Why is it so difficult for us humans to live on the planet we were born in?
Why are we hating each other this much if we are the same kind? Why do we hate each other?
Just the kind of questions that a kid asks.
At least I’m asking this now, when I’m older when I understand more, and when I can answer myself with my less but convincing logic. However, my 11-year-old self couldn’t answer these…
I was 6, my Mom had already told me the stories of how she was treated in Iran. An Afghani in Iran in my Mom’s generation, the perfect victim of politics. But she wasn’t the one bullied much, her siblings were, and she was the one who saw the most effect.
For years I grew up thinking I wouldn’t survive Iran because of racism, at least for living there. I thought every Iranian person would insult me and judge me for my ethnicity, I thought they would hit my head with the basketball and then laugh and say that now the ball was dirty to touch an Afghani just like how my aunts were treated.
I always thought I was less than other people in other countries but I didn’t know many countries so it wouldn’t bother me much also I was going to a loving school, restaurants, and to my grandma’s.
I remember when I used to read books from Afghanistan school books, when it used to say Our dear precious country Afghanistan, well as a 6-year-old I never believed that. I always thought that was way too much. Also when I was in Turkey, I never wrote my beautiful country Turkey.
I never wrote them, because I never felt like belonged
I was unwanted in Iran but also in Afghanistan, my Mom was born and raised in Iran so she had the accent, me too. So I was never Afghani and never Irani enough, it all got better and worse when we moved to Turkey.
Now, it didn’t matter if you were Iranian or Afghan; it only mattered if you were Turk now.
I was 11 when I wanted to be proud of my country, I wanted to feel special because of my blood, my people, and my history but felt like I would be more loved by Turkish people if I said I was from Uzbekistan they weren’t in war like me, I was ready if someone asked me which part of the country I was from but of course who would ask for proof right?
When I was 11, I wanted to live in my country, in my house, with my whole family together just like before. But where was the ear to hear?
What politician cares about us people? We are just all a part of their agreements, or the opposite, who cares?
Who cares where we people go to?
Who cares who will help us out?
Who cares if we are people with feelings if we have a life?
Now this is what my now 14-year-old would ask;
Why war? Why steal each other’s opportunities in life that were given by God? Who are you to take my life, my most basic right of living?
I had to start 2 lives with my family again because of migrating but do you know how migrating already feels? When you leave yourself there and come to a new life to start it with nothing but a few suitcases and, that’s where natives tell us to leave their countries like we came here for fun with all the life conditions to populate their countries.
My 11-year-old shouldn’t have said these, shouldn’t have felt this. But would any of the people who brought my country to this point give back my life, my time, my childhood, and my dreams? Give my tears back to me, give me back my childishness I never wanted to grow this much in a year…
But what about the people whose family was lost? They are the ones who owe them their loved one’s blood.
This world owes Afghani’s a happy life and to Hazaras a life…
Unsaid 