Soraya's husband, father, and friend prepare to throw stones at her.

Zahra had a lot on her shoulders.

Of course, this observation about Soraya's aunt (portrayed so brilliantly by Shohreh Aghdashloo in “The Stoning of Soraya M”) is the understatement of the year.  But the dimensions of the burden she heroically attempted to carry hit me in a new way this week, when a coffee shop conversation left me asking, “Where were the good guys?  The male members of Soraya’s family who should have helped to support and protect her?”

Zahra carried the weight of a responsibility that others had abandoned.  It’s just part of the human contract, this responsibility we all have to our loved ones to create a safe space for them to grow into the best person they can be.  But because of the way religious and social dogma in Soraya’s community darkly defined what it means to be female, the contract was broken.  Had even one man valued her and defended Soraya, she would have had a fighting chance.

I didn’t go to the coffee shop with these thoughts in mind. But while focusing on the day’s appointments and whether I should have gotten the bran muffin instead of a croissant, I sat down next to a leggy teenager and a man I assumed was her father.  They were engaged in what seemed an uncomfortable discussion for her, a crucial “teachable moment” for him.  What the young woman was hearing from her dad was not appetizing; she pushed her half-eaten food to the middle of the small table and looked away from him.  Still, I could see that she was absorbing every fatherly, if a bit overbearing, word.  (The tables were really close – I wasn’t craning…I don’t think.)

After a while, I felt an odd sense of affection for these two – a girl who appeared strong and capable, who trusted herself to be and do the right thing.  And the dad – the provider, protector, holder of more life experience, experience that drove him to lay down the law for his daughter’s own good.  (He was setting strict limits on when she could walk about the neighborhood by herself.  Evidently, theirs was a section of town the father worried about, one in which nefarious people hang around in the same places day after day, watching and waiting for opportunities, perhaps in the form of a young, leggy, innocent-looking teenage girl. They would notice her pattern, he worried, see the regularity with which she would walk by after school.  Maybe they’d know the hours when she was alone; maybe they’d follow her home.

Even though I felt for her, could see that she was chafing at the restrictions being placed on her freedom, she didn’t get my pity.  And notably, she didn’t put up a fight beyond registering a surprised and slightly sullen expression. I wondered if this was because she felt safe and protected by this man and his limits; she recognized his lecture was a sign of being a treasured, beloved person to him.

As I watched them walk toward their car, I thought about the countless number of girls without such fathers (or brothers or uncles) and pictured a day when, as a grown woman, this teen would remember today’s conversation and smile with gratitude.

It was only later the same day when Soraya and Zahra came to mind, and the father-daughter duo I’d overheard took on a different meaning.

I bring up the absence of loving, protective men in Soraya’s story cautiously. But to talk about the failure of male elders in her community to exercise the moral courage to tell the truth about distortions of justice is not a criticism of Iranian men, or gender bashing, or any equally unhelpful swipe with a broad-brush stroke.  I bring it up only because the grief and outrage this movie generates makes me ask questions.  It also makes me wishful.  Specifically, I wish the film were based on fiction, and we could choose another ending in our mind’s eye, one in which Zahra is joined by a few brave men, and together, they save Soraya’s life.

Safia Amajan

As the number of people who have seen The Stoning of Soraya M. continues to grow (including people who live in countries that might ban the film), I can't help but think of the women I met while living and working in southern Afghanistan.  I wonder what the chances are that they will get to learn about Soraya and Zahra…and what they would say, or feel compelled to do, if they knew their story.

Zahra's clarity of purpose and bravery remind me of one woman, in particular.  In a few months, I will mark three years since I said goodbye to Fowzia Oleumi, one of the most morally courageous women I have ever known. Fowzia is the head of women’s affairs for Helmand province (the land of a profoundly conservative Pashtun culture and source of much of the world’s opium poppy production).

If history offers a clue, the moment I note the anniversary will land in the pit of my stomach, heavy before it lightens and floats up to my chest where it sits, tentatively and indefinitely, clocking time, as if idling in a parking lot of hope. I will refuse to entertain fears of the worst and instead try to imagine that something – luck, Grace, Allah, whatever – has protected her and the others I knew from the forces that seek to keep women invisible and silent.

This October (the same week, in fact) will also see the release of a new book by one of Fowzia’s compatriots, Malalai Joya, titled A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. Stephen de Tarczynski’s description of Malalai in this excerpted interview also brings Fowzia to mind — small in stature, yet mammoth in bravery.

Slight as they are, both are living larger lives than many of us because they are compelled to expand beyond the norms that run counter to their soul and to their country’s best interests.

One of my favorite memories of Fowzia was the story she told, with great conviction and a slight smile, on a morning she surprised me with a visit and gifts.

The day before, she had attended a meeting (she was the only women in a room full of mullahs) where the men were attempting to reconcile opium poppy production (which is against Islam, or “haram”), with the dictates of the Koran. As relayed by Fowzia, she stood up, and without mincing words, told the men that they were distorting the words of the Book to justify their own destructive purposes. (The mullah’s rationale involved equating the poor economic conditions in Helmand with dying of starvation, a situation that apparently leaves one some room to kill one’s donkey, an act that is otherwise haram.)

Fowzia’s bold statement to the mullahs was just one of many examples of her truth telling. And she was willing to die for it.

Safia Amajan was Fowzia’s counterpart for Kandahar Province. Just like Fowzia, she had apparently asked for, and been refused, a protective vehicle, or bodyguards, despite repeated death threats. I don’t think I will ever forget the way Fowzia looked and sounded when she came to see me that September afternoon. Though she didn’t need to, she said she wasn’t well … her face was ashen. It seemed her strength was waning along with her faith that real, substantive progress for women would ever truly materialize (and be sustained) in southern Afghanistan.

Safia had been gunned down in front of her own home, and Fowzia was expecting to be similarly killed within days. After a year of spending time with her, it was the first and only time she seemed without hope.

Like Fowzia, Malalai often gets death threats…but I suspect and hope they draw strength from each other's courage. The latter is a virulent activist, some even might say Marxist, but one doesn’t need to completely agree with what she says to honor her conviction.

The conversations inspired by Soraya M. are not easy to have, but there is no place for wallflowers or for fear if we want to be a part changing things for the better. Until women like Soraya, Safia, Malalai and Fowzia are safe to boldly speak and live, there is much work to do.