Bakht: The Story of a Pashtun Refugee, Victim of War, and Life Under The Taliban

I. Introduction

As I made my way up to the dais, I reflected on what I was about to say to the 114th congress (2015-2017). These political partisans, both Republicans and Democrats, have never heard a story like mine; their version of history is driven by their dis-attached version of reality. Almost all of them have never been to Afghanistan nor understand my struggle as a refugee, a victim of war, or life under the Taliban. I slowly took my seat and prepared my testimony. Congressman Alex Grayspan asked me the first and most fundamental question: How did this all begin? I started to flashback to the year 1975.

II. Afghanistan, 1975-1979

I was born in southern Afghanistan in the year 1975, four years before the world would change. My father, Ashman, decided to name me Bahkt, a Pasto name meaning “lucky”, I was an only child and my family was of Pashtun background, one of the many ethnicities in Afghanistan. Pashtun’s are strict conservative Muslims and follow a strong code of honor, the Pashtunwali. I remember the first time my father read it to me when I was four years old. “There are three facets of the Pashtunwali,” my father explained. The first is Nang (honor), as a Pashtun you must defend your honor and the honor of your family even at the cost of your life. Next is Badal (revenge) if someone wrongs you, you must seek revenge in order to restore your honor. The last one is Melmastia (hospitality), a Pashtun is obliged to give any visitor protection and hospitality without any expectation that the favor will be returned; you must help your fellow man, my father exclaimed. This was the last thing my father said to me before he went to join the war effort against the Soviet Union the following morning. I never knew who or what the invaders were, but I immediately aroused hatred for them, my culture called for it, Pashtuns are fiercely independent and refuse to be subdued by infidel foreign entities. Like a gushing fire hydrant, paranoia immediately swept my body. In my small village there was no T.V, radio, or any form of electronic communication, even at the age of four I understood that there is no way to know what is happening to my country or my father. I didn’t know anything about politics, the world around me, or the war; I only knew about my family, my culture, and my village. The next four years of my life I lived in vain, I helped my mother do the same monotonous tasks every day; I received no education, I simply knew how to survive on a day-to-day basis. I yearned for the day that my father would home.

III. Afghanistan, 1983-1984

In 1983 my father came home, he left the military to return back to my mother and me. We continued to live in the countryside far away from soviet occupation. Soviet forces have occupied much of Afghanistan at the time but not without resistance. The various Pashtun tribes united under one military force continued to fight the Soviets till they finally retreated. The United States began to arm the Pashtuns to prevent Soviet influence from penetrating my country, weapons that would later be turned against them. I learned much about the war from my father who explained it to me; “The Soviets invaded to keep the communist government in power”, my father described. “They believed it would be a simple operation, it was just a “couple of primitive people, they said” however they were dead wrong, The Pashtuns proved to be a formidable military foe and brought the war to a stalemate, but this came with a personal cost, what I have seen, Bakht, is unimaginable, things that I hope you will never have to witness”, my father said in a tearful but relieved tone. “Thankfully we are safe here”, my father assured with a big smile. We celebrated my father’s arrival with a large feast with family and friends and went to sleep later that night. Life seemed to be getting normal again, and then one year later my life quickly changed. The Soviets began an ethnic cleansing campaign on the Pashtuns, the Soviets saw us as the heart of the military opposition. For a while, this was insignificant as our Islamic militias where holding the countryside but our opposition would prove to be not enough. Me, along with my friends and family, quarantined ourselves inside my house to hide from the Russian invaders, My friends told me of some news from nearby villages, “Their crop fields were burned down and the village was shelled by those commie infidels”, my friend explained in anger. My father started to get flashbacks to his militia days, he got sharp memories about killing his first solider and watching his best friend die, sleepless nights became prominent for the rest of his life. My group and me stayed in the house for a few days, continuously praying to Allah for safety and entertaining ourselves with anything we had. Sitting and twiddling our thumbs however didn’t keep the Russians from coming. When we were sleeping one night we heard the explosive shells off in the distance, the Russians were shelling our village. We quickly got up, grabbed all that we could, and ran off into the distance, leaving our friends and past life behind. We began our journey to Peshawar, A Pashtun refugee camp in Pakistan that my father informed us about. We we’re joined by many other members of our village; we all knew this day was going to come; it was only a matter of time.

