Eye for an eye in action
If you pause the video footage, and look very closely, you can just see it. A hole the size of a pinprick. It’s there in the middle of the scarred skin that’s smeared across Ameneh Bahrami’s left eye, sealing it closed.
Doing it tough, Kabul style
I’d never seen such filthy hands. I know it’s rude to stare. But I was trying to work out what on earth this wide-eyed little boy had been doing to blacken his hands like that. Just then he caught me staring, and quickly hid his fingers under the folds of his tatty tunic. It was an embarrassing moment for both of us.
Despite all, Afghans think we’re the good guys
The hardest thing about leaving Afghanistan is saying goodbye to friends. I could barely get Obaidullah to look at me. Just a week ago, I stood in the Kabul sunshine, in my filthy jeans and muddy boots, and decided not to try to hug him. A handshake would do. But still he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
Two wrongs, no rights
I suspect that, like most women, Mukhtar Mai doesn’t like it when people tell her she’s courageous. Telling a woman she has courage just makes her nervous. Telling her she’s brave is even worse. Women just do what they feel needs to be done. Often it’s about doing what seems obvious.
It’s not sport, it’s business
Mal Meninga has been wrong about a few things. He was wrong to try to bluff his way into politics back in 2001. And he is wrong now to suggest we should all forget about the Brett Stewart story and just move on.
A call to loving arms
When did it become hip and cool to disconnect sex and feeling? Tender feelings of intimacy and exploration; even moments of shared awkwardness. And since when did the art of slow seduction go out of vogue?
Smith’s female sacrifice
The fear of women is rife. Nowhere more so than among Islamic extremists. And the most fearful are the Taliban. So deep is that fear that Taliban hatred of women knows no limit.
First fire, now brimstone
Okay, Jack Waterford. So you don’t like tears on TV. Nor do I. But that so-called “money shot” – the zoom-in on contorted faces stricken with grief, as tears roll and exhausted bodies roll with emotion – well, it gets me every time.
Time to undo the petty deal that’s destroying women’s lives
What woman would shove a dirty stick up her vagina, furiously jab at her insides and try to scrape out the walls of her womb? A promiscuous woman? A bad woman? A lapsed Christian, perhaps?
