LECTURE: Pair Deliver Afghan Perspective

The applause and whoops Tuesday morning when Shaima Khinjani announced she and her husband, Faeez Akram, were expecting a baby were as enthusiastic as they might have been for a close friend.

After two hours of sharing their experiences growing up in Afghanistan and Pakistan with students and staff at Flathead High School, Khinjani and Akram felt like friends. Their stories had allowed Montana students to experience a life foreign to their own and had made the effects of decades of war in Afghanistan real.

Hearing of Khinjani's courage in starting a secret school for women and girls and of Akram's determination to become a doctor stirred feelings of respect and admiration for people trying to rebuild the war-torn country. Hearing of a baby born to two such courageous people inspired hope for Afghanistan's future.

Khinjani and Akram spoke to Flathead students Tuesday morning and gave a lecture at Flathead High Tuesday night. Their presentation, “Afghanistan from Afghans' Perspective,” was the first in Flathead High's International Baccalaureate Programme's International Perspectives lecture series.

The event was held in conjunction with the Mike and Maureen Mansfield Center at the University of Montana, where Khinjani, 31, and Akram, 30, work and are pursuing master's degrees.

KHINJANI attended school in Afghanistan until the Taliban closed schools to girls. With just three months left of high school, Khinjani finished her classes in Pakistan.

She returned home to a country where girls no longer were allowed to get an education.

“I was so depressed. I felt so useless,” she said. “I had no hope for the future.”

Her older sister suggested she start a secret school for girls. It would allow her to do something to fight the oppressive regime and would allow her to continue learning.

Khinjani's family's house provided a ready cover for the school. Many people in the neighborhood came over to use the water pump in their house. Women and girls would come over to get water, stay for classes in the basement and leave with their water jugs full.

The school started out with a handful of students, but soon 100 eager learners, including some boys, were crammed into the basement. By that time Khinjani's father, who initially had opposed the school out of fear for his daughter's safety, was acting as both principal and bodyguard to protect them from the Taliban.

“He would give us advice about dealing with traumatized children whose parents were killed in front of their eyes,” Khinjani said.

He had to change his mind about the school after he and his son lost their jobs, she said. The little money Khinjani, her sister and her sister-in-law brought in from the school was all the family had to live on.

He also was swayed when other men in the community began thanking him for what his daughters were doing.

“He was not against women's education,” Khinjani explained. “He was mostly afraid of the Taliban rule and their brutal regime. He wanted us to be safe and secure.”

His support continued until Taliban rule ended in 2001. When the schools again were open to girls, Khinjani no longer needed to operate a secret classroom.

She went on to work for three Ministers of Women's Affairs in the new government. Eventually Khinjani left Afghanistan to pursue her own education.

It wasn't an easy decision; allowing a woman to travel alone to another country was unheard of. One thing helped soften the blow: Khinjani got engaged to Akram before she left.

When Akram was 10, he and his family had fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan to escape Taliban rule. His family needed him to earn money for their support, but Akram wanted to go to school.

He worked at night for his father and went to school during the day. It was difficult — his native language was Persian while Pashto was spoken at the Afghani school his parents wanted him to attend. But Akram persevered and finished school in Pakistan in 1999.

He went back to Afghanistan to pursue his dream of becoming a doctor. He graduated from medical school in 2008.

That same year, he and Khinjani were married. She continued to live and study in the United States while he practiced medicine in Afghanistan. Then Khinjani had a fateful encounter with Don Loranger, a retired major general in the U.S. Air Force who now lives in Bigfork.

They were both at a teleconference in Tucson, Ariz., where a military leader “who should remain nameless” was discussing language and cultural training in Afghanistan. The room was packed with officers and senior military personnel, but the first person to approach the microphones that had been set up for questioning was a small, poised woman.

You were welcomed as liberators, Khinjani told the man on the screen. But every time a U.S. soldier kills an innocent civilian, their families wonder if “liberator” is an accurate description. What is the military doing about this?

He didn't give her much of an answer, Loranger said, so Khinjani asked again. This time she got a straight answer — and wild applause from the 450 people in the room.

Loranger was impressed.

He met Khinjani later and learned she wanted to pursue a master's degree in political science and Central Asian studies.
Loranger, director of the Defense Critical Language and Culture Program at the Mansfield Center, offered her a job and a chance to pursue her degrees in Missoula. But Khinjani wouldn't accept; she had been apart from her husband for too long and wanted to go home to him.

Instead, Loranger suggested Akram come, too. He arranged for scholarships for the two of them and hired them at the Mansfield Center.

Akram has been in Missoula since September and already has completed one semester of his master's work in public health. In his work at the Mansfield Center, he is working on a medical-based curriculum for U.S. soldiers. Khinjani is working on a curriculum for female U.S. soldiers about how to work with Afghani women.

When they've earned their degrees, they hope to return to Afghanistan, where Akram wants to set up clinics in rural areas and be a lecturer in public health.

“I want to ... open a public health school for the next generation,” he said.

Khinjani said her goal is to improve her education so she can improve others' education.

“My goal is to gain more knowledge and be more empowered to give the gift of education to others,” she said, adding that she hopes to play a leading role in Afghanistan's government. In that position she can help others, “mostly women and children, so they don't suffer the way I did.”