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AFGHANISTAN

Safe in Spain, Afghan women’s basketball star speaks out about Taliban takeover

As captain of Afghanistan's wheelchair basketball team and a women's rights activist, Nilofar Bayat fled for her life when the Taliban took over, seeking safety in Spain where she hopes to soon be back on the court.

Published: 24 August 2021 15:16 CEST
Safe in Spain, Afghan women's basketball star speaks out about Taliban takeover
The captain of Afghanistan's women's wheelchair basketball team Nilofar Bayat poses in the Spanish Basque city of Bilbao. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP)

Speaking to reporters in the northern city of Bilbao just days after arriving on a Spanish military plane, this 28-year-old athlete spoke of her
shock at how quickly the Taliban swept into the capital Kabul and of her struggle to get out.

“I really want the UN and all countries to help Afghanistan.. because the Taliban are the same as they were 20 years ago,” she said.

“If you see Afghanistan now, it’s all men, there are no women because they don’t accept woman as part of society.”

After a nerve-wracking escape, she and her husband Ramesh, who plays for Afghanistan’s national basketball team, landed at an airbase just outside Madrid on Friday and are now starting a new life in Bilbao.

“When the Taliban came and I saw them around my home, I was scared and I started to think about myself and my family,” said Bayat after the insurgents swept into the capital on August 15.

“I’ve been in too many videos and spoken about the Taliban, about all I’ve done in basketball and working for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

There can be a big case for the Taliban to kill me and my family.”

With the help of the Spanish embassy she managed to secure a seat on a plane, and set off for the airport where she found scenes of chaos with the Taliban shooting and beating people to stop them reaching the airport.

“It was a really difficult day.. I’ve never seen this much danger in my country. I cried a lot, not because they beat me or my husband, but because of who had taken control of the country,” explained this former law student.

Nilofar Bayat (R) and her husband Ramish pose following a press conference in the Spanish Basque city of Bilbao.

‘Others are still there’

With the help of several German soldiers, they managed to get in but spent two days there in the blazing Kabul sun with “nothing to sleep on.. and not enough food” before finally being flown out on a Spanish military plane.

But she’s acutely aware that in getting away, she was one of the lucky ones.

“I’m luckier than other Afghan people in that I’ve left and am here and can start a new life. But I’m just one person, others are still there,” she said.

When the Taliban were in power in the late 1990s, a rocket hit Bayat’s family home when she was just two-years-old. In the attack, her brother was killed, her father was injured and she lost a leg.

“They changed my life forever, they caused pain and something that I’ll carry forever in my life,” said Bayat.

“I am the best proof of how dangerous the Taliban are.. and how living in Afghanistan is hard and difficult: there is no future and no hope.”

In a country where many people have been left with disabilities due to the attacks or polio, Bayat became interested in wheelchair basketball after seeing the men play and went on to play a key role in setting up an Afghan women’s team.

“When I’m in the gym and playing basketball, I forget what’s happening in my country and also that I have a disability,” she said.

She came to Spain with the help of a Spanish journalist friend and has received “many offers” to play with wheelchair basketball teams, including onefrom Bidaideak Bilbao BSR, with whom she hopes to start playing “as soon as possible”.

READ ALSO: ‘Time is running out’: Spain warns it will have to leave people behind in Afghanistan

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POLITICS

Why separatist Bildu spells hope for Basque youth as Spanish region votes

"For us Basques, ETA's terrorism is in the past," says social worker Elena García, who says she's going to vote for the left-wing separatist EH Bildu in Sunday's election in Spain's Basque Country.

Published: 18 April 2024 09:21 CEST
Why separatist Bildu spells hope for Basque youth as Spanish region votes

As the wealthy northern region of 2.2 million residents heads into a tightly-contested vote for its regional parliament, polls suggest Bildu will win, inching ahead of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) that has ruled for decades.

A faction which partly emerged from the political wing of the now-defunct Basque armed separatist group ETA, Bildu “used to be associated with a nationalist party with a terrorist past but it’s moved away from that,” said García.

“Now it’s the party doing the most for social issues and defending Basque interests.”

