August 15, 2022, the day social media was flooded with painful and unfortunate memories of the past as if hopeless Afghans yet once again are experiencing the dark days – the days when my fellow citizen were dropped off from the plane, and the days when for the last time I said Afghanistan was my home.
Such a flashback had me look into the last year’s pictures in my cell gallery. I carefully looked at them, remembering Mazar-e-Sharef city, cultural programs, colorful clothes, smiles and hopes of young people, effort, determination and hard work that were visible on their faces.
I couldn’t hold; my tears were flooding my eyes and I was crying for such an unfortunate life – the life that millions are – as if – bound to suffer. I don’t have home, they took away my homeland from me and a thousand other compatriots, forced into the so-called hijab and silenced our voices.
Now we live in complete silence. We don’t have a homeland, we don’t have a voice, and we don’t have the right to education – not even a free will. We don’t have a piece of land to call it ours, yet worst, some of us don’t have the chance to return to the country once we called it HOME.
I remember the day I was leaving Afghanistan. I buried the dreams of my sixteen years of life in Kabul airport. I didn’t even look behind, afraid I would get lost in the darkness. It was not easy for a 16-year-old teenager like me to endure all this hardship. One year since then felt like a hundred year. Who would have aged such?
When I left my hometown it was end of my dreams in Afghanistan and the beginning of suffering, statelessness, and migration for me and my family. Every step I took towards the plane, I constantly thought about what didn’t fit in my twenty kilo suitcase, wishing no human being would have to sum up their life into a few kilos of luggage.
From the moment on. I set foot in another country as an Afghan immigrant. Endless discrimination, humiliation, and being considered as a second citizen started and I know it will continue. From the moment the plane took off from Kabul airport, heavy questions were parading in my mind.
Who am I? Where do I go? Why am I leaving my hometown? Why am I condemned to this fate? Why did I have to pay such a heavy price for being an Afghan? But, what would a young lady in my age comprehend from such a complicated world?
Today, as we marked one year since the fall of Afghanistan, I shed tears and grieved for the terrible fate that had befallen me, including millions of my compatriots. Wherever I was addressed as a foreigner or a migrant, I knew that I had no way back and I only had to make it up for myself.
Migration is a strange story: one whose characters are extremely brave. Strong, because we put a few kilos of necessary weight in our suitcases and look back at the houses, street, family and loved once – for the last good time and go away.
How much does the stone heart want you to put your whole life under your feet and leave your whole life riding an iron giant and follow an unknown fate, with a thousand humiliations and insults, to go to another place on this earth? This is the fate of a silent generation.
Today, miles away from my homeland, I raise my voice for I know that this fight will never end. I lost my homeland and my dreams as a teenager. I hope the generation after me will not witness this dark history – never in a thousand year.
