Bread and Roses, co-produced by actress Jennifer Lawrence and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousefzai, and directed by Sahra Mani.
If
only American women were half as brave as the on-camera real-life women
activists in Kabul! We see them willing to risk being beaten, arrested,
tortured, and even murdered by the Taliban because they’ve dared to
demonstrate for “Work, Bread, and Education.”
Wearing
hijab, but naked-faced, identifiable, these heroes march, chant, hold
placards aloft, scrawl their demands on walls and even on the snow, meet
secretly — and continue to do so even as the Taliban death-threatens,
beats, and arrests activist after activist, even after they murder many.
The women demand the return of their arrested sisters — and in one
instance, they actually prevail.
Strong Women Against the Taliban
Bread and Roses
depicts Afghan women who tried to get to the airport on the days before
the Taliban stormed into Kabul; they found that all the airport “gates”
were closed to them. Thereafter, the women left behind were,
essentially, placed under house arrest, forbidden to work, (even if they
were doctors and dentists), forbidden to attend school, go out without a
male escort and without wearing the Afghan burqa, the garment I view as
a sensory deprivation isolation chamber.
Both
schools and beauty shops were shuttered. Music was forbidden.
Impoverished families began selling their very young daughters to much
older, already married men. Women were forbidden to take taxis alone.
Courtesy
of body camcorders and hidden cameras, we see these women activists
being beaten by the Taliban with whips and sticks. These are the women
who say, on camera: “Not everyone is brave enough to risk their lives
against terrorism.” We see an enraged Talib break a door down, we hear
about a Talib “who beats me at home more than women in prison are
beaten.”
The
women bond, they tell each other that they are “warriors;” one woman
says: “For me, it’s God and then you guys;” “We are tired of captivity;”
“Strong women are always lonely;” My crime? I demanded freedom for
women;” “We should write our own histories, write our own stories.”
The
information is in. The Taliban are women-killers. It is their version
of Islam. UN Women are you listening? Hey, International Criminal Court:
You’ve issued warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu, but not
for the Iranian mullahcracy or the Taliban. Something is wrong with this
picture.
Will a film like Bread and Roses make
any difference? If this film were shown at the United Nations would
they sanction and isolate the Taliban and its supporters? Would the ICC
issue arrest warrants for these Islamist death-eaters — or are warrants
only issued to Israeli leaders fighting an existential war of
self-defense after their citizens were massacred, burned and raped, even
as they are accused of countless blood libels?