III. Pakistan, 1984-1989

My family and me settled in Peshawar in late 1984 when I was nine years old, this would begin my five-year life in the country of Pakistan. The war combined with the PTSD we all developed brought us closer to Islam; my family began to adopt an ultraconservative interpretation of Islam. They immediately enrolled me in a Madrassa, an all boy conservative Islamic school. On my first day of class, I entered the cold room and took my seat in the front row. The cleric had a stern face, dark skin, and a long beard. The cleric explained that Jihad is the noblest of all actions, “Those Soviet pigs have killed your friends, destroyed your village, and ruined your life. You must remember your code of honor; you must seek Badal to restore our prestige. Your Jihad must not stop there, the west must also be taken down; America and Israel are going to lead the new crusade hell bent on destroying Islam and shaming Allah. You must never subdue, we must stop these infidels once and for all and bring the world under the justice of the Sharia”, the cleric declared. I felt motivated that day; I lusted for the day when I could reclaim my homeland and restore my culture. The soviet invasion killed hundreds of thousands of my people and I refused to stand by and do nothing. I asked my father about joining an ISI paramilitary training camp that was being promoted by my school, my father wholeheartedly agreed. Years ago my father would have firmly rejected, noting his own war experience but now me and my father were changed men. Despite our fear of war, we wanted to take our country back from the Soviet occupiers. I spent the following four years in my madrassa and the military camp. I learned how to shoot a rifle, create explosives, and conduct guerilla warfare. As the war in Afghanistan continued, more and more refuges enrolled in madrassas and ISI military camps. In 1989, the greatest dream of my father became a reality; the Soviet Union announced its withdrawal from Afghanistan after 10 years of war. I quickly ran to my parents to spread the good news that our country has been reclaimed. All of the Afghan refuges rejoiced in the street, my people were united even for only a day. Shortly after, my parents moved back to Afghanistan to the city of Kabul to restart their life anew. They left me to complete Madrassa and receive a strict Muslim education. As much as it pained me to leave my parents, I knew that becoming closer with Allah was far more important.

IV. Pakistan 1990-1992

After my parents left I continued my paramilitary training and Islamic education, however things were not the same. Years ago when I was nine, our madrassa was smaller and while conservative, it was not as conservative as it has become. My Madrassa tripled in size and a new student movement formed not only in my Madrassa but also across Pashtunistan. They called themselves the Taliban and held a fundamentalist view of Islam and were now prepared to take action on the doctrine they have been feed for the past decade. My time for Badal had finally come; since I was only nine years old I had an urge to avenge what the infidels have done to my family, my culture, and my country. Taliban leaders quickly rallied my fellow classmates around them, “It is time for us to fulfill the holy book of the Qur’an, it is time to put our doctrine into practice, it is time to take our country back, they exclaimed. I was immediately overwhelmed with emotions, every word that uttered from the Imam’s mouth filled my heart with joy. I was permanently inspired to support the Taliban and make their goal a reality. My dream was crushed when I was told that I could not join the Taliban as I have not officially graduated from Madrassa yet but I was permitted to help support their cause through weapon manufacturing and smuggling. Many of my classmates and friends followed this fate. While I liked the Taliban for a time, my love for them would gradually turn into disdain after what they, like the Russian pigs, would do to my own people. Like the Soviets, the Taliban not only caused despair for the common man but also twisted my religion into a political tool to gain power. Unfortunately, I was dominated by emotion while in Madrassa and was blinded by ignorance. I graduated in 1992 and returned home the day after my commencement ceremony. Little did I know that these groups of Talibs would control the future of my country two years after I left.

V. Afghanistan, 1993-2001

I returned home in 1993 with the love of my family greeting me. I haven’t seen them in years and both of my parents have aged significantly. We celebrated with a large party and all of my old childhood friends were present, we danced, sang, and played board games for the whole night. Little did we know that all of these things would be banned a year latter. In 1994, the Taliban quickly mobilized into my home country while I anticipated this day, my parents were weary. The Taliban took the city of Kandahar, the second largest city in Afghanistan, and declared it the capital of the new Islamic caliphate, in six months time the Taliban took virtually all of Afghanistan with little opposition. Things began to look different in my country after their victory; the strict interpretation of Islam that I theoretically supported was being put into practice. Women were stripped from every freedom imaginable, they were banned from going to school, being outside without a male relative, and had to be fully veiled. As I took my daily walk, I witnessed amputations of thieves and lethal stoning of adulterers. This went on for years and years, at the time I saw no problem with it and saw it as events that god intended to happen. In 2001, my life changed forever. The United States began Operation Enduring Freedom; the invasion of Afghanistan has begun. My family was stunned, my father started to get painful migraines and headaches from the flashbacks of the Soviet Invasion that had been over for decades. Kabul was declared a warzone. While I was sleeping in my bed, I was suddenly awoken by air raids over my city; my friends were killed in the attack. I was furious and joined the war effort, like my father had done in 1979. While my parents worried for me, I was willing to sacrifice my life to avenge the death of my friends and fellow countrymen.

