Poppies Are Not the Road to Freedom

Rangina Hamidi: Afghans for a Civil Society, Afghanistan

When Ms. Hamidi was four years old, her family fled Afghanistan for America, but Ms. Hamidi never forgot her homeland. After getting a degree in religion from the University of Virginia, she returned to Afghanistan and co-founded Afghans for a Civil Society.

At the time, many Afghani families had no alternative but to become involved in the dangerous and illegal trade in poppies (for heroin). Afghans for a Civil Society became a means for women to safely support their families, while at the same time satisfying deep and long-repressed creativity. Ms. Hamidi helped the families to revive traditional approaches to embroidery.

These old traditions had been almost lost in the days of the Taliban, when women couldn’t leave their homes and weren’t allowed to participate in the economy at all. Through the work of Afghans for a Civil Society, headquartered in Kandahar, local women have become able to gather together, sharing embroidery designs and techniques.

The embroidery, which Ms. Hamidi helps to market and sell, provides income for the artists and is helping to fund literacy, healthcare, and grass-roots political training for many of the women of Kandahar.  The project has been so successful that Hamidi has started a for-profit business called Kandahar Jewel that will offer even more opportunities for these women. 

The Art:

The women of Kandahar make a special kind of fine-needle, exquisitely detailed embroidery known as khamak.

Traditionally, khamak, with its rich colors and elaborate, geometric designs, was used to decorate children’s and men’s clothing, as well as wall hangings and the items in the valuable bridal trousseau.

Today’s Kandahar embroiderers use fine silk threads to embroider cotton shirts, ponchos, and other garments, as well as wall hangings. “This work is a way to present Afghani life to the world,” Rangina Hamidi says. It’s also a way for the women of Kandahar, once so marginalized, to engage once again with that world.

The Video