It has been six months since the Taliban took the capital Kabul, and Angelina Jolie does not want us to forget, to get used to it, to look away from what is happening in Afghanistan. The Oscar-winning, multi-award-winning actress is very involved, as we know, in the defense of children’s rights around the world, she is notably a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. And question “constancy“, with her, there is no fear: she has been carrying the voice of Afghan refugees for twenty years now.
The first time she did it was at the Pakistani border, meeting families fleeing the Taliban on September 9, 2001. Since then, the actress has increased her trips there. And this summer, when Kabul fell, she, who until now had always stayed away from social networks, decided to create an Instagram account specifically to bring the voices of Afghan women and children who write to her.
His very first publication, the letter from a little girl, broke the record for the speed of accumulation of likes on the social network. So she continued, regularly updating her 12 million followers.
Last message to date, the letter of a young Afghan: “You need to knowwrites the teenager, that all our rights are taken away from us, we can no longer speak anywhere, nor do anything, those who dared to demonstrate to defend their freedoms have been arrested, and I now think that it is over, that I could never go out again, nor express myself, since… I am a girl.”
The letter is poignant, like all those received by Angelina Jolie. They all describe the same thing, the same stories of young women deprived of studies, outings, or arrested at home at night by armed men without anyone knowing what happens to them afterwards.
Angelina Jolie is a bit of the bad conscience of those who were indignant in August and then gave up, the one who says her “disgust at seeing refugees treated as a burden” by those who should welcome them, the one who persists in showing us these cries for help and, with them, a heavy feeling of helplessness. Today is six months,”but we must continue to follow what is happening there, writes the actressnot looking away, finding ways to help, and that starts with not forgetting.”