Spring is here

This morning, I was walking along a winding path through the university campus until I reached the bottom of the hill. From there, I followed the serpentine path upwards. Along the way, I saw a beautiful butterfly adorned with red and black spots. I knelt down quietly to take a short clip and share it with my nephew, Amir who is in fifth grade. The emergence of such a beautiful butterfly was mesmerizing. I didn't move for a minute, just to appreciate its beauty and presence in such an early spring. I haven't seen a butterfly yet. Just as I was gingerly prostrating over the grass while filming, it flew off timidly. Without hesitation, I shared the short clip with Amir. "Hey Amir, check out this surprise of mother nature," I texted, accompanied by a smily emoji. He immediately called, and we briefly video-chatted, after which I continued.

As I was meandering through the hills, a not-so-distant memory suddenly rushed to my mind—the moment when I had walked this same path with a friend. Again, I reached into my pocket, took out my phone, and took a picture. "Spring rolls down from up there, twisting and floating over the stones and through the grass, and the gentle breeze brings a familiar scent," I texted. 

Radio Azadi: The Hazara Exclusion (Part IV)

It would have been better if Radio Azaid, the Afghanistan Service, had been renamed Radio of Pashtuns. Radio Azadi, which means a free radio, is a misnomer for a radio that is strongly controlled and catered towards Pathun ethnonationalism. Radio Azadi not only amplified through its biased programs but also discriminated against hiring Hazara applicants and employees. This post is in a series of blog posts that I have decided to write about Radio Azadi, reflecting on my experience and the experience of others who worked in this organization.  

When Radio Azadi opened its bureau in Kabul, it hired four Hazara employees; the rest were mostly Pashtuns and Tajiks, except the administrative manager and a guard who belonged to the Turkman ethnic group. Two Czech technicians from Prague hired me; had they been Pashuns or Tajiks, I had zero chance of employment. A year later, I was fired just because I was a Hazara. 

A year later, only one Hazara remained. The rest were pushed out using various methods, including systemic discrimination, denial, trickery, and deceit. Ahmad Takal, an ethnonationalist Pashtun from Wardak province, was leading the Kabul bureau at that time. Along with a group of senior editors, mostly Pashtuns, in Prague, Czech Republic, he promoted a Pashtun-centric and Hazara-phobic view. They had no interest in hiring Hazaras.

One of the most successful journalists in the Farsi/Dari section of Radio Azadi was Basir Bigzad. He was a Hazara and was one of the most fearless journalists, traveling to unsafe areas to gather news. His reports had depth and complexity, dealing with detailed specifics and examining various perspectives, which showed a profound understanding of the subjects.

Once, Basir came from Herat to Kabul. That year, the salaries of all journalists, especially those who reported from unsafe areas, were raised. One day, the director, Ahmad Takal, invited him to his office and said, "Basir, you are one of our best reporters, and no one can replace you. We want to appreciate you more. Ask for your salary to be doubled. In your request, write that you will resign if this request is not accepted. This will force the radio to comply because we do not want to lose you."

Later, Basir confided, "I was confused about what to do, but in the end, I wrote the request and sent it." The next day, he received an email saying, "We have accepted your resignation. Goodbye." Basir was dumbfounded; he was unaware that the Pashtun director in Kabul and Prague had come up with chicaneries to boot him from his position.

The last Hazara working at Radio Azadi in Kabul was Ahmad Behzad. He was one of the most educated journalists in the Farsi/Dari section of the radio and had an excellent command of Farsi/Dari literature, distinguishing him from many of his colleagues.

One day, the Pashtun director in Kabul and the senior editors of Radio Azadi in Prague decided to dismiss Ahmad Behzad. On what ground? He had left a comment on a post on a blog. What he had written didn’t matter. They had told him, "You are not allowed to post comments on blogs because you are an employee of Radio Azadi." He was nearly fired without any reason, but that didn’t happen. Later, Behzad ran for parliament from Herat province and served as a representative for two terms.