Although she’s 40, her words reflect a stance common among young Basque voters for whom decades of dark separatist violence has little bearing on their electoral choices.

A coalition of several parties, most of which opposed violence, Bildu has worked to disassociate itself from ETA whose bloody struggle for an independent Basque homeland claimed 850 lives before it rejected violence in 2011.

And with a focus on housing, the environment and others issues, it has won a strong following among younger voters between 18 and 44, surveys show.

Although former ETA member Arnaldo Otegi, 65, remains its leader and most public face, Bildu recently named 40-year-old Pello Otxandiano as candidate for regional leader.

Over the years, observers say it has successfully highlighted problems facing Basque society that have increasingly taken centre stage as the political focus has shifted away from the violence of the ETA years.

“Before, the only party looking after Basque interests was the PNV, so everyone voted for them regardless of their political leanings,” said García.

“But with Bildu gaining strength, if you’re left-wing and more socially minded, you’ll vote for them.”

A man and a child look at an electoral poster of pro-independence political coalition “EH Bildu” campaign meeting in the Spanish Basque city of Sestao on April 10, 2024 ahead of April 21 regional elections. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP)

‘Left-wing separatist alternative’

Experts say Bildu has steadily gained political traction through a strategy that has steered clear of terror-related issues while refocusing squarely on social change.

“Bildu has become increasingly popular with young people, benefitting from the end of the armed struggle,” said Pablo Simón, a political scientist at Madrid’s Carlos III University.

“That has allowed it to position itself as the pro-independence, left-wing alternative to the traditional PNV government with a substantial part of its agenda linked to social policies, wealth redistribution, environmentalism and the like.”

The aim was to “move away from terrorism-related issues to talk about other problems linked to the left and the right.”

Eva Silván, who heads public policy consultancy Silvan&Miracle, said it had also scaled back its separatist agenda.

“It started talking about issues that were more material than identity based, and reducing the pro-independence agenda to focus on concrete social and public policies,” she told AFP.

And that has played well with a new generation of voters “who hadn’t experienced terrorism and didn’t link the separatist left with violence”.

For them, she said, Bildu “really taps into the concerns of young people and best addresses their problems”.

By 2019, Bildu was well on its way to becoming just another political actor with its five lawmakers in Spain’s national parliament recently becoming a key ally for the minority government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

For Basque youth, Bildu – a coalition grouping several peaceful separatist parties with former members of ETA’s political wing – spells hope in Spain election, AFP reports on April 18, 2024. (Photo by ANDER GILLENEA / AFP)

Focus on youth, poor

In a square in Bilbao, four friends in their 20s reel off a list of struggles they’re facing, from impossibly high rents to worsening job conditions and the rising cost of living.

One won’t vote because she doesn’t believe in the political system, two can’t vote because they’re undocumented immigrants and the fourth says there’s “no point”, drawing protest from her friends who say Bildu is the only option.

“It’s essential to vote because even if Bildu doesn’t win, they’ll have greater representation in the Basque parliament,” explained Moroccan Usama Abdeloihidin, 26, who works in the hotel sector.

“They’re more focused on the working class and the situation of young people. The PNV might look out for Basque interests but not if you’re from a poor or minority neighbourhood,” he said.

At a Bildu rally in nearby town of Sestao, a crowd of supporters are cheering, clapping and waving red, white and green Basque flags as three students watch from the sidelines.

“Many young people are forced to balance studies and work and this capitalist exploitation is raising political awareness, so many Basques are turning to the left, to Bildu,” said Oier Gómez Parada, a 19-year-old Basque philology student.

“Bildu is focusing on people and raising awareness about the difficult conditions we’re facing that other parties just don’t care about.”

In nearby Agurain, 23-year-old student activist Oier Inurrieta Garamendia told AFP he felt represented because Bildu “lets young people speak, and doesn’t just speak in our name”.

“Whatever happens on April 21st, we’ll have a result we can really celebrate,” he said while admitting that even if Bildu did win 30 of the Basque parliament’s 75 seats, up from 21, it stood no chance of ruling.

“When the other parties refuse to work with EH Bildu, they’re not just blocking the party, they’re blocking the needs and desires of a large part of Basque society.”

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