Fieldnotes on Humanity

At Union Station, Washington DC’s central transportation hub, I sat outside a cafe, not so much to pass the time as to delay it, when a young woman with a disheveled appearance walked past my table. My eyes instinctively followed her, not with the surprise one might expect, but with a sense of curiosity. There was something about her presence that seemed at odds with the prevailing surroundings. A book, Sakhalin Island , by Chekhov rested in my hands. I paused, lifting my head above its pages to keep her in sight. With two or three brisk steps, she approached a marble-clad wall beneath the station’s soaring vaulted ceiling. This station is one of the outstanding examples of late nineteenth-century Beaux Arts architecture. Designed by the renowned American architect Daniel Burnham, it reflects an academic style inspired by the Arch of Constantine in Rome. The station’s main hall is cylindrical in shape, rising to a height of 29 meters and stretching nearly 60 meters in length. The woman...

Hasan (a pseudonym), a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, and one of my interlocutors, was subjected to a ritualized bureaucracy. He was required to report to ICE for a routine check-in. Five months ago, as usual, when he showed up for a check-in, thinking it was a normal one, but instead, he was told he was on the "expedited removal" list. "You must come with us," recounted Hasan, his shock upon hearing those words, while he was standing in front of a few ICE officers ready to force him into a van. Four ICE officers forced him into a white van and drove him away. "I didn't know where they were taking me," he told me, throwing up his hands, to explain his state of confusion and shock after the fact. He ends up at a detention center in the southernmost point, near the Mexican border. There, a large prison with different units and sections holds thousands of detainees awaiting deportation. Hasan spent about five months in a legal and social purgatory in a ...

Well, Mr. Khalilzad! It's good to hear that you are against bombs. But during the 20 years of US occupation of Afghanistan, you supported the bombing of the southern regions. US forces, in just 2019, dropped roughly 7,423 bombs on Afghanistanis homes alone. Weren't you one of those who brought American bombers down on your own people? What happened that you suddenly became opposed to bombing? What's the difference between a Pakistani bomb and an American bomb? I haven't heard you criticize Americans for dropping bombs on Afghanistani homes. Which one serves Pashtun interests and which one doesn't? Which one, in your opinion, brings peace, and which one doesn't? And more importantly, which one serves your interests?  Throughout your  memoir , you drone on about subservience and the sycophancy of the Republican leaders and warmonger generals. Once, a retired US official who served in Afghanistan and in the region told me: "Zal sycophantizes so much that I fe...

Yesterday, I was on my way to the university library when I saw, from a distance, two officers in dark navy blue uniforms standing by the side of the road. Both were staring at the ground. Occasionally, they would lift their heads and look up at something deep inside the thick branches of a cedar tree. The female officer was pointing with her finger at something up above to the male officer, who had his legs spread wider than usual. A kind of posture that male officers intentionally do to show how badass they are. He shook his head. Then both of them went back to staring at the ground in front of their feet. When I arrived, I said hello. "Excuse me," I said, "what have you found here?" The female officer, whose commanding tone made it clear she was a newbie, looked at me in a way that meant, "Mind your own business. Keep walking. Who are you to ask what we’re doing here?" She didn’t know that I’m one of those stubborn types of people who aren’t easily scar...

There are reports coming from inside Iran that the ongoing US-Israeli aggression has resulted in dozens of deaths of Afghan refugees. Due to the internet and communication restrictions in Iran, the information usually travels from Iran to Afghanistan and then spreads from there. Family members call their relatives in Afghanistan to let them know about their safety but as the war goes on, the news has become increasingly harrowing. According to the BBC Persian , 31 Afghanistani immigrants have lost their lives in the US-Israeli criminal war of aggression against the people of Iran. On social media, various accounts were published, but most report that the number of casualties exceeds 50. Afghanistani Immigrants, especially Hazaras, constitute a substantial presence in construction, municipality, farming, brick factories, stone factories, and other menial jobs. This father and his two children are among the victims.

Once on Twitter, I came across a tweet by an Iranian woman that said: "On the way to the Imam Khomeini International Airport, I got out of the taxi, picked up a handful of soil from the side of the road, and put it in my suitcase so that when I arrive in the US, I can wake up every morning and spit on it." To this moment, I cannot comprehend the degree of anger and hatred that the Iranian woman harbored towards her homeland. I don't understand why that handful of soil, which is the last remaining connection to her birthplace, is met with such hatred and venom. When I then place this with the words of my Iranian acquaintance who not only has no qualms about the aggression of the US and Israel against his homeland but is actually rejoicing in it, I'm still left baffled. Where does this immense hatred and spite come from? What is the source?  I have never seen any Hazara diaspora who, despite enduring decades of oppression and cruelty at the hands of Pashtuns, has expres...

