Unsaid

“And that’s what happened during the Vietnam War. Setaish anything about Afghanistan you want to add?” 

Yes… Then maybe I can repeat what I’ve memorized from the news just before coming to class. To be able to answer it as if my life depends on it, because most of the information known by others around me about my country doesn’t include anyone. From recognition questions like “Do you speak Arabic/Pashto?” to “Do all people like the current government?” However, the teacher asked permission if he could ask me questions about my country before, easily searchable questions that don’t need a living human attached to them

But sometimes some teachers have their research ready and eager for a chance to point out on what I don’t have compared to countries like America, without standing me a chance to defend the dignity of the country that was once ruled by “King Mohammad Zahir Shah” rather than a terrorist group that uses religion as an excuse for savagery—changing the topic from book banning in the US to girls’ school banning in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was once the country I knew as the only country that existed. I watched Western cartoons, but didn’t think there would be a world like the cartoons were based on. For me, as far as I remember, our daily news was always filled with the seasoned with suicide bombings, stray bullets, and another breaking headline that meant someone else’s normal had died… So like the stereotypes I wish didn’t exist? In my version of life in Afghanistan, yes, but that isn’t to say I didn’t have people disagree with the fact that Afghanistan had mine in mountains and poverty deep in people’s blood because they had lived a rich life, and a sense of offence when someone talks about the real and everyday life of people there.

As a kid I frequently questioned that why were beggars, poverty and suicide-bombers the first impression and highlight in news and articles instead of these nice restaurants and cool parks… until I met countries where I saw peoples everyday concerns are further different then us and it feels me two emotions at once: happy that some don’t have to think about whether they can eat anything tonight for survival and sad for those who worry for it all day. 

So, back to my response to the teacher about the Vietnam War “Intervention in ongoing civil conflicts,” I said in front of everyone as if I hadn’t lived in one, just like I memorized…