Many cycling events, from local charity rides to races involving world-class riders, have been cancelled or postponed during the pandemic. The cancelled rides were, mostly, annual events, and one assumes that they will resume once things return to “normal,” whatever that may mean.
On the other hand, Afghanistan’s female cyclists have no such hope. Nobody really knows what could return that country to what it was three months ago, before the Taliban took power. Women are losing the rights they regained during the past two decades—including, in effect, the right to ride a bicycle, an effect of the Taliban’s dress codes and prohibition against women venturing outside their homes without a male relative.
For some women, not being allowed to ride a bike means that they have no way to get to their jobs or schools—if indeed they are still allowed to work or study. For some, though, it spells the end of their lives unless they can get out of the country and have a sponsor or other help waiting for them wherever they land.
Those women include Rukhsar Habibzi. Before she evacuated from Kabul Airport (just before it shut down) she was riding with the Afghan women’s national team and attending dental school. Oh, and her activism got her a nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize—and threats of gender-based violence.
From Kabul, she was brought to Quatar, then to a US military base in Germany and an immigration center in New Jersey, where she waited for an emergency visa before settling in another state last week.
She is slated to compete through 2023 for the Twenty24 development team. Twenty24 owner Nicola Cranmer has set up a GoFundMe page to help Habibzai with rent, food, utilities, clothing, books and tuition. This fundraising effort “is not to fund a cycling team,” Cranmer stresses. Rather, she is trying to help a young woman become “the best athlete, student and leader she can be” after leaving her country “with just her purse.” As an emergency visa holder, Habibzai gets very little assistance from the government.
She probably has dreams of winning races. But Habibzai summed up her real goal in training and studying: “I want to showcase the physical and mental strength of an Afghan woman to Afghanistan and the whole world.” That, she believes, will show that “a woman is not weak” and that “success can be achieved by any gender.”
I’d be happy to have someone like her in my country!