 What do we know when they talk about "human shields"?  Here is a cartoon by Kamal Sharaf, a Yemeni cartoonist. It says it all. 

There is a troubling convergence of sentiments s among some Iranians and Afghanistanis when it comes to the overthrow of their respective regimes. In recent days, members of the Iranian diasporas have celebrated the US and Israel dropping bombs on innocent people, showing blatant indifference to civilian casualties. Similarly, in Kabul and other provinces, some Afghanistanis have wished for more Pakistani bombs on the Taliban strongholds. Social media platforms are awash with sentimental tweets and posts celebrating the Pakistani attacks on Taliban ammunition depots in Kabul, and what Pakistan alleges are terrorist cells in the south and east of Afghanistan, close to the Pakistani border. In various WhatsApp and Facebook groups that I'm part of, hopes for more Pakistani bombs raining on Taliban bases across the country are not subdued.  Roya, one of the users originally from Mazar-e Sharif currently living in Kabul whose two brothers were killed by the Taliban, wrote in Farsi: ...

In the neighborhood where I live, there is an Iranian grocery store and a bakery inside, which I usually go to. The grocery store's owner is a pro-Shah. The entire store is decorated with mini Lion and Sun flags. Last night at seven o'clock, I went to get bread and saw a long line. I forced myself to wait in line, which I usually don't, unless I am starving. Within moments, I noticed middle-aged women in the line had their phones out of their purses, showing each other photos of men with white and black turbans. I saw one of those photos from a distance; it was of Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Eje'i, the former Iranian minister of intelligence. A tall, middle-aged woman with a large bracelet on her right hand said to the woman in front of her, " kasafat ra nabudash kardan" -  they eliminated that filt. She meant Ali Khamenei. One of the women replied, " dasti shon dard nakuna -- thank you so much. "They hit him in a way we didn't expect," she added...

In the past few hours, some emotionally charged Afghanistanis have shown a bit of excitement regarding the Pakistani army's airstrikes on Taliban militants' bases in Kabul, Kandahar, and other places.  " Pakistan zinda bad -  Long live Pakistan"- is a repeated phrase I see shared across social media platforms.    One user even wished that Syed Asim Munir (the Pakistani army chief) would liberate Afghanistan from the grip of the Taliban. One user wrote, "Pakistan's airstrikes have made the groundwork for resistance against the Taliban feasible." Another user warned that "In these circumstances, one must be vigilant that the people must not be deceived in the name of the homeland by the Taliban criminals. A homeland that is under the criminal rule of the Taliban is not a homeland." As the old proverb goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. After reading these comments of those emotionally invested Afghanistanis, obviously with a sense of respon...

These days, some Iranians are dying to see the US attack their country. This morning, I was talking to an Iranian friend, Reza, who told me, "You know, every year around this time, we Iranians used to look forward to Nowruz Eid, this year, we're counting down the days and hours to an American attack." I didn't have the words to express myself, except to acknowledge a subdued sense of sadness. I said that an attack, no matter the form, is bad. He then asked, "Is the attack by the mullahs and their deadly forces, who have killed thousands recently, good?" I said the answer is negative (i.e., of course not). An attack, from any perspective and by any state or actor, is horrible. I mean, people should not reach the point where they wish for a foreign attack on their homeland. Then, my Iranian friend, with an angry retort, countered, "Imagine a prisoner who is tortured daily and whose agony is unending. He or she wishes that one of the torturers would end th...

This is part of the confessions of General Mohammad Nabi Azimi, a high-ranking official in the government of Rabbani and Massoud, as recorded in his book. ( Urdu va Siyasat Dar Seh Daheh Akheer-e Afghanistan [Army and Politics in the Last Three Decades in Afghanistan] Peshawar: Qisa-khani Bazara Peshawar, Saba Kitabkhanah 1998. p. 632-33) "The third war of  Shura-e Nazar [Ahmad Shah Massoud's party] and the Hazaras occurred on February 11, 1993, and as a result, Afshar in Kabul was leveled to the ground. The men, women, and children of the Afshar Hazaras were mercilessly put to the sword and annihilated by Massoud and Sayyaf forces... To completely intimidate the Hazaras, Ahmad Shah Massoud directed all the tanks, mortars, rocket launchers, and aircraft he had at two points of the city, Chindawol and Afshar [both are Hazara neighborhoods]. Afshar was razed to the ground, and Chindawol was destroyed... Ahmad Shah Massoud himself had gone up on the TV Hill, from where he watched...

