Under the Veil of Sorrow
1- The Language
I see language as the most robust bridge between two cultures, and with how similar two languages are, the bridge can become shorter. In Afghanistan, people usually communicate in Dari, which can be understood as an Afghan dialect of Farsi/Persian, and obviously, it is easy for us to talk with them without many issues of language barrier. When I arrived in Shanghai, the first person I chatted to was an Afghan. I noticed he might be Iranian the moment I saw him, and when I later approached him and asked about his nationality in English, we both switched to Farsi without any hesitation. I couldn't be more pleased than listening to someone speak Farsi when I barely have any opportunity to speak my mother tongue here. We discussed our communities in China, the current status of the Middle East, and our desire to live anywhere but a place ruled by a totalitarian regime that forces more rules and regulations every day. Funny enough, we both ended up in here. I had the chance to ask him about the Taliban and the differences since they gained absolute control of the country. I heard things that I was expecting from an Afghan in diaspora, only to be sure the news is true.
2- The Art
Afghan art is another area similar to that of Iran. Considering how both nations went through many phases of censorship, no matter what kind of regime was in power, our focus on battling the norms makes us more similar than we think. For me, it's always interesting to know more about the music and cinema in Afghanistan, seeing how artists find ways to challenge the state's supervision over their content and their triumph on an international level. Nonetheless, unfortunately, Afghanistan's cinema hasn't reached the same level of success as its neighbor. Their portrayal in Western cinema has been reduced to savages with no identity who were permanently a threat to "modern society," the same society that has been bombing the country for centuries, and every time they had a time to breathe and rebuild their land, it was determined to invade them. Dehumanization of Afghans in Hollywood has been a recurring theme that supported the US and its allies' presence in the country, which didn't weaken the Taliban, but gifted them the key to the presidential palace in 2021. The mighty army of the US that you presumably caught a glimpse of in any Michael Bay movie can't even beat a group of "savages" in the mountains.
3- The Airplane
When the US returned its troops from Afghanistan, a video showing a group of Afghans who were begging the US soldiers to take them with them went viral. In an extremely tragic attempt, they even pushed to the limit to hang themself from the airplane in the hope of reaching the land of freedom. They all fell within seconds of the airplane taking off, leaving behind the dead bodies of fallen Afghans all over the airport. On Twitter, users were mocking those Afghans, calling them "Tom Cruise impersonators," like this is a scene from Mission Impossible. I remember watching that video and imagining the level of hopelessness that one might feel to risk his life in a gamble like this. Afghans, better than anyone, knew how a country would turn into under the regime of a group of radicals with pre-medieval beliefs. Those who fell from that airplane never saw the Taliban's reign.
4- The Veil
The Taliban prohibited many Afghan women not only from universities, but also from secondary education. Job opportunities for them were cut back as well, and the impulse for a highly restrictive dress code has never been as harsh as it is now. Recently, they went as far as capturing women and avoiding notifying their relatives about their whereabouts. Those women who oppose the Taliban's dehumanizing rules are now vanishing from the face of the earth, and anyone who protests against these acts has no better fate. What is taking place now in Afghanistan is nothing but a total gender apartheid that is destroying lives and devaluing hard-working women who constantly have to be levels better than any men to earn a slight acknowledgment in an excessively conservative society like Afghanistan.
5- The Contribution
While I don't expect the same warmongers who brought nightmare to the lives of Afghans for decades in the so-called "war on terrorism" to bring anything but more atrocity to anyone's life in the Middle East, I hope those "nationalists" who protest against immigration in the West and call the Middle-Easterns the root of any issue, have the dignity to at least confessing their contribution to everyday struggles in a region far from their own. And I hope my fellow Iranians who continually use the term "Afghan" to humiliate others, and see the same Afghans who escaped their country, wishing for a better life in Iran, the origin of our horrible economy, stop acting like they are superior to them, and avoid racist arguments that have been pushed by the regime in the last couple of months. We can't expect the world to stop its racism towards us when we perpetuate the exact broken cycle to those who are facing worse conditions.
In the hope of a free Afghanistan 🇦🇫