Moallem Aziz

I know Aziz Royesh for nearly fifteen years. I was always involved with the works and activities he does. I knew he was one of the most effective and influential figures in the Afghan society. I was always hoping to make a movie about him and particularly his Marefat (meaning ‘insight’) high school. I was involved with Marefat high school too and was one of its council members for some time. Whenever I went there, it uplifted my mood, gave me feelings of life, hope and happiness, and more hopeful to the future of Afghanistan. Aziz and his students were the signs of tomorrow’s Afghanistan, which was to be built after the September 11. An Afghanistan managed by the new generation of educated and motivated Afghans. That’s the reason behind my often going there, between 2003 -2012, and filming the school, Aziz and his students. One of these films was related to “Mohtarama”, a documentary about women's rights movements in Afghanistan, which won awards from Yamagata Film Festival. Mohtarama was about a civil law backed by a Shia cleric, which was violating many women’s rights and complicating their already made difficult lives. Therefore, a large number of women in Kabul, including a number of young girls from Marefat high school went protesting against the law, but faced dozens of men chanting in favor of the Cleric. The cleric’s fans stormed Marefat school and broke windows and doors and accused it of spreading Christianity. This period of time is considered a turning point for Marefat as it changed Marefat’s education path.
I decided to make another documentary in winter 2014. It was almost a year after the international forces had assigned security of Afghanistan to the Government of this country, and most foreign troops had left Afghanistan. The situation in Afghanistan, especially in Kabul, was not so good. Poverty and unemployment had raised and so did hopelessness. It was during this course of time when in Kabul, a number of men accused a young girl of burning the Quran, attacked and killed her and burned her body. The incident shook the world and hope for the future of Afghanistan diminished. Yet it was precisely at the same period when Aziz became a candidate for Global Teacher Prize. He initially was within the top fifty and later within top ten teachers. The contrast and paradox between these two incident prompted me to base this film on the very two incidents and explain there’s hope as much as violence and desperation in Kabul.
Aziz’s life had its own charm too. He was only in grade 5 when the Soviet invaded Afghanistan that permanently stopped Aziz from continuing his education. Yet those 5 years were enough to let him personally chase education and teach the Afghan youths for three pivotal decades. Aziz’s life was jeopardized a few times during the civil wars and the Taliban era, and even got injured but he never let go of learning and development. He established Marefat high school in Afghanistan after the September 11 and made it one of the most important learning centers in country that taught thousands of people during a course of 17 years, all without any assistance from the international community that came to Afghanistan to rebuild it. His extra ordinary efforts and activities was noticed by his foreign friends which won him candidacy for Global Teacher Prize and his teaching methods got recognition. While Afghanistan scrimmages with despair, Aziz who was known internationally got another chance to complete his studies this time in addition to his own students.
During working on this movie I left the country and moved to Canada and later on to Denmark. It was the time that a lot of other incidents happened in Afghanistan. Aziz supported president Ashraf Ghani in his campaign and after winning presidency Ghani ignored all supports received by Aziz becaouse of racial barrier in the system. Their fragile relation and some other events led to two big protests against the government that Aziz highly involved on. During the last protest an explosion happened just among the people and more than 400 young people killed or injured. The protesters accused the government for the explosion.
When I moved to Copenhagen in late 2017 I went back for the last time to update this movie and include this entire incident to the film.
This is an interesting story to me because explaining a life that’s gone through three decades of changes and the role that aziz played during the times of war and migration was somehow the story of my own life. Just like him, I was displaced when I was a teenager due to the uprisings against the Soviet forces and didn’t have the opportunity to properly educate myself until recently.
Recalling these memories and stories might be the most important reasons behind my “Moallem Aziz” documentary. However, another important reason was to illustrate some years without foreign forces, that how the country looks like and what happens in after 13 years of so called world’s mission to rebuild Afghanistan.