Today marks the thirty-third anniversary of the Afshar massacre. On February 11, 1993, a state-sponsored attack under the command of Ahmad Shah Massoud targeted Afshar, in the west of Kabul, a predominantly Hazara neighborhood, during which between 1,500 and 2,000 people were massacred. It remains one of the darkest chapters in the history of Afghanistan.  For Hazaras, February 11 marks remembrance day each year, a day that brings back the deep wound inflicted on the body and soul of the Hazara people. Many Hazaras believe that it was part of the ongoing genocidal violence against the Hazaras.  In the early 1990s, a pivotal moment occurred when Hazara, for the first time in history, took up arms to resist their systematic repression.  And yet, the violence did not come from the usual source, such as Pashtuns, but from the Tajik-led Mujahideen government under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud and Burhanuddin Rabbani. What concerns me most today is that we commemor...

"It's a nimrod world,  berar  [brother]," Zahra told me, describing what she has been witnessing: the rise of authoritarianism and a rapid decline in morale in the current situation, not only here in the US, but across the world.  After I ended my phone conversation with Zahra, one of my key interlocutors, I found myself dwelling on her phrase jahan-i nimrod —"nimrod's world." I turned to research to better understand its resonance.  Nimrod is a legendary figure known for his cruelty and tyranny. He is mentioned in the Qur'an as someone who acknowledged no power greater than his own, claimed to be a God, and eventually rebelled even against that divine authority (Surah Al-Baqarah-2:258). His rule was characterized by force, and his realm was perpetually marked by violence and suffering.  Nimrod, the tyrannical ruler, was killed by a mosquito in the end. The mosquito entered through his nostril, made its way into his brain, and brought him down. Today’s r...

Today I was speaking with Asad, a friend and a long-time interlocutor, someone with whom I often have deep conversations. We were discussing how the release of more of Epstein's files, the convicted sex offender, has revealed the extent to which this pedophile was well-connected to some of the most powerful and famous people. Thousands of names are mentioned in the files, but the notables are a network of powerful and wealthy people. Individuals like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Bill Clinton, Trump, and Prince Andrew, as well as the most prominent university professors at MIT, Harvard, and Yale, were all friends and companions of this predator. Disturbingly, some of these individuals were apparently complicit in his crime, including the sexual abuse of underage girls, but now deny any wrongdoingdoing. The Epstein files expose two failures: first, that the institutions supposed to prevent abuse instead enabled it; and second, that our ethical foundations and social trust have fundamentall...

photo source  nyt The violence happening in this photograph is not in Iraq and Afghanistan, where it was exported and executed for two decades; it's here, in the US, where it was produced, where it belongs, and where it returns. Violence is not a one-way street; if you produce it, you will be responsible for it, if not directly, it will come through other means. It will find its way as it has before. I like to use Aimé Césaire's term, "imperial boomerang:" violence unleashed on others, eventually makes its way home. This is what is happening in the US right now. Doors are being kicked down, and people are dragged out of their homes, beaten, pepper-sprayed, zip-tied, violently dragged to vehicles, and put in custody with broken limbs. Welcome to a world that is ruled by nimrod!

This article in The New York Times by Elian Peltier on Afghanistani music and artists in Pakistan warns that it is in danger of being silenced. Although this claim may be somewhat true, its danger is that it misses the whole picture. Afghanistani music is not only the music performed and recorded by Pashtun and Tajik refugees in Peshawar. Take a trip to Quetta, Balochistan once. There, Hazaragi music is flourishing and offers a fresh promise for the production and proliferation of Afghanistani Hazara music in the diaspora. One only needs to search for Hazaragi music on YouTube, and you will come across dozens of channels featuring various music groups, with folk and pop genres emerging from Quetta. You would realize that the culture and the music are neither frozen nor silent, but actively produced and innovated in different contexts and catered for a more transnational audience. Yes, Afghanistani music is deterritorialized, but in diaspora it is reterritorialized and claimed through ...

Finally, the violence comes home, to where it started and to where it belonged, and from where it was deployed and executed. It's an imperial boomerang, borrowing Aimé Césaire's concept. For years, their force kicked down doors in Iraq and Afghanistan, now their own doors are being kicked down by their own brute force. In this case, violence is not a two-way street; there has been no direct confrontation with the production of US violence from those affected countries; rather, it has had a boomerang effect, coming home where it belongs.  Photograph source: The Atlantic

It seems no help will be coming from the US or others. The protesters in Iran who have taken to the streets may have realized that returning home would mean death and prison if not killed on the streets.  This morning, the New York Times reported that the leaders of Arab Gulf states and Israel have asked Trump not to attack Iran for now. The reason has been the fear of Iran’s threat that if the US attacks, Iran will target US military bases in the Gulf region. This means defeat for the protesters and victory for the regime. What is concerning is the aftermath of the protests. The heavy shadow of surveillance and the arrest of those who protested in the streets. It is very hard to imagine a revolution being led and brought to fruition from afar by imperial force. In fact, as we have seen, it had jeopardized the protestors and their legitimate demands for political reform and economic stability. 

