By Manisha Sahu, America News World
October 20, 2025
In a modest suburban wedding hall on the outskirts of London, a moment of poignant defiance unfolded. Amid a crowd of Afghan émigrés and music-lovers, a figure entered the stage in shimmering gold trim and rhinestones: Afghan singer Naghma. The reaction was instantaneous. Cheers, applause, tears. After more than four decades of war, exile and cultural silencing, Naghma offered something simple yet deeply powerful: her voice — and with it, a melodious challenge to those who would silence it.
Now in her seventh decade, Naghma has come to embody the longing, pain and pride of a generation of Afghans both inside the country and scattered abroad. Her songs in Dari and Pashto have touched countless lives. But it is today, under the shadow of Taliban rule and cultural repression, that her voice carries perhaps greater resonance than ever.
From Kandahar to Kabul to Exile
Born in Kandahar, Afghanistan — though sources vary on exact dates and locales — Naghma grew up in a household that spoke both Dari and Pashto. Her father passed away when she was only five, and as a teenager she moved to Kabul to continue her education and explore music.
In the early 1980s, amid the upheaval following the 1978 revolution and the Soviet invasion, Naghma began her singing career. She first gained fame as part of a duo with the singer Mangal — a union that blended folk and pop styles and spoke to the Afghan diaspora longing for home.
When civil war intensified in the early 1990s, Naghma and many other artists fled Afghanistan. She eventually settled among the Afghan communities in Pakistan, and later in the United States and Europe. Her music, produced across borders, reached Afghans far and wide, many of them refugees or children of refugees.
Singing in the Face of Silence
For Afghans under the rule of the Taliban — now overrun the country since 2021 — music is more than entertainment. It is identity, resistance, solace. And for a female singer, the stakes are especially high. Under the Taliban’s austere interpretation of Islam, women’s public voices are tightly restricted; singing, especially by women, becomes a rare act of defiance.
Against this backdrop, Naghma’s performance in London becomes symbolic. It is a statement: that Afghan women — in exile or at home — still matter, still sing, still remember. In that wedding-hall audience, many wiped tears as decades of longing and loss were expressed through her melodies.
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A Bridge Across Generations
What makes Naghma’s story compelling is not only her defiance, but her role as a cultural bridge. Her songs tap into both the rural and urban, the Pashto and the Dari, the pre-war and exile experience. For older Afghans, her voice brings memories of Kabul’s music studios, of family dances and recordings. For younger ones, especially in diaspora, it connects them to a homeland they may never have seen.
As the New York Times noted in a recent profile, her flamboyant stage presence, her decades-long career and her ongoing appeal make her “loved by generations of Afghans at home and abroad for sharing their pain and their longing” through more than forty years of war. (October 20 2025)
What Her Latest Performance Reveals
In London, the setting may have been modest — a wedding hall rather than a concert arena — but the symbolism was vivid. The rhinestones, the shawl, the cheering crowd: a declaration that cultural expression cannot be extinguished.
The audience included Afghans who fled the Soviet-era invasion, the civil war, the first Taliban period in the late 1990s, and the recent 2021 takeover. Many of them, now living abroad, see in Naghma’s performance not only nostalgia, but a hope for re-connection. When she sang in Pashto, many Pashtun refugees nodded along. When she switched to Dari, Afghan-Persian speakers responded.
For women especially, the moment carried extra weight. In Afghanistan itself, many who remain cannot attend school, cannot work freely or perform music publicly. Naghma’s defiance is a beacon — albeit from abroad — that such silencing is not universal.
The Power of Music Under Repression
Why does one singer matter so much? Because under repression, music becomes an act of memory, of identity and of survival. In Afghanistan, decades of conflict have displaced millions, destroyed infrastructure, and silenced many cultural voices. Yet songs live on, in diaspora homes, on underground networks, via YouTube and social media.
Naghma herself has over 500 known songs recorded over 30+ years across Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States. Her voice has wandered across borders, even if her homeland remains locked in the grip of war and ideological control.
When a singer like her stands on stage in exile and sings with unabashed flair, the audience is reminded: “We are here. We remember. We still matter.”
Challenges & Ambiguities
Of course, the story is not without complexity. Naghma left her homeland; the voice within Afghanistan itself is largely silenced. The danger for women artists remains acute: threats, censorship, forced exile. What happens within Afghanistan is less visible than what we see abroad.
Also, while Naghma’s international performances matter symbolically, they don’t necessarily offer immediate change inside the country. The barriers remain steep: schools closed to girls, women barred from many jobs, music professionals fleeing or forced underground.
Why It Matters for the World
For readers of America News World, Naghma’s story reflects several global themes:
Exile and diaspora identity: How displaced communities cling to culture, music and memory.
Women’s rights under authoritarian rule: The reversal of progress in Afghanistan, especially for female artists.
The role of art in resistance: Music as a non-violent yet potent form of protest and remembrance.
Cultural globalization: A Kandahar-born singer performing in London reaching Afghans worldwide via internet and diaspora networks.
As Afghanistan remains under the control of the Taliban, artists like Naghma may increasingly perform abroad. Their audiences may continue to be diaspora communities. Yet the digital age offers hope: songs can travel via smartphones, encrypted networks, satellite, connecting those inside the country to voices outside.
The question remains: can these voices ripple back home, influence change, bolster courage among those still living under repression? Time will tell. But for now, the echo of a shawl trimmed in gold and rhymes in Pashto and Dari, in a London hall, resonates far beyond its walls.
When Naghma walked on stage, the moment was simple: an older Afghan woman singer, shimmering in gold, meeting a crowd of émigrés and fans. Yet the simplicity belies the magnitude. In a country where women’s voices are increasingly forbidden, where war has severed the cultural roots of generations, her presence on stage stands for something tremendous: survival, memory, resistance.
For those listening — in London, Los Angeles, Kabul, Jalalabad — her melody carries not only nostalgia but a promise: that even under silencing, music survives; that even when identity is at risk, voices will reach out; that even when exile is forced, the homeland lives in song.
And as long as singers like Naghma keep performing, the world is reminded: you cannot wholly stop a song.