Plight of the Afghan Refugees, and the Edge of Pakistan’s Resolve as a Host
GUEST POST
A tale of Resilience and Hard Learned Lessons
by Noorulain Naseem| National Defense University NDU, Islamabad, Pakistan
‘Intellect takes you to the door, but it doesn’t take you into the house’ Shams Tabrizi
They say to be a woman is to behold great secrets of this world, to smile while being in pain and to retain tenderness while surviving a harsh world. I don’t know what stirred in me when I saw the image of that Syrian boy stranded and motionless at the foot of Mediterranean, or the little girl who smiled while telling how she lost her parents to the Syrian war and hadn’t eaten anything in days; until tears came running down her freckled cheeks. Leaving me compelled to know more, perhaps these images took me back to when I was a child and suddenly the neighborhood started filling with Afghan migrants, and refugee tents started to show in the outskirts of Islamabad. We didn’t know how to react to these new comers who didn’t speak our language, dressed differently and walked in close knitted groups as if expecting to be attacked. Pain has this strange quality to show in the most subtle yet obvious ways; through fear, distrust, anger and at times even violence.
And therefore, as soon as I was done with the course work for MPhil Peace and Conflict Studies in 2016 at National Defense University Islamabad, I decided to study Refugee Movements for my research thesis. Here I would like to mention a major influence which compelled me to opt the security aspect of Refugee Movements as a study; the fact that Pakistan survived an internal conflict that lasted for over a decade and cost us around 60,000 lives until almost 70% of our military capability was invested to comb terrorist sanctuaries across south-western borders, engaged civil institutions to their exhaustive capacity to implement a holistic National Action Plan addressing issues of radicalization, extremism and terrorism in mainland areas of the country. I remember a suicide bomber’s jacket going off less than 4 km from my home in Islamabad, and how the shock wave jolted our entire house, leaving my ears ringing. I remember graduating college, trying to concentrate hard on my paper, all the while vehicles of bomb disposal squad could be seen patrolling the street below, visible from my desk’s window, their red color matching with the siren of the ambulance which quietly followed them everywhere.
This brewing and constantly shifting pattern of violence which was so hard to pin point until a bomb actually went off, and it was already too late; compelled me to ask my research questions. When did this war which was being fought across the border came to my doorstep? how? And most importantly who brought it here? Research is no child’s play. It is an attempt to move closer to the truth, to ask the uncomfortable question, to go past the unchartered territory. It’s a bit like looking for something in the dark, while being unsure if it’s there in the first place. And then I had the opportunity to study at a Defense University with more than half of my class fellows being serving officers from Pakistan military or else working in security sector, being taught by a faculty of academics specializing in security, defense and political studies. It was there that I learned to rationalize security, interest and power and see the hidden patterns of war, conflict and violence in apparently pacific, tacit and neutral situations. So, to me the question was not as simple as how did the refugee turn into a security concern but also going the extra mile asking; under what conditions? What is security? And what happens if you misinterpret the threat either by overlooking or exaggerating it? And all this while me with the rest of the world saw the Syrians being denied asylum in states that were closely intervening in the conflict zone, meanwhile here in Pakistan resettlement of Afghans was being initiated along with fencing of an otherwise culturally and politically ambiguous and geographically porous 2500 km long Af-Pak border.
Voluntary repatriation Centers (VRC) for Afghan Refugees; Chamkani, KPK, Pakistan 2016. © UNHCR/Nazia Gul
The thing with asking an audacious question is that you then have to show resilience in the face of the truth which the answer unleashes; for a Pakistani seeking the impact analysis of Afghan refugee situation on Pakistan’s security paradigm meant looking at a lot of our own mistakes and gross mis-calculations first. As a researcher you must be as neutral as possible with the data at hand but there are a few obvious advantages in working with culturally, demographically and politically familiar data sources and subjects.
Firstly, a lot of the perpetual diffusion of Afghan conflict happened in front of my eyes; the slow rise of radicalization for belligerent causes being fought across borders, socio-political acceptance for religious extremism, rise in sectarian violence, cultures of violence eventually translating into direct violence like suicide bombings, insurgency, rebellion, street vs state and street vs street phenomena. Secondly, I was in close access to Pashtuns whom are the majority ethnic group which migrated from Afghanistan seeking refuge and livelihood here. This is the largest tribe in the world and to be friends with them, having them as colleagues and peers is an opportunity which helped me understand their identity, solidarity and interest basis in a more basic way which I believe is something a complete foreigner would not grasp so easily on accounts of little cultural, religious and social proximity with this ethnic group. Thirdly the repetitive change of central governments from authoritarian to democracy and resulting shift in stance on how to intervene in Afghanistan, refugee management policy, border control etc. is something whose impact may not be so easily put on paper. Social phenomena are complex and interwoven especially if you are trying to study its political implications in the long run but well, I had stepped into the abyss and had to survive the monster.