So, here again, the ICE uses the state's banal tools, such as appointment notices/check-ins, to reinforce violence on the most vulnerable population. It is the holiday season, which means people take time off to spend with family and friends to observe collective rituals that strengthen social bonds, but this year, it will not be easy for a specific refugee population. There is a plan to disrupt the cultural and social cohesion among refugees and immigrants with precarious legal status. I have been hearing from some community members that they have received notices from DHS/ICE to appear for an in-person check-in on particular days, such as Christmas Day (December 25th) and New Year's Day (January 1st).  Shawn Vandiver, the president of AfghanEvac, has also written on this on his  Substack .   I assume ICE uses holidays as a cover to detain individuals since it makes the headline less, and attorneys and refugee rights activists might be absent. Not appearing is the best o...

This report is extremely shocking and upsetting. Today, Reuters reported that, according to a memo seen by the news agency, the Trump administration has instructed the U.S. Immigration Department to review all cases of immigrants who were accepted and entered the United States during the Biden administration. This order could apply to 233,000 immigrants who entered the U.S. between January 2021 and February 2025. This is horrible news, as the Trump administration has already reduced the refugee admission cap. For example, in 2026, the admission cap is 7,500 people, allocated only to white South Africans. During two years of field research in Washington, D.C., I met with newly arrived Hazara refugees who told me that they had spent between 2 to 7 years for their cases to be reviewed or processed. Most of these reviews are multi-layered. For instance, refugees from Turkey were first vetted by the Turkish government and NGOs. In the second stage, their cases were referred to the UNHCR, an...

by Khadim Ali, a Hazara painter,  source For the Hazara people in Afghanistan, life has always been shadowed by a deep-seated dread. To be Hazara in this country is to live with a perpetual, gnawing anxiety, a kind of fear that has taken up residence in the back of your mind and never leaves. No matter the depth of your sacrifice or your willingness to lay down your life for your country, a persistent, haunting fear lingers on the horizon, tormenting your spirit constantly. That fear is a simple, devastating question: "Will the Pashtuns ever allow us to live in peace?"  This is an existential fear, it strikes at the very core of one's right to exist. This terror is now manifesting anew in the forced exodus of Hazaras from their ancestral lands, which has been going on since the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021. Since then, over 1,000 families have been evicted from their homes and villages. If we estimate an average family of 6, then 6,000 people have ...

Amid Afghanistan's contemporary violent history, a different story is capturing hearts and minds, one not of conflict but of celebration. The Afghanistani U-17 boys' futsal team has won the championship of the 3rd Asian Youth Games in Bahrain. This victory holds profound significance for Afghanistan, which is weary of violence. In a country deeply divided and ruled by the ethno-religious Taliban regime, such a moment fosters a rare and powerful sense of shared identity and national pride. The achievement is particularly meaningful because the team is predominantly composed of Hazara athletes, an ethnic minority that has long faced systemic persecution and is currently experiencing an ongoing genocide under the de facto Taliban rule. One might assume that their success on an international stage indicates a degree of freedom and acceptance. But the reality is more complex. First, some of these players are refugees living in Iran; some may have never set foot in Afghanistan. So, i...

During the chaotic withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, thousands of people stormed the Kabul airport. In a desperate attempt to escape the Taliban, some climbed onto a moving military cargo aircraft on the runway. At least two individuals fell from the sky, and one became trapped in the plane's wheel. A video taken by a cellphone from inside the plane shows a lifeless body and its limbs swaying violently in the wind at a high altitude. It was later reported that human remains were found lodged within the aircraft's wheels. Just days later, a gun store in Auckland, New Zealand, began selling T-shirts emblazoned with the words "Kabul Skydiving Club." Beneath the text was an image of two people who had fallen from the plane, captured in their fatal descent. At the same time, these same T-shirts were sold on the Etsy website in America. Today, I came across the picture of those shirts again, so I looked them up online to see if they still exis...