VI. Afghanistan, 2001-2005

I quickly went through the Taliban training camps and was attached to a children’s unit. My squad consisted of five boys all of them aged 11-15. Children became the backbone of the Taliban. When the infidels finally came in July I ordered my squad to fire, I was credited with claiming the first American casualty of the war. That night, my squad and me celebrated with large amounts of opium, it was the only way we could continue fighting; without it fear would overcome us and lead us to our deaths. We held Kabul for over a year until the Americans finally broke our lines and captured the city, me and my squad escaped to the mountains where we trained and lead an insurgency effort in 2002, I was promoted from a squad leader, to a Taliban recruiter. That year I began parading to the Pashtun villages arousing anti-western sentiment in the local populations, I was also responsible for upholding Sharia law; while on opium, I happily took part in stoning’s and amputations. During my time in the Taliban we recruited, we smoked, and we killed. In 2004 I voluntarily left the Taliban after realizing the atrocities I have committed to my own people. Every night since, I suffer from severe headaches, nightmares, and flashbacks to the times of my service in the Taliban. Just to think I destroyed the lives of children, women, and my fellow family was unbearable. I attempted to commit suicide shortly after, luckily my parents rushed me to the hospital, saving my life. I enrolled in a Rehabilitation program sponsored by the Untied States and the UN. I was quickly rehabilitated in a one-year program and integrated into western culture. My time at the Rehab center made me realize that I have been fooled and manipulated into believing in a twisted version of Islam that did not exist before. Filled with so much frustration, my family and me decided to leave for the United States as refugees. We could not bear to live in my country anymore, me and my family wanted peace, something that we would never find at home. In 2005, we packed our bags and moved to New York City.

VII. United States, 2005-2014

After arriving in the United States I went into severe culture shock, I admired in awe the hundreds of skyscrapers in sight. Just the very echelon of America in the world was enough to captivate me to stay. I enrolled in an immigrant integration program where I learned English and the cultural customs of my new home. I made lifelong friends there and for the very first time in my life, I felt a sense of community. Even to this day I am still part of the program, continuously getting better at the English language. However, as much I loved my new life, remnants of my old life would never go away. Flashbacks and episodes of depression and anxiety still occur even to this day. Luckily, thanks to my wonderful family and friends I have not have felt the urge to turn back to drugs. Without my support network, I would have taken my life years ago. In 2010, I got a job at a advocacy group, Rebuilding Lives, that supports victims of war all across the world by stimulating economic investment, providing them with infrastructure, and enrolling them in rehabilitation programs. Rebuilding Lives also rallied against the continuing drone campaign that his killed hundreds of Pashtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While, I have never been a victim of a drone strike, I have been a victim of bombings and shelling: both equally terrifying experiences. In 2013, I got married to a lovely Muslim girl and from that day fourth I pledged to honor my wife and never make her wear the veil; I shifted from a conservative fundamentalist to a liberal Muslim. During late 2014 I received an invitation to speak to the 114th congress about my war experiences. I gladly accepted and traveled to Washington immediately.

VIII. United States, Present Day

“Thank you”, Alex Grayspan said in awe. “Your story is something that everyone in America can admire”. Senator John Gaul asked me the final question, “What do you recommend the country to do about Afghanistan”? I replied, “Get out as soon as possible, America is what is fueling the recruitment efforts of the Taliban; constant drone warfare is killing my fellow people in mass numbers. America and the rest of the world needs to leave my country to its own destiny, what happens there is none of your business”. The meeting was shortly adjourned after my final statements. As I walked down the capitol steps, I realized what a marvelous country I was in. “This is the only country in the world where I could ridicule politicians without punishment”, I thought to myself. I guess my name truly does suit me, I am the luckiest man in the world and I pray that my children will be as lucky as me.