Gathering Strength:. Peggy Kelsey

violent.

       In that dim and quiet place of seclusion

       I looked into his eyes brimming with myster

       my heart throbbed in my chest all too excited

       by the desire glowing in his eyes.

       In that dim and quiet place of seclusion

       as I sat next to him all scattered inside

       his lips poured lust on my lips

       and I left behind the sorrows of my heart.

      Peggy: What do you think is the greatest enabler of your success as a singer?

      Elaha: The most important ingredient of my success is a commitment to good morality. Many people think that if a woman sings on TV, she is a prostitute. It’s important for me to be an example that this is not the case.

      Peggy: Sahraa, what do you want to accomplish with your films?

      Sahraa: I want to find my identity as a woman, not as a refugee girl. Growing up in Iran, the shadow of being a refugee girl from Afghanistan was a limitation that made me want to improve myself. It gave me a challenge. That’s one reason I moved to Slovakia. Only by living in another culture could I find the identity I had lost in Iran. It’s very important that people start to search inside themselves. Everyone’s way of searching is different. For photographers it’s to take photos; for writers it’s writing; for me as a filmmaker, it’s to make films. I find that filmmaking is a kind of questioning, a way of finding my identity that they stole from me.

      Identity, for me, is to show myself as I am, not how society thinks I should be nor how they want me to be, but how I really am, including all my mistakes. We are all human beings and we all have different sides. Identity means that I say what is on my mind. I don’t censor myself. It is very hard to be like this in Afghan society. In Slovakian society I could say what I wanted. Maybe they wouldn’t agree with me or like me, but at least I had the power to speak my truth. Here, we don’t have this power.

      Here people judge you. Afghan society in Iran did the same and I hated it. To avoid this judgment I decided to live somewhere else. I wanted to be free to speak without worrying that if I say something, maybe I will hurt someone or maybe somebody won’t like me. Through art, and especially film, I can speak out. Film helped me overcome my shyness about my face and body and to speak about what this body likes and doesn’t like.

      But when I began to really think for myself, I started to make mistakes. These mistakes brought me back. Sometimes it was very painful, but I’m happy that I did these things because they helped me find myself.

      Peggy: Saghar, tell me about your painting. (Seen in her portrait.)

      Saghar: This painting is one of my first ones. I wanted to show the world the Afghan people’s misery. You see that both of these doors are closed. Rich people live behind that beautiful door, poor ones behind the other. But it doesn’t make a difference to that boy in the foreground, sitting under the tree in the snow. Neither one is helping him. You see these animals, the crow and the wolf? The animals have feelings for the boy, but the people in the houses don’t. There is no humanitarianism here.

      Peggy: What do you think about art and its importance in society?

      Saghar: Here in Afghanistan, unfortunately, people do not pay attention to art. Because of the lack of education they never think about it. But personally, art helps me a lot.

      Peggy: Will you ever be able to show or sell these pictures of people and monuments that you have here?

      Saghar: No, no one appreciates this kind of art. I also paint geometric designs on colored vases that my husband sells in his pharmacy. The other paintings will stay in my house or I may give some to my relatives.

      Peggy: How will you use your art after you graduate?

      Saghar: I’m interested in teaching, but here, if students want to be teachers, they have to choose that when they begin their studies. It’s too late for me now. After I graduate, I will just paint here at home and raise my son.

      Peggy: Mariam:, what drew you to photography?

      Mariam: Some people say that they’ve always wanted to be a photographer, but not me. I was working in public information for the Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees (DACAAR), writing an article about cultivating saffron. It needed an illustration, so someone lent me a camera and I took some pictures. They loved them. Those pictures led me to take a course at Aina Photo Agency here in Kabul. I also had to learn English. During that program I took a picture of a laughing mullah and the instructor was so pleased that he helped me sell the photo to a magazine. That’s how I got the idea that I should try to become a photographer.

      But now in Afghanistan people don’t appreciate photography. If they ask you what you’re doing and if you say you’re a photographer, they don’t understand, and they say, "Photography???" It’s a question mark in their minds.

      Sahraa: This film I made, Women Behind the Wheel, wasn’t perfect but it was very open. It portrayed how I saw Afghan society at the time. When I came here from Slovakia and started to live with my in-laws inside Afghan society, I began to communicate with a different kind of people. I saw that the truth of the film was much more painful than this picture showed. A lot of women have a very bad life inside their family. From the outside you can’t see it; they have nice clothes, they have children, they are busy with things to do, but they are always being there for other people and they never think about themselves.

      You can see lots of girls who are very modern, who wear stylish clothes, who laugh in the street. But if you talk with them, you can see that they still don’t have their power. They don’t have the ability to say what they want because they are still afraid. For that, I want intellectual people to stand up and speak their minds. I think they would have a lot to say.

      Everybody’s story is very important. For me, as a woman in Afghan society living inside Afghan culture, there are a lot of things I should tell but I can’t. Our society is not very open and it doesn’t give me the opportunity to tell these things. Here, culture and everything should be moral. Your behavior, your way of thinking, your way of life, everything should be moral. Because of that, I think the story of the Afghan girl and the Afghan woman has a very specific color, a dark color. For me as a filmmaker, it’s important to show this color in a true way, and through these women tell the story.

      Everyone thinks that women here don’t have rights; that they don’t have the right to speak. Okay, that’s true. But there is something more important. Afghan women don’t have a chance to know what they think. They always live for their family, their husband, or their children. It’s their way of life. You can never tell them that this is not the right way. They believe that it’s right; they’re proud of it. When you’re proud of something, you can never get away from it. When you’re proud as a daughter, you should be with your mother because society says so, but you can’t be a "good" daughter and a "good" wife, and also be good for yourself.

      Peggy: Sahraa is very