Yesterday, I saw Amir my newphew's homework. The title of one of his readings was "Needs and Wants." He had answered one of the questions incorrectly. The question was, "What did you learn in paragraph 4?" It was a multiple-choice question. Amir chose, "Life is hard without a phone."  But the correct answer was: "Wants can make life easier and more fun." Implicitly what it says is that your personal desires (wants) are a legitimate pathway to happiness and an easy life. This is the textbook example of cultivating a culture of greed. It is deliberate conditioning of children towards perpetual wanting. The entire edifice of capitalism is built on this very foundation: to become an endless consumer, fulfilling desires.  Now, think about it. a 10-year-old boy, who understands very little about wanting and having, implicitly being told/taught that happiness and enjoyment are synonymous with possessions. This is how the seeds of greed are planted. ...

For the past few days, I have not been able to talk to my family members, and like me, thousands of diaspora Afghanistanis have not been able to speak to their loved ones. Two days ago, the Taliban, an ethno-religious fascist group, imposed a wholesale internet blackout in Afghanistan. First, they severed the fiber-optic internet connection, and then yesterday, they shut down the telecommunication. So, why did the Taliban shut down the internet in the entire country? This act of digital authoritarianism is clearly linked to the core tenets of historical fascism. To grasp it, let's do an autodidactic practice. Copy and paste the following questions one by one on Google and press enter, and see what comes up. What constitutes the core of fascism? What is fascism, anyway? What is the goal of a fascist system? Whatever answer you get, you will learn that one of the key features of fascist regimes is relying on controlling information to suppress citizens and cement their centralized co...

A report dated 10/19/1893 records that Amir Abdul Rahman Khan sold 10,000 captive Hazaras as slaves. September 25 of each year marks the remembrance of the Hazara genocide. Social media platforms such as X (formerly known as Twitter) and Facebook are flooded with commemorative messages from Hazara users using #StopHazaraGenocide. Today marks September 25, 1893, when the blood thirsty Amir Abdul Rahman Khan issued a decree in which he announced the Hazaras as infidels to be annihilated entirely. In his book, Siraj-al Tawarikh , Faiz Muhammad Katib, the official historian of the court of Kabul and a Hazara himself, records that more than 60 percent of the Hazaras were killed, enslaved, and displaced. According to Katib, more than 400,000 Hazara households ( khanwar ) were killed, enslaved, and displaced. If we consider an average household of 6 people, 2.4 million Hazaras had vanished, and their lands were usurped by Pashtuns, as Amir called the bounty of war.  September 25 marks a d...

My nephew Amir is ten years old and in the sixth grade. Yesterday, during a WhatsApp call, he asked me what the meaning of "citizen" is. What does it mean to be a good citizen? I said it depends on the angle from which you look at the meaning of "citizen." Before we become citizens, we are human beings. Then, when governments want to subjugate people, they impose a series of submissive and controlling systems on people to make them obedient and docile. This means that not only do they have to pay their taxes on time, but if the government wants to resort to violence against its own citizens or wage war against another nation, it asks them to fight for the government. In short, they become a handy tool for the government because they serve the government's purpose. This is the meaning of a good citizen from the government's perspective. Since we are living in a capitalist world, there is another definition of a citizen that you need to know. From the perspect...

Below is an image that went viral on social media among Afghanistanis. It shows a group of Hazara doctors volunteers from Dasht-e Barchi, a Hazara neighborhood in the West of Kabul, on board a helicopter bound for Kunar. The yellow barrel in front of them is filled with donated blood of Hazaras to the earthquake victims in Kunar, who are all Pashtuns. This is just from one group of Hazara doctors. Looking at this photo and the faces of these Hazara doctors who are going to save the Pashtuns makes me ask, what drives them to such unbridled enthusiasm for Pashtuns who are hostile to them? This happens in the backdrop of the ongoing genocidal campaign against the Hazara people by the Taliban, who are the Pashtuns. How can one absorb this contradiction? There is more to it, though. image source: from social media Now, this selfless act of Hazara doctors is both paradoxical and sad. This week, the Taliban decided to transfer the equipment of the only hospital that remained functional in D...

A second earthquake brought more devastation to Afghanistanis in the Southern part of the country. Now the death toll has passed 1,400 , and nearly 4,000 or more are injured. On September 3rd, I wrote a blog post about how "Afghan" women -I mean Pashtun women - are buried twice, once by natural earthquake, a second time by Pashtun men. The next day, on September 4th, an article in the New York Times by Fatima Faizi detailed the same concerns I had expressed the day before.  The summary of the article is that women die under the rubble while men are saved.  The reason why women are still under the rubble or remain under the rubble is that their male  mahrams  (lawful individuals or members of close family)   are all lost and dead under the rubble, and there is no mahram left to save their women.  On the other hand, the male rescuers who come from the village and the surrounding areas are not mahrams and by Pashtun tradition are not allowed to get close to w...