This was the condition at Radio Azadi's Afghanistan service in Kabul and Prague offices, where everything from moral and financial corruption to discrimination, deceit, and trickery was pandemic.

I recently heard that only one Hazara currently works at Radio Azadi, and the rest are mostly Pashtuns and Tajiks. Even Radio Azadi Afghanistan's Farsi/Dari section is run by those whose first language is not Farsi/Dari.

A translated version of this post is published on my Farsi blog
Also
Radio Azadi: Amplifying Hazara Discrimination in Afghanistan (Part III)
Radio Azadi: an Office Enmeshed in a Heist (Part II)
Radio Azadi: An Organization Mired in Moral and Financial Corruption (Part I)

Radio Azadi: Amplifying Hazara Discrimination in Afghanistan (Part III)

On January 20, 2015, Radio Azadi, the Afghanistan Service, purposefully published a parnicious video report from Herat, located in western Afghanistan, which was subsequently published on its website, YouTube, and social media platforms. The report centered around Iranian influence in Afghanistan, and the reporter sought to cast doubt on the presence of Hazaras in Herat.

In the report, the reporter visits the Jebrael neighborhood, a Hazara-majority area, and claims that Jebrael suddenly appeared in what was once an empty plain. The implication is clear: the Hazaras were not originally from Herat but were recently brought there by Iran. The reporter further questions local residents, asking if their homes were built by Iran. One elderly man responds, firmly stating, "No, we built everything with our own money and with our own hands."

The underlying message of the report is that the presence of Hazaras in Herat is part of a covert Iranian government plan to establish a corridor to Afghanistan, using the Hazara population. From Radio Azadi's perspective, Jebrael is depicted as an Iranian initiative designed to fill the vacuum left by NATO forces in the region.

This report is just one example of Radio Azadi's Afghanistan section's biased content regularly produced and disseminated. Evidently, the reporter deliberately sought to challenge the legitimacy of the Hazara community in Herat. This incident reflects a broader pattern of Hazara-phobia and dehumanization of the Hazara people.

I recently learned that Radio Free Europe’s funding has been cut, and I sincerely hope this information is accurate. The continued existence of Radio Azadi, a deeply corrupt, ethnocentric, and biased organization that consistently supports Pashtuns and the Taliban, is more harmful than beneficial. It has had no positive impact on Afghanistan’s situation and will likely never do so. Instead, it has become a platform for Taliban propaganda and those who advocate for Pashtun ethnic dominance.

Also
Radio Azadi: an Office Enmeshed in a Heist (Part II)
Radio Azadi: An Organization Mired in Moral and Financial Corruption (Part I)

Radio Azadi: an Office Enmeshed in a Heist (Part II)

In my previous post, I wrote about theft at Radio Azadi. Here’s an example:

The RFE/RL Afghanistan bureau in Kabul had just moved from the Mustafa Hotel in the buffer zone, located between downtown and Shahr-e Naw, to Wazir Akbar Khan, a more opulent and safe neighborhood. It was sometime in late 2002. The city's electricity was rarely available, let alone reliable, so the office has received permission from the main office in Prague, the Czech Republic, to purchase a generator to provide electricity to our newly built two studios plus nearly 45 desktop computers. I was a technician and, therefore, was responsible for any technological problems. 

I went to Shahr-e-Naw and found a computer shop owned by a Herati merchant that sold German generators. It was nearly two years after the people of the Taliban regime, and finding a powerful generator was like a dream come true. The only generator that the store had was 5000W, which was considered pretty good given the scarcity. Plus, if a generator is made in Germany or any European country other than China, you would treat the purchase with trust. 

They quoted me a price of $8000. I returned to the office with a price quotation and gave it to the admin. The manager told me to go to the computer store and tell the guy to write the price as $12,000. I asked why $12,000. He said, "Two thousand is for you, and two thousand is for me." I replied that I had a salary and couldn’t take part in such a deal. He said, “Let me buy it myself.” The next day, the generator was purchased. From that single transaction, $4000 went into the manager’s pocket.

To be continued...

