The New Yorker Radio Hour - How a Girls’ School Fled Afghanistan as the Taliban Took Over

Episode Date: October 22, 2021

In the summer, Shabana Basij-Rasikh came on the Radio Hour to speak with Sue Halpern about founding the School of Leadership Afghanistan—known as SOLA—which was the country’s only boarding school for girls. She and those around her were watching the Taliban’s resurgence in the provinces anxiously, but with determination. “It’s likely that Taliban could disrupt life temporarily here in Kabul,” one woman told Basij-Rasikh, “but we’re not going to go back to that time. We’re going to fight them.”    In fact, Basij-Rasikh had already been forming a plan to take her girls’ school abroad, and soon settled on Rwanda. When the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan led to a precipitous collapse of the government, she suddenly had to sneak nearly two hundred and fifty students, staff, faculty, and family members to the airport to flee as refugees. She seems traumatized by the terror of that experience. “That thought still haunts me—it suddenly takes over all my senses in a way, just this idea of ‘what if’? What if we lost a student?” She spoke with Halpern about the evacuation to Rwanda, and what she hopes for as the school resettles. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. This summer, as the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was looming, we heard on the program from Shabana Basij Rasuk. She's the co-founder of that country's only boarding school for girls, the School of Leadership, Afghanistan, Sola. And when we spoke to her in July, she was certainly concerned, but also determined. I spoke with another woman who said, I see this coming.

It's likely that Taliban could disrupt life temporarily here in Kabul. But we're not going to go back to that time. We're going to fight them. But we know what happened after that. The Taliban swept into Kabul far faster than anyone had expected. And despite some lip service to preserving rights for women, the Taliban in power remains hard line to say the least. they've blocked women from holding government jobs

and banned girls from attending secondary school. As the Taliban were seizing control, Shabana worked desperately to evacuate the students and staff of Sola. Sue Halpern, who's a staff writer, had been trying to keep in touch with her, and last week, she was finally able to get the full story. Over the summer, as the news was coming in from Afghanistan, I was concerned for Shabana and her students.

because I knew they'd be an obvious target for violence. Shabana had already lived under the Taliban as a child. And when we talked back in July, she told me how she had to dress as a boy to attend school in secret. I remember my father saying this to us quite repeatedly at that time, that everything we have could be taken away from us. But he would say that if there is one, thing that no one, and I mean no one can take away from us, that is our education, our ability

to think for ourselves. 20 years ago, statistically I didn't exist. There were zero female students in Afghanistan 20 years ago. But look at me today. I am not only a highly educated Afghan woman. I run a school where girls from 28 of the 34 provinces come to Sola, most often because they don't have the opportunity to continue with their education where they live. When the provinces began to fall, I reached out to Shabana, who told me she was working around the clock on a plane.

In fact, she's been working on that plan since the Trump administration struck a deal with the Taliban back in February 2020. Then this past April, President Biden announced a unilateral withdrawal from Afghanistan, and those plans accelerated. That is really when things got real. It's safe to say there was a beginning of countless, sleepless nights. I tried as much as I could to find out what was really happening. But what was becoming clear day by day was that operating Sola as the first and only boarding school for girls in Afghanistan, as usual, was increasingly becoming irresponsible. We looked at all sorts of possibilities. We looked at many, many contingency plans. And finally, what made most sense was doing a study abroad year.

What's interesting is that I was looking at countries in the region, but where I made the most progress in the shortest period of time was a country that I had never imagined taking my students to. and that was Rwanda. And so in the beginning of August, I took a two-day trip to Rwanda. On my way back to Afghanistan, I received a text message from the president's office

informing me that the plan is approved and that we could move forward with our study abroad program in Rwanda. There are many more details that I can't talk about, But what happened in the very, very last moment was our carefully planned study abroad program turned into an evacuation. There's a lot Chabana can't talk about in order to protect the many people who helped her get the entire school, including the staff and their families out of the country in the midst of the chaos. But the other reason is that it was a traumatic experience that's too raw to recount in detail.

As Kabul fell, I tried to track what was happening with Shabanah and Sola as best as I could. And at one point saw a horrifying image she shared on Twitter of a fire consuming all the school records of her students to keep the documents from falling into the hands of the Taliban. There was an Afghan father who saw all of this coming, way before anyone did. And this was December 2019. he came from a village in a province in Afghanistan where there were no schools for girls and his daughter was the only educated girl in his village and she was studying at Sola. And he came to see me because he wanted to convince me to admit his other daughter who was eight years old.

and I was trying to help him understand that she was too young to join us as a sixth grader. He got up, he said goodbye, and he was almost out of my office, and he turned around, and he said, oh, by the way, and he didn't even say if. He said, when the Taliban come, I want you to promise me that you will burn. any and all records indicating that my daughter was ever a student at your school. And I think I said something along the lines of, of course, I don't see that ever happening. Let's hope that never happens, but if it does, you have my promise, you have my word. I couldn't stop thinking about him and what he had told me.

