introductiondismissal from high office. To be shamed, especially publicly, is one of the
worst things that can happen to anyone in Afghanistan. The Pushtu proverb
states that ‘it is better to die with honour than to live with shame’, while the
Pushtu poet Khushhal Khan Khattak wrote, ‘the world is shame (sharm),
name (nam) and honour (nang) / without honour the world is nothing’.
Honour–shame cultures are by their nature both competitive and
combative, since in the pursuit of honour one often attempts to shame
rivals or make them lose face. Inevitably, in any contest, whether it is sports,
war or dynastic power struggles, there will always be winners and losers.
Anyone who gains public honour, for example, is at risk from the envy of
others, for one person’s gain/honour is always another’s loss/shame. Since
losing is shameful, and shame always has to be expunged, the loser will do
all in his or her power to redeem face and name. In some cases, such as the
killing of a family member, the shame is so great that honour can only be
redeemed by bloodshed, for the death implies the clan is weak and unable
to protect its members. Foreigners, who generally have only a superficial
knowledge of Afghan culture, often find themselves unwitting victims of
this honour–shame duality, since this culture is essentially alien, particu-
larly to peoples from northern European countries. Public dressing-down
(itself a strong shame phrase) of Afghan employees for incompetence,
corruption or non-attendance risks incurring the wrath of the employee
in question, for while the foreigner is concerned about right and wrong,
the Afghan is only interested in the fact that she or he has been shamed
and has lost face in front of other Afghans. Many of the so-called Green
on Blue attacks, in which government security forces turn their guns on
their foreign counterparts, are more often than not due to Afghans being
publicly shamed by foreign officers.
Women are intricately bound up in this world of honour and shame,
for parda is not just derived from Islamic requirements that adult women
should cover their heads in public. The custom is also based on the belief that
concealment is the best, and in some cases the only, way to protect a woman’s
virginity and hence qaum honour. If a woman breaks the sexual taboos she
brings shame on not just herself but the family, and in some extreme cases
honour can only be redeemed by her closest male relatives putting her to
death, in so-called ‘honour killings’. Yet despite all attempts to control and
confine sexuality, Afghanistan’s popular music, poetry, romances and folk-
lore are full of stories about illicit love affairs and relate how a single glance
fr om a woman’s ‘black eyes’ can turn a young man literally mad with desire.
Not surprisingly, such romances tend to end in tragedy.