I'm the
woman who has awoken
I've arisen and become a tempest through the ashes of
my burnt children
I've arisen from the rivulets of my brother's blood
My nation's wrath has empowered me
My ruined and burnt villages fill me with hatred
against the enemy,
I'm the woman who has awoken,
I've found my path and will never return.
I've opened closed doors of ignorance
I've said farewell to all golden bracelets
Oh compatriot, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.
I've seen barefoot, wandering and homeless children
I've seen henna-handed brides with mourning clothes
I've seen giant walls of the prisons swallow freedom
in their ravenous stomach
I've been reborn amidst epics of resistance and
courage
I've learned the song of freedom in the last breaths,
in the waves of blood and in victory
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, no longer regard me as
weak and incapable
With all my strength I'm with you on the path of my
land's liberation.
My voice has mingled with thousands of arisen women
My fists are clenched with the fists of thousands of
compatriots
Along with you I've stepped up to the path of my
nation,
To break all these sufferings, all these fetters of
slavery,
Oh compatriot, Oh brother, I'm not what I was
I'm the woman who has awoken
I've found my path and will never return.
- Meena
(go to www.rawa.org for
more poetry)
[Biography of martyred Meena, founding leader of
RAWA]
MEENA (1957-1987) was born in Kabul. During her
school days, students in Kabul and other Afghan
cities were deeply engaged in social activism and
rising mass movements. She left the university to
devote herself as a social activist to organizing and
educating women. In pursuit of her cause for gaining
the right of freedom of expression and conducting
political activities, Meena laid the foundation of
RAWA in 1977. This organization was meant to give
voice to the deprived and silenced women of
Afghanistan. She started a campaign against the
Russian forces and their puppet regime in 1979 and
organized numerous processions and meetings in
schools, colleges and Kabul University to mobilize
public opinion. Another great service rendered by her
for the Afghan women is the launching of a bilingual
magazine, Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message) in 1981.
Through this magazine RAWA has been projecting the
cause of Afghan women boldly and effectively.
Payam-e-Zan has constantly exposed the criminal
nature of fundamentalist groups. Meena also
established Watan Schools for refugee children, a
hospital and handicraft centers for refugee women in
Pakistan to support Afghan women financially. At the
end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government
Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at
the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet
delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris
Ponamaryev, shamefacedly left the hall as
participants cheered when Meena started waving a
victory sign. Besides France, she also visited
several other European countries and met their
prominent personalities. Her active social work and
effective advocacy against the views of the
fundamentalists and the puppet regime provoked the
wrath of the Russians and the fundamentalist forces
alike and she was assassinated by agents of KHAD
(Afghanistan branch of KGB) and their fundamentalist
accomplices in Quetta, Pakistan, on February 4, 1987.