What followed is a tedious and exhausting literature review and data collection for my study which was facilitated by NDU, my supervisor Dr Rashid Ahmed who himself specializes in Ethnic conflicts and has worked on Radicalization of the Pashtuns in border areas of Pakistan, my colleagues in the think tank ISSRA, and networks of friends and fellow researchers. I interviewed representatives of UNCHR high commissioner in Pakistan for data and insight on Refugee management policy, demographic mix, situation and sources of Aid money over the years etc., Dr Antonio Guistozzi from Kings College London who specializes in trans-national rebellions and terrorist networks; he shared his insight on how the more protracted a conflict is and the more scattered its refugees the more difficult it is to follow the patterns of violence and crime which travel in disguise or as a result of movement of personnel across borders. Dr Adnan Razzaq who has studied the Mohajir Refugees in Pakistan and helped me understand how hard it is to study the cultural implications of mass socialization and it may as well be that after several decades; the migrants though born and integrated yet might still identify themselves on basis of grievance and lost identity. Here I must also commend the remarkable contribution to literature on spillover of ethnic conflict and security concerns from refugees made by Dr Idean Salehyan and Dr Kristian Skrede Gleditsch.
I also interviewed personnel from Intelligence and a serving general in Pakistan Army on what kind of internal security and border security breaches have been caused in the wake of perpetual movement of personnel across borders and what kind of power dynamics develop in refugee situations especially the environment in camps and prospects of living outside of them. I briefly visited the mostly deserted Jalozai camp near Peshawar in 2016, to witness the nomadic camp city of the refugees most of which had already moved near border areas for resettlement.
Afghan refugee Families repatriating - Azakheil, KPK, 2016. © UNHCR/Nazia Gul
Here I must mention that around 70-80% of refugees were not camped and were facilitated by ethnic and cultural ties and allowed to integrate via businesses, marriage and jobs in Pakistan as were spread in almost all of the provinces though most were settled in Pashtun dominated areas since they first started arriving in late 1970s. We are speaking of a refugee situation where out of the current 2.5 million around 60% are born in Pakistan.
Luggage of Afghan refugee - Panian refugee camp Haripur - Pakistan 2016 © UNHCR/Nazia Gul
By 2016 due to Pakistan’s Anti-Terrorism operation Zarb-e-Azb, Internally Displaced Pashtuns had started settling in Islamabad several of whom I interacted with, including a junior at our university, our neighbors, local business owners and relatives of some Pashtun friends. Due to the intense fighting taking place in border areas and volatile situation in Pashtun dominated areas of the country I couldn’t visit refugee camps there for fieldwork. My research was not funded and being a woman working on a security related research at such a sensitive time was dangerous by default anyway. What was further frustrating is that such little primary data and analysis was present on the most significant protracted refugee exodus of our time, something which made an already challenging research even more challenging.
Let me now briefly touch the challenges with analyzing this data. I must take a moment to express my utter frustration at the fact that although we are surrounded by avid and multiple sources of information, it makes research more complex rather than simplify it. The fact that narrative generation everywhere has some state or international organization agenda attached, looking for authentic insight and impartial analysis is not an easy task. And then the states which experience protracted refugee migrations are also rather weak and not at par with their developed counterparts, and an exodus of millions which is accepted on political and ethnic kinship basis is next to impossible to trace or to account for. Then we have the problems that arise with camping these groups where isolation becomes an ideal basis for recruitment and conditioning for belligerent and radical causes.
Speaking of the Afghans, we must remember these are the same people which were termed a few decades ago as allies of the people of the free world, when the Red Army left a war shaken Afghanistan, soon the power vacuum resulted in outbreak of a bloody civil war, life slowly became war-like and war a way of life. The geo-political significance of Afghanistan like that of Syria rendered it inevitable for regional and international forces to intervene until 9/11 happened and well yet again the already devastated country was plunged deeper into chaos, only now we no longer wanted to sympathize with these people. My question is simple; What about the Afghan? What about the men and women who were born and raised in a war-torn country or survived in camps? And most importantly what about us who gave them refuge while the world cheered us, what about the embrace that almost choked the life out of us? How do you say goodbye to someone you shared your bread and your house with, with only a warzone to go back to, what loyalty should you expect from someone who feels betrayed and how much hospitality must be shown till you feel robbed?
