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Scott Simon's Essays
Aid Workers Released
Nov. 17, 2001 -- It might be a measure of the resolve so many Americans feel about the war in Afghanistan that until this week, people in this country had accepted the idea that the eight Christian aid workers imprisoned in Kabul might be put to death. In the recent past, the presence of any American in Tehran, British or French soldiers in Sarajevo, or U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq was reason enough to stop the West from striking out against thugs and terrorists in those places. But since September 11th, the US has not made the safety of those aid workers a priority of policy. It was, therefore, an unexpected gift to hear this week that those aid workers are alive and have been rescued.
They were arrested last August and charged with promoting their religion, mostly, it seems, by helping Afghans with food and shelter, and teaching young women how to read. The two Americans among the eight were Heather Mercer and Dayna Curry, who work for Shelter Now, a Christian aid group based in Germany. They met with reporters yesterday.
They say they were treated with civility by the Taliban; at least, they were given food and were not beaten. They were allowed to pray, exercise and sing hymns. However, they said, the Afghan women in the same jail in Kabul were routinely beaten, often for the crime of running away from husbands who beat them.
Early this week, as the Taliban began to retreat from Kabul, they took along the aid workers as a kind of war booty. They were forced into a truck, driven through the night and left to squat and shiver in a metal freight container until they were delivered to jail in a town called Ghazni. They assumed that they would either be put to death, or just left to die. But the Taliban retreat from Ghazni was so rushed they left their prisoners behind. Locals blew open the prison door and rebels tumbled in, smiling, "You're free! You're free!" When the aid workers stumbled into the light outside, they saw people dancing to music, women shucking off their burqas, men shaving their beards and children flying kites. The people of Ghazni surrounded the aid workers and embraced them.
Someone in town made a call, some of these facts are still a little mysterious, and the aid workers waited for a U.S. helicopter to pluck them from a hillside. To make a signal that could be seen from the sky, the women aid workers took off the head scarves they'd worn so as not to offend the Taliban, and burned them in a pile. Then they said Afghan women began to loosen their own scarves. They unwound them from their heads and necks and plunged the cloths that had marked their oppression into a fire that grew brighter and bigger and guided rescuers to a safe landing in a dangerous place.
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