A Farsi version of this blog post is published here

Also
Radio Azadi: An Organization Mired in Moral and Financial Corruption (Part I)

Radio Azadi: An Organization Mired in Moral and Financial Corruption (Part I)

When Kari Lake was nominated as a special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, some media outlets reported that Trump had asked Lake to gut the government agency that oversees Voice of America (VOA). Instead of gutting, Kari Lake dismantled the agency, which oversees six organizations, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America. I don’t know much about the other organizations that were closed, but I know a lot about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Afghan Service, known as Radio Azadi. (to call it Azadi, which means freedom, is a misnomer; I will write on this more in an upcoming blog post). I worked in its Kabul bureau as a technical manager in 2003. I was responsible for all communication tools, technology, radio broadcasting, and relay systems. I know how corrupt this organization was. I mean corrupt in every sense, ethically and financially.

During the time I worked, male journalists would openly demand sex from their female colleagues in broad daylight, and sometimes in crude ways. They uploaded pornographic videos onto female journalists' computers. They set pornographic images as desktop wallpapers on women’s computers. The vile and crude sexual harassment men inflicted on women was widespread. Female journalists were intimated and coerced in a variety of ways. No one addressed the women’s complaints. If a complaint was made, the victim would be accused of misconduct and moral corruption and eventually fired. So, no one said anything and really had the courage to complain.

One day, I was in the administrative manager's office. "Look outside," he said, pointing to a young girl in black clothes standing on the fourth floor of the Mustafa Hotel, leaning against the fence while her hands clasping onto the handrail. “She wants a job. She’s from your ethnic group, Hazara,” he said, with a contemptuous smile that conveyed disdain, humiliation, and condescension. I turned around and looked outside; the young girl was standing at the office's front door, belonging to the radio director. I asked if she had brought her resume and if she had been shortlisted or called up for an interview. He hinted that she wanted to be hired through “another way.” He meant she had to bow to the director’s demands first, and we could do nothing. The manager told me the demands were sexual. 

Some of the women who were sexually harassed now live in Europe and North America. I think if they have the courage, they should file complaints against those men. Some of those men now live in Europe and Australia.

In the year that I worked at Radio Azadi, the Afghanistan branch in Kabul, embezzlement and theft were practiced at maximum. The administrative manager handled all purchases himself, including buying groceries. The manager, whose primary responsibility was to ensure the smooth and efficient operation of the organization through daily management, staff supervision, record-keeping, facilitating communication, and ensuring compliance with policies, spent half his day driving his car to the market to buy food supplies. From potatoes and eggplants to oil and gas, transportation, travel costs, and technology purchases, all were doubly charged. His subordinates were his close relatives. The guards at the gate were his relatives. The rented cars belonged to senior managers of the radio, who had leased them to the radio at exorbitant rates. Some of them had bought two or three cars just to rent them to the radio at high costs. They were profiting from every angle—from the daily wages of laborers digging trenches for pipes and electricity to food supplies, transportation, and everything else.

At Radio Azadi, nepotism was of utmost importance. Hiring was based on favoritism, and preferential treatment was given to family members or close friends. The director of Radio Azadi in Afghanistan was a Pashtun from Wardak province. He had hired all his family members at the radio station—his brother, nephews, relatives, and even their young children as young as 10 for the children’s and youth programs. The only people he hadn’t brought in were their wives, sisters, and daughters, as this goes against the customs of some Pashtuns.

There was an unhealthy atmosphere filled with mistrust, hatred, rivalry, and hostility, especially between the administrative manager and the director of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Kabul. These two men did not trust each other. Both men were vying over who should control the embezzlement and theft. They were contending over who should benefit from the money that was supposed to be spent on running a radio station that was supposed to do journalism. The director, a Pashtun from Wardak province, wanted to fire the administrative manager, a Turkmen retired general from the communist era, but he couldn’t because someone in the main office in Prague, Czech Republic, supported the manager.

To be continued...

A Farsi version of this blog post is published here

On the origin of the Hazara people

Photo source: x/twitter

One of the questions that has preoccupied the minds of contemporary Hazaras is: Who are we, and where do we come from?

