To the Girl Who Was Told to Stop Dreaming

Somewhere in Afghanistan, there is a little girl who still remembers her last day of school.

Perhaps she remembers the sound of her classmates laughing. The teacher writing on the blackboard. The excitement of learning something new. The ordinary happiness of being a child who believes the whole world is waiting for her.

Perhaps she still keeps her schoolbooks beside her bed.

Perhaps every morning, she watches her brothers leave for school, knowing she cannot follow them.

And perhaps, somewhere deep inside, she is still waiting for someone to tell her that she can go back.

But the days have become months.

The months have become years.

And the world has continued moving.

Only her future has been forced to stand still.

I do not know her name.

I do not know what she wanted to become.

But I know one thing.

She deserved the chance to find out.

The country I carry within me

I was born in Afghanistan.

And no matter where life takes me, that will always be a part of who I am.

Today, I live in Europe. I study at a university. I build a company. I meet people from around the world. I make mistakes, I learn, I take risks, and I wake up every morning knowing that my future is something I am allowed to work toward.

Sometimes I complain about being exhausted. About university examinations. About the difficulties of building something from nothing. About the uncertainty of tomorrow.

And then I think about a girl in Afghanistan.

A girl who would give anything to sit in the classroom I sometimes complain about.

A girl who dreams of taking an examination I might find stressful.

A girl who wants nothing more than the opportunity to work hard for a future of her own.

And suddenly, the things I call problems become privileges.

I have the freedom to struggle for my dreams. She is being denied the freedom to pursue hers.

What makes me more deserving of an education than her?

Nothing.

What makes my ambitions more valuable than hers?

Nothing.

What makes my future more important?

Absolutely nothing.

We were simply born into different circumstances. And those circumstances have given one of us opportunities that the other is being denied.

I cannot find anything fair about that.

They are not just losing classrooms. They are losing years of their lives.

When we speak about Afghan women and girls, we often speak in statistics.

Millions denied an education. Years of restrictions. Generations at risk.

But I want you to forget the numbers for a moment.

Think about one girl.

Just one.

Imagine being thirteen years old and being told that you cannot continue your education.

You wait.

You turn fourteen.

You wait again.

Fifteen.

Sixteen.

Seventeen.

Eventually, you stop asking when school will reopen, not because you have stopped wanting to learn, but because every unanswered question hurts a little more than the last.

Imagine seeing your childhood disappear while everyone around you tells you to be patient.

Imagine having the intelligence to become a doctor, but never being allowed into the classroom that could help you get there.

Imagine having ideas that could change your country, but being denied the opportunity to develop them.

Imagine being born with a voice, only to grow up in a society that increasingly restricts where and how you may use it.

These are not simply lost academic years.

They are pieces of a human life.

And no government, no authority, and no institution can ever give someone those years back.

A stolen childhood cannot be returned with an apology.

I wish I could tell you that the world has done enough

But it hasn't.

The headlines come and go.

One crisis replaces another. One tragedy pushes the previous one out of sight.

And somewhere in Afghanistan, another girl grows older without returning to school.

I wonder how many of us would accept this reality if it were our own daughters.

Our sisters.

Our mothers.

How many of us would remain quiet if tomorrow someone told the girls we love that their dreams were no longer permitted?

Why should the distance between our homes and theirs determine how deeply we care?

I am not writing this because I believe my words alone can change the situation.

I am writing because I refuse to let their suffering become something ordinary.

Because silence becomes dangerous when it teaches the world to accept what should never have been acceptable.

And because I believe the dignity of a human being should never depend on their gender, their birthplace, or the people who hold power over their lives.

To the girl in Afghanistan

There is something I want to tell you.

And if somehow, someday, these words reach you, I hope you read them knowing they were written with all the sincerity I have.

Dear sister,

I am sorry.

I am sorry that you have had to grow up in a world where something as beautiful as learning has become something you must fight for.

I am sorry that you have been asked to be patient while the years of your childhood pass by.

I am sorry that while other young people are planning their futures, you have been forced to wonder whether you will even be allowed to choose yours.

I wish I could tell you that tomorrow will be different.

That tomorrow you will put on your school uniform again.

That tomorrow you will sit beside your friends, open your books, raise your hand, and answer a question without fear.

I wish I could promise you that.

But I will not offer you a promise that is not mine to make.

Instead, I want to tell you something that I hope you never forget.

You are not less intelligent because your classroom was closed.

You are not less capable because your university was taken away from you.

You are not less important because someone decided that your voice should not be heard.

Your dreams have value.

Your ideas have value.

Your life has value.

And none of those things can be taken away by a law, a decree, or a closed door.

If you want to become a doctor, I hope one day you will walk through the doors of a hospital wearing your own white coat.

If you want to become an engineer, I hope one day you will build something the world has never seen.

If you want to become a teacher, I hope one day you will stand in front of a classroom full of girls who will never have to experience what you have experienced.

And if you have not yet discovered what you want to become, I hope you are given the freedom to explore, to change your mind, to fail, to begin again, and to discover who you really are.

Because that is what growing up should be.

Not waiting for permission to exist.

Not apologizing for having ambitions.

Not being made to believe that your life must be smaller because you were born a girl.

And please, if you can, never let anyone convince you that the world has forgotten your worth.

Even when your classroom is empty, your mind is not.

Even when you cannot speak freely, your thoughts still matter.

Even when the future feels impossibly far away, you deserve to have one.

I know you do not need another person telling you to be strong.

You have already been asked to carry more than anyone your age should have to carry.

You deserve more than our admiration for your resilience.

You deserve your rights.

You deserve your childhood.

You deserve the ordinary happiness of being young.

And above all, you deserve to live in a world where being a girl does not mean having to fight for the freedoms others take for granted.

And to everyone reading this

Please do not turn away.

Not because I am asking for sympathy for my country.

But because I am asking for something far more important.

Humanity.

Listen to Afghan women. Share their stories when they choose to tell them. Support the people working to keep education alive. Keep their rights in the conversations happening in universities, institutions, communities, and governments.

Do not speak over them. Help make sure they can be heard.

And remember that the girls of Afghanistan are not asking the world to give them extraordinary privileges.

They are asking for the same ordinary freedoms so many of us have never had to question.

The freedom to open a book.

To enter a classroom.

To walk outside.

To choose a profession.

To make a decision.

To build a life.

To dream.

I hope that one day, years from now, a little girl in Afghanistan will wake up, pack her schoolbag, kiss her mother goodbye, and run toward her classroom.

Not knowing that there was once a time when girls like her were forbidden from entering it.

Not having to thank anyone for allowing her to learn.

Not needing to be brave simply to be a student.

Just a little girl.

Going to school.

As she always should have been allowed to do.

And when that day comes, I hope we remember the women and girls who never stopped fighting for it.

Until then, I will keep raising my voice, however small it may be.

Because I cannot look at the freedom I have been given and pretend that the freedom denied to others has nothing to do with me.

Because their dreams matter as much as mine.

Because their futures matter as much as ours.

And because freedom, if it means anything at all, must belong to everyone.

None of us are free until all of us are free.

Samir Seddiqi

An Afghan who believes every girl deserves the freedom to dream.