Violence returns home

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!

Beyond silence: Hazaragi music in diaspora

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 digital spaces like YouTube, Spotify, and social media websites.

Yes, music in Afghanistan has completely fallen silent-- if we entirely disregard private homes of people who surreptitiously still play music and even Taliban members play music on their cellphones--but in the diaspora, it has been revived. Ignoring this issue means narrowing our perspective and seeing the world from a narrow space.

We have to remember to acknowledge the cultural resilience of diasporans in the face of violence, displacement, and ongoing threats of deportation. And we should also remember that culture is dynamic, not static; it can adapt, reinvent, hybridize, influence, and be influenced by other cultures.

Imperial boomerang: violence comes home

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

How regional fears of escalation undercut Iran's protest movement

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. 

ICE check-ins and weaponizing holidays

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 option, but having a lawyer and a support team as a precautionary measure might be helpful. 

Let your lawyer know you are being called for a check-in, register with AfghanEvac, and follow what Vandiver has written here. This is the most helpful guide for those who are in this precarious situation. 

Trump orders review of all Biden-era refugee cases

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, and in the final stage, to the U.S. Embassy, which passed them on to be vetted by U.S. security agencies such as USCIS and Homeland Security. 

This means the refugees have already undergone multiple instances of scrutiny and review beyond what is expected. It's unclear what this anti-refugee program is trying to find or what loophole it is trying to uncover that hasn't been seen before.

Now it has become clear that the reason why some refugees and immigrants who have been waiting for nearly four years to receive their Green Card and still haven't gotten it is due to the anti-refugee scheme that the current administration plans to implement.

This will further add to the sorrow and pain of refugees who have already endured. I can't help thinking of the intense psychological and emotional toll it would cause to thousands of families who have barely settled and have started their lives, hoping to enjoy a modicum of peace. What a cruel world we are living in. 

A perpetual fear and life for Hazaras under the Taliban

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 been forced out of their homes. That is still a conservative estimate. 

Recently, the Taliban issued a new ultimatum, this time to the Hazara community of Nowabad, a small yet densely populated area in Ghazni, home to over 18,000 families. The ultimatum says they must either abandon their homes, repurchase their homes, or pay rent to remain in their homes. 

The Taliban have declared the area "Emirate's land," a tactic they replicate wherever Hazaras live and wherever and whenever they want to forcefully remove them. It is a profound act of symbolic violence, in that they basically erase Hazaras' historical and cultural connection to the land, their own land. What anthropologists term as territorial alienation is a precursor to physical annihilation. This is ethno fascism in practice, and for the Hazaras, it always comes down to a choice between three impossible options, a tripartite trap from which they have never escaped.

This pattern is grimly familiar. In 1998, when the Taliban seized Mazar and launched their massacre of the Hazaras, they presented three conditions: leave Afghanistan, convert to Sunni Islam, or be ready to die. They proceeded to carry out both mass slaughter and forced displacement. It appears that the same engine of tribal fascism is now rolling forward once again, following its old, brutal tracks.

For the Hazaras, who were still savoring the sweet victory of the Afghanistani futsal team, mostly made up of Hazara boys, this new threat is a bitter drop in the cup of their joy. It feels like a sudden, cold wave, or a physical blow to the gut that instantly extinguishes any celebration, replacing it with the familiar grip of fear and pain. This is the precarious reality in which the Hazara people now find themselves.

For the Hazara, true peace remains an elusive dream in their own land.

Note: A version of this post was published in Farsi on my Farsi blog

Hazara's resistance: Playing for a country that tries to annihilate them

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, in some way, it is a diasporic achievement. Futsal is a popular sport within the Hazara diaspora in Iran. In post-9/11 Afghanistan, upon their return from Iran, refugees brought their skills with them. For international competitions, players are often selected from refugee communities, sent to Afghanistan for bureaucratic formalities, and then dispatched to the competition. But in U-17, I heard from a friend that several team members were chosen from the poor neighborhood of Dasht-e Barchi, west of Kabul. In essence, the national futsal team relies on Hazara players; excluding them would mean having no team at all.

This triumph is now shadowed by a grave concern: Hazara advocates worldwide fear the Iranian government may retaliate by deporting the players and their families. Iran has already forcibly returned over 1.5 million refugees, predominantly Hazaras, to Afghanistan this year. These deportations have been justified by baseless accusations of espionage for Israel, a scapegoat narrative Iran employs following its military embarrassments in 12 days of war with Israel.

Furthermore, this victory is a crucial act of visibility for the Hazara people, who are otherwise entirely marginalized within Afghanistan, even as the Taliban may attempt to claim credit for their success. But the interesting thing is that these boys did not compete under the