And at this point, I knew that the families of our students could be harassed and targeted, if any information, links them back to Sola. Shabana Bassiz Rasuk, co-founded the girls' boarding school known as Sola. And she spoke with Sue Halpern. We'll continue in a moment. Kabul fell on August 15th. On August 20th, I got a message that Shabana had somehow managed to get too high. 150 people out of Afghanistan, and a hundred of them were young girls. This was a time when getting a single person through the gauntlet of checkpoints and Taliban fighters

and the pandemonium at the airport seemed nearly impossible. And of course, I wanted to know how she did it. I unfortunately can't share too many details by what I can say. And some of it simply because it's in a way, too painful to relive some of these moments. What I can say is that the decision, the one decision that I made that ended up being key to the success of our plan was I had a commercial flight on August 14th that I did not take. I knew that if I left, there would be no.

way anyone from our community, any of our students would be able to make it to Rwanda. So what I can't say is that I feel indebted to the government of Rwanda, to the government of Qatar, and to many, many individuals at the U.S. State Department for working around the clock to help me make all of this happen. So, okay, so you were working around the clock, but you have 100 girls in your school. They were already kind of planning on leaving the country, so that was already in motion. But what was the mood at Solon? What was going on with the girls? And how are you handling what had to be a fairly traumatic time in their lives? Everyone truly believed.

We all believed that this was going to be a study abroad program. The girls each got to pack a suitcase and they all had their solar laptops with them. And the conversation was, can I bring this? Can I bring this item with me? But obviously at the end, no one could bring anything. they packed. They only came to the airport with a backpack or a purse, nothing more. And why did they have to leave their stuff behind? Why did they have to just limit it to a backpack? There were all sorts of rumors that, you know, even within city, movement within city,

getting from any point in the city to the airport, if you had anything with you indicated, that you were headed to the airport could be risky. So a lot of people just walked, you know, walked to the airport or took a taxi to a point and then got off and walked. And then you couldn't have an indication that you belong to a group getting out. You know, and certainly that was the case with our students and our colleagues. I at one point ended up at the airport with my phone and my passport and nothing else, nothing else on me. I didn't even have a charger.

I have borrowed power bank from many, many U.S. Army soldiers and State Department reps who were at the airport to keep my phone charging. The focus was the immediate, what was in front of me. Students and colleagues stuck at Taliban checkpoints and constantly trying to assure them they're okay and they are going to be okay at a time when I didn't even know. Quite frankly, we didn't know if we would be able to, if everyone would be able to make it out. It's actually something, look at us,

We're all out. Every single person who wanted to come with us made it out. And that thought still haunts me. It suddenly takes over all my senses in a way. It was just this idea of what if, what if we lost a student. And I have to work very, very hard to remind myself, that this is in my head, that physically everyone is out. We're fine. We're really fine.

I obviously was incredibly relieved when our last group made it through, but there wasn't a sense of victory or win. In the days that I was stuck at the airport and was traveling. in between checkpoints around the clock. I witness something that pains me to my core. You know, it's okay. You don't have to say what you don't want to say. I think it's important that I finish what I wanted to say.

And watching people even beyond the solar community, watching thousands and thousands of Afghans forced out of their homes, forced out of the livelihood that they made for themselves, was very painful. Watching brain draining from Afghanistan was very painful. Give me a second, please. Sure. Unclear when the girls are going to be able to see their families again. But for now, they're safe.

And in school, we ended up in Rwanda. We're in a place where people truly understand what it means to lose your home. People are very kind. A lot of Rwandans that I have spoken with, they all remind us how they were once forced out of their homes, how they were once refugees themselves, and here they are. They have returned.

So Rwanda is an inspiration for us. Rwanda is a reminder that being in exile isn't the end. Our campus in Rwanda is a beautiful little Afghan community. Tell us as much as you can about where you see Sola going in the future? We will not in any way allow Taliban to win. Girls under the Taliban regime are not allowed to go to secondary school right now, making Afghanistan the only country on earth where girls' access to secondary school is outlawed.

For me, Solah and educating Afghan girls was never, ever about a job. For me, it's my life's work and it's my way of life. For as long as there is an Afghanistan, for as long as there is an Afghan girl, for me, this work continues. Solar's mission was, is and always will be to educate Afghan girls and no one, no one can get in the way of that. Don't look away. Don't look away from Afghanistan.

Don't look away from Afghan girls and Afghan women. The last time the U.S. and the rest of the world chose to look away from Afghanistan, It was devastating both for Afghanistan and the U.S. We cannot afford for any of that to happen again. Shabana Basij Rasuk. She spoke with Sue Halpern, who's a staff writer. I'm David Remnick, and thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed the show.

See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Ave Cario, Riannon, Corby, Calalia, David Krasnow, Gauphin and Putubuele, Louis Mitchell, Michelle Moses, and Stephen Valentino.

And we had additional help this week from Harrison Keithline, Joe Ploord, Amy Pearl, and Allison McAdam. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund. land.