Witnessing Kabul’s Fall From Atakule
A story of distance and solidarity: how the view from Ankara's Atakule became a window into Afghanistan's heartbreak and resistance.

If you have visited Ankara, the capital city of Turkey, then you know of Atakule—a familiar and unavoidable sight. Almost visible from every part of the city, Atakule is a communications tower similar to the C.N. tower in Toronto or the Fernsehturm in Berlin. A fancy panoramic restaurant sits atop the tower, and for only a few bucks, you can ride up the elevator to a panoramic view of the city. At the base of this building sits a mall with fancy shops and a Starbucks. The fact that Atakule sits on top of a hill gives it an even higher elevation of around 410 feet or 125 meters. Atakule was only a 5-minute walk from where I lived in 2021. I found the rental unit after extensively searching for a house for over two months. My father, who had just left Ankara for Kabul, tasked me to find this rental house. Just outside the Starbucks's expansive windows across the street was the Afghan embassy. You couldn't miss it. The black, red, and green flag waving high on top of a classic old Ankara building was gifted to the Afghan Republic as a gesture of goodwill by the Turkish people for being among the first countries to officially recognize the Republic of Turkey after its establishment by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
The events of August 15th, 2021, ensured I will never forget Atakule. On that horrible day, I was busy moving into our new house nearby. Meanwhile, a few thousand miles to the east, Kabul was being overrun by the Taliban’s de facto regime following the United State’s withdrawal. As I was getting ready to pack our few belongings into a rental car and drive to the new house, my sister called from Kabul. I noticed right away she was wearing a Hijab, and I knew something was wrong. I asked her what was happening, and she replied, "They are here."
Seeing the fear in my sister’s eyes—her hair cloaked in a mandatory hijab—will haunt me until the day I die. Thousands of miles away, I was powerless to help my family. By the time I finished moving, the Taliban had issued their official announcement and declared victory. Still in shock, I walked to Atakule and took the elevator to the balcony. From there, I had a clear view of the Afghan Embassy. I saw the flag and thought, "Maybe this is the last time I will see this flag."
Without a doubt, as soon as the Taliban moved into the city, chaos broke out across the country. Above all else, my concern, and the concern of millions of Afghans, was how the Taliban would treat our sisters and mothers. Will they send half the population back into the dark ages? Everyone begged them not to make the same mistakes of the 90s, hoping for some understanding from them that the times have changed. People protested, and women implored the Taliban for reconciliation, hoping against all odds that they might be willing to compromise.
It has now been three years since August 15th, 2021, and with every passing day, the Taliban has doubled down on their repression of our brave Afghan women. At first, they said it would be temporary and things would return to normal. But everyone quickly realized that nothing would ever be normal again. The question now was how to survive living under a regime fueled by hate, brutality, and, most of all, misogyny.
The initial blow landed when the Taliban banned all Afghan women from attending school. The ban on university education followed soon afterward. Then, they banned women from the workplace and demanded they send a male relative instead in their place. So, if you have a sister who served as a doctor, lawyer, or professor, congratulations! You now automatically inherit her degree and skillset and can work in her place instead. The irony cannot be overstated. Most recently—to my horror—they announced they will resume stoning women to death if they are thought to have committed adultery. Each day the Taliban remains in power is another day the women of Afghanistan are in danger.
Today, all that is left to be done is work around the Taliban so that the next generation might still be educated, skilled, and talented. Otherwise, 20 years of innovation, education, and empowerment will go to waste.
After a long day of weeping, I FaceTimed my sister and saw her on our rooftop in Kabul; she was burning books, papers, documents, pictures, and archives from the past 40 years of my family's work for human rights, education, and democracy in Afghanistan. I bore witness as she poured lighter fluid over the pile of documents, pictures, and papers. My family’s life work and invaluable memories being turned to ash traumatized me and left an emotional scar deep under my skin. At that moment, I knew that I had to help in any way I could to resist the agenda of the Taliban. Their indoctrination of our men, women, and children into being submissive to religion, dogma, and their false political ideology based on discrimination and hate is not something I will stand by and idly watch. I now live in exile in Canada, but there is work to be done, even from here.
I was introduced to Ideas Beyond Borders (IBB) shortly after September 2021 and began working with them. IBB shared my vision for a free and prosperous Afghanistan in which women and men are treated as equals. IBB has provided me with the tools and resources to find and connect with people like myself who want to bring change from within and are willing to do something about it. Through our programs, we have now reached thousands of people across Afghanistan. By educating girls in underground schools, funding small businesses run by women, facilitating coding and computer education for girls, and providing remote jobs for women, we are providing them some much-needed hope. Their futures are not lost.
Knowing that I play a small part in this process brings me comfort at night, but it also causes me angst since I know we are only reaching a fraction of the Afghan population—however small, I know the impact of our work matters. Incremental, intentional change is the change that lasts. Empowering individuals to pursue their dreams, even under Taliban rule, matters. After all, the US government and the United Nations have spent trillions of dollars in the past 21 years in Afghanistan, only to reset the clock back decades in the blink of an eye.
Unfortunately, I have learned a valuable lesson that the international community doesn't seem to grasp: the Taliban will never back down when it comes to women. Their hatred and discriminatory views towards our people are deeply entrenched in their dogma. Schools will remain closed, and universities will continue to serve only men—unless they are deposed. It is simply against their policy, and that policy is what has kept their soldiers in check for the last 20 years. The only way forward is to think of sustainable and practical methods to keep the embers of progress burning secretly while a resistance force takes shape to defeat the Taliban on the ground.
This vision for a free and prosperous Afghanistan will take time to build. The country is being intentionally torn apart by the Taliban using language, religion, and ethnicity to stoke division and prevent the opposition from coalescing. However, if one can dream it, one can achieve it, and the only way forward is to help the cause with everything we have. If I have learned one thing over the last three years, it is this: Afghans cannot rely on outside forces to defend their rights. We must do it ourselves, brick by brick, to build a better future for ourselves and our children that will stand the test of time.