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Modern-day Romeo & Juliet......in Afghanistan

Sad story out of Afghanistan about a young woman and man - who have never heard about Shakespeare because, apart from anything else, they can't even read - whose lives pretty well presently mirror that of Romeo and Juliet.   

"She is his Juliet and he is her Romeo, and her family has threatened to kill them both.

Zakia is 18 and Mohammad Ali is 21, both the children of farmers in this remote mountain province. If they could manage to get together, they would make a striking couple.

She dresses colorfully, a pink head scarf with her orange sweater, and collapses into giggles talking about him. He is a bit of a dandy, with a mop of upswept black hair, a white silk scarf and a hole in the side of his saddle-toned leather shoes. Both have eyes nearly the same shade, a startling amber.

They have never been alone in a room together, but they have publicly declared their love for each other and their intention to marry despite their different ethnicities and sects. That was enough to make them outcasts, they said, marked for death for dishonoring their families — especially hers.

Zakia has taken refuge in a women’s shelter here. Even though she is legally an adult under Afghan law, the local court has ordered her returned to her family. “If they get hold of me,” she said matter-of-factly, “they would kill me even before they get me home.”

Neither can read, and they have never heard Shakespeare’s tale of doomed love. But there are plenty of analogues in the stories they are both steeped in, and those, too, end tragically.

Zakia invokes one, the tale of Princess Shirin and Farhad the stonecutter, as she talks about her beloved, and her long wait in the women’s shelter to marry him. “I would wait until I reach my love, no matter how long,” she said.

In 21st-century Afghanistan, as well, life is no fairy tale, especially in rural places like Bamian. Young people who want to choose their own mates face the harsh reality that strict social traditions still trump new laws and expanded rights — and that honor killings in such cases remain endemic.

Nearly all marriages are still arranged by the parents, and girls bring to their families bride prices that can be considerable — although for poor families like Zakia’s and Mohammad Ali’s, that might be a few goats. Afghan courts can also apply Shariah law, interpreting it to justify parental authority even over an adult child.

“The story of true love in Afghanistan,” said Reza Farzam, an Afghan university professor, “is the story of death.”

Zakia and Mohammad Ali knew each other from childhood, working in adjacent fields in the village of Khame Kalak, near the provincial capital.

“We would go to the desert and take our animals for foraging, and we used to spend our days in the huts around the animals,” Mohammad Ali said."


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