This question has no historical basis, but nevertheless, a question is a question. So, why is this question raised in the first place? Who is asking it?

What has fueled this question more than anyone else is not the Hazaras themselves but the non-Hazaras, the Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan. The origin of this question lies among those who do not consider the Hazaras native to Afghanistan. It stems from those who claim that the Hazaras are outsiders and that they arrived in Afghanistan with such-and-such army in such-and-such century, but they never bother to question or think about their originality, how they did come to Afghanistan. This question also originates in the inhumane attitudes and behaviors of members of the dominant ethnic groups towards the Hazaras, which persist to this day. The roots of this discriminatory outlook lie with those who have fostered—and continue to foster—the dehumanization, othering, and alienation of the Hazara people. This is one of the pillars of tribal power and ethnic hegemony that has persisted for at least the past 150 years now.

Today, this question has been internalized among the Hazaras themselves. This means that the Hazaras now ask the very same question that the dominant groups used to ask: "Well, you people, your faces don't look like ours, you pray differently, you dress differently, you speak differently—where did you come from?" This "Where did you come from?" is the very core of the othering that normalizes violence against the Hazaras. When you ask, "Where did you come from?" or "What is your origin?" you are essentially questioning the Hazara’s indigeneity. You are doubting that they are from the same country because none of their cultural, social, behavioral, or linguistic characteristics align with yours. The dominant group, in its quest for hegemony, seeks to cast doubt on the very existence of the Hazara within their ancestral homeland by raising this question.

Now, the Hazaras have internalized this question and this doubt. So, what should we, the Hazaras, do? Nothing, except ignore this issue and raise awareness, explaining that this perspective originates from the discriminatory narratives of the dominant groups fixated on Hazara differences, which are used to undermine your existence and the land of your ancestors.

We know, and non-Hazaras know the answer: the Hazaras are the original inhabitants of Afghanistan for millennia. The tangible artefacts like the Buddha statues that were destroyed by the Pashtun Taliban in March 2001 were the pieces of evidence. Remember that the Taliban did not destroy the Buddha statues on the basis of religion per se, but they destroyed them on the basis of ethnic hatred and animosity against the Hazara people. They wanted to obliterate any cultural and historical evidence showing the Hazara have been living in Afghanistan for millennia. It was part of a genocidal campaign against the Hazara people. In 1999, when the Taliban took control of Mazar-e Sharif in the north, the Taliban commander/governor of Balkh announced that the Hazaras had three options: convert to Islam, leave Afghanistan, or die.*

The Hazaras need to stand against the narratives of othering and alienation by the dominant ethnic groups of Afghanistan. We should not waste even a single thought on where our origin lies or where we came from. Let us leave this matter to those who raise such questions, for such narratives often arise from the weakness and insecurity of the dominant ethnic groups and their hegemonic ambitions. Therefore, this issue should not be a subject of debate. Instead, we should challenge the dominant ethnic groups by asking: Where do you come from? What is your origin?

*
Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: militant Islam, oil and fundamentalism in Central Asia. Yale University Press, 2010.
Also, visit the Human Rights Watch report from early 2001, "Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan" 

What is a refugee? (poem)

I found this following refugee poem by chance. It is by an Afghanistani poet, Raziq Faani, and I thought I would regret it later if I did not translate it.
-----

One morning, from the children’s playground,
My little one returned with tearful eyes,
And with the lump in his throat, he asked:
"Tell me, dad!
What is a refugee?
Is it an insult or just a name?"

At his question, a sorrow filled my heart,
And a tear slipped uncontrollably down my cheek
Quietly, I wiped it away with the back of my hand,
As my mind searched for the right words.

I told him:
"Look, my dear child,
Do you know what homeland means?"
He nodded, "Yes,
You once told me,
That homeland is where our ancestors lived."
I kissed his face,
And with a heavy heart, I added:
"If in one dark night,
A band of thieves and marauders burn your dad's home,
And set fire to everything,
and you, in fear, run away,
Spending nights on the streets of strangers,
You will become a refugee, my child,
You will become a wanderer, my dear."