The problem with rationality in anarchic situation is, you may get locked in a zero-sum game; violence breeds violence, a legacy of pain and suffering can’t translate into peace and justice as it is. Someone has to show a higher moral ground, show forgiveness while having the power to avenge. While I stand firmly behind my analysis as a researcher, based on evidence and data; on the mutuality of construct between refugees as potential agents of war and the host structures which condition or allow them to thrive. Nevertheless, I must also show humility in the fact that I know too little about too much that has happened to too many people for too long. These are not mere statistics; millions fleeing borders, remaining in exile for a certain number of years, burdening welcoming communities that are already economically and politically challenged. These are people, our contemporaries, this is our time and these are wars which have reached our doorstep so silently and so meticulously that soon we will have nowhere to flee, and we all are to blame for it equally.
Research is a not a very lucrative profession in this part of the world where mostly bureaucracy and politics is a way to decide for the future. Nevertheless, eager to share our shared experiences and research I kept putting my research abstract out. When Project RESPOND put a call for papers for its Conference titled “Unpacking the Challenges & Possibilities for Migration Governance” taking place at The University of Cambridge UK, I submitted an Abstract for a paper. This analysis took my MPhil research a bit further and focuses on the difficulties in charting security concerns in the wake of forced migrations depending on socio-cultural proximity of host states with migrant and refugee groups.
This is a topic which has been hijacked so articulately by political forces at both right and left wing leaving dangerously marginalized groups and overburdened states to further political and economic persecution. As researchers we must maintain the voice of sanity and humanity in such polarity, and bring as much neutrality, prudence and diligence as possible through our work. Unfortunately my Visa was rejected to UK and I couldn’t present the paper in person and yet the Respond team; Soner Barthoma and Naurres Atto in particular made sure that my voice and my work reached the forum via live conferencing and due space is given to experiences and lessons from a state which still hosts around 1.4 million registered Afghan refugees (UNHCR 2019), and is the only state whose Prime minister proposed in 2019 to integrate Afghan refugees as citizens of Pakistan after four decades hosting them in an extremely challenging geo-political and internal security environment.
The paper is being reviewed for publication and for now I leave you with this poem which I wrote somewhere in 2018 when research and analysis fell too short to put on paper what happened to a community which is separated by international borders and was dragged in wars they had little say in initiating or resolving.
All I know is War; A memoir of an Afghan Child Soldier and a Refugee
And I played under the Pomegranate tree, in my dear courtyard
All the while my sweet mother smiled, and along played my siblings
At night we counted the stars, hearing the stories of Dev and Fairy
Of good men and pious women, of beauty and strength
Sleep was easy to come then, and dreams so readily woven
Such bliss was inside my mother’s lap and under our father’s gaze
Oh, how my sister shrieked with joy upon seeing me, and my brother scowled in humor
But then one day the War came
At first, they took my father, and then our cousin
We were moved from the house, leaving the courtyard behind
Away from the pomegranate tree’s shade, into the cold and dark bunker
Father never returned; brother went missing…
Until a day came, when I too held a Gun, to kill my enemy with
And as I stood in front of boys and men, shooting
Most of whom looked as if they too, once gazed upon yonder stars
Only to be exiled from their blissful courtyards
But all I wanted then was to kill, before I was killed
Death became my purpose, death became me
And then one day someone ended the War
Without asking me, making me feel betrayed, and yet so relieved
We went back home, but it was all blown up
Mother was dead, and my sister didn’t shriek anymore, except in her sleep
Now they say, take a wife, love her and have some children of my own
Watch them grow under my gaze, from their mother’s merry lap
Regrow a Pomegranate tree in the barren courtyard
Only now, I dread Peace more than War ….
For my enemy comes to me in my dream at night, asking me to fight back
With no gun powder to drown his voice, I hear his pleas all around
Maddened by memories of death, in such nights I dwell, wandering
Am I the only one who sees the War coming, wide eyed and in broken spirits?
I watch my son grow, only to be strong enough to witness his War
I watch my daughter’s twinkled smile; fearing what will rob her of this
Since a Refugee, I am of War
For I am a Soldier, all I know is War
Everything else, I either left behind or I lost while winning my peace…
(This is written in bitter memory of the Afghan war, which has not ended to this day, while studying the refugee movement in the wake of afghan conflict during my thesis I fell for the resilient spirit of the Pashtuns living on both sides of the border. This is dedicated to their pain and suffering and their resolve in the face of perpetual and never- ending conflict)
Three brothers – in light mood – posing for a photograph at the Voluntary repatriation Centre.
© UNHCR/Q.K.Afridi