari-foundation.com
Photos: Golden Girls/private