A fresh tear welled up in my child's eyes, 
And sorrow clouded his spirit,
Then he said, "I understand now,
A refugee is someone with no home!"
And I turned his simple words into a verse:
Murmuring under my breath:
"You spoke wisely, my dear,
“A refugee is one with no home,
A refugee is a pigeon without a nest."

Here is the original poem in Farsi:

‎شعر از رازق فانی :

‎مهاجر چیست؟

‎سحرگاهی، ز بازیگاه طفلان،

‎کودکم با چشم تر برگشت،

‎و با بغضی که بودش در گلو پرسید:

‎«بگو بابا!

‎مهاجر چیست؟

‎دشنام است، یا نام است؟»

‎

‎از آن پرسش، دلم لبریز یک فریاد خونین شد،

‎و مروارید اشکی،

‎از کنار چشم من، بی پرده پایین شد،

‎ولی آهسته چشمم را به پشت دست مالیدم،

‎و در ذهنم برای آنچنان پرسش جواب نغز پالیدم.

‎

‎بدو گفتم:

‎«ببین فرزند دلبندم،

‎تو میدانی که میهن چیست؟»

‎بگفت: «آری،

‎تو خود روزی به من گفتی،

‎که میهن خانهی اجداد را گویند»

‎زدم بوسی به رخسارش،

‎و غمگینانه افزودم:

‎«اگر در یک شب تاریک،

‎مشتی دزد و رهزن، خانهی بابات را سوزند،

‎و هر سو آتش افروزند،

‎و تو از وحشت دزدان، برون آیی،

‎و شبها را به روی سنگفرش مردم دیگر بیاسایی،

‎مهاجر میشوی فرزند،

‎مسافر میشوی دلبند»

‎

‎سرشک تازهای چشمان فرزند مرا تر کرد،

‎و اندوهی روانش را مکدر کرد،

‎و آنگه گفت: «دانستم

‎مهاجر آدم بیخانه را گویند!»

‎و من مصراع شعر ساده اش را ساختم تک بیت:

‎و در زیر لب افزودم: نکو گفتی عزیز من،

‎«مهاجر آدم بیخانه را گویند

‎مهاجر قمری بیلانه را گویند»

Hazara Women Subjectivity and Digital Narratives

If you are in the Washington D.C. area, you should definitely consider attending this remarkable event: "Hazara Women of Afghanistan Share Digital Stories." What makes this event unique is that, for the first time, the Hazara women, members of the lower caste in Afghanistan, are able to share their stories. Hazara women are the untapped reservoir of talent, valor, resistance to oppression, resilience, and perseverance in the face of constant oppression. This is a good chance to discover who the Hazaras are, in particular, who the Hazara women are, and what role they played in the past 20 years of relatively democratic and peaceful situation that was created by the presence of the U.S. and its allies and how this fragile peace disbanded overnight. The aftereffect of this betrayal was catastrophic for women, particularly the Hazara women because they have been treated in worst oppressive manner than women of other ethnicities. There is a stark difference between being Hazara women and Pashtun/Afghan or Tajik women even when it comes to be living as a woman and girl under the Taliban brutal regime in Afghanistan. You have to differentiate between ethic groups because their social and political positions mark the social hierarchy in Afghanistan and ignoring this fact is a violence itself.

In Afghanistan, if you belong to the Hazaras ethnic group, you face the worst state of affairs, and you are entirely excluded from all spheres of social, economic, and political life. This is the current situation of the Hazara people under the Taliban de facto regime. 

This event is a chance to learn about the Hazara women's subjectivity and their social, political, and personal identities, something that has been overlooked and undervalued by the dominant ethnic groups in Afghanistan and even abroad. Events such as this provide platforms for the Hazara women to tell their stories, which are unique and different from the women of other ethnic groups, like Afghan/Pashtun and Tajiks, and others. For further details about the event click here and to go directly to the sign up event page, click here. 

Read this text in Farsi on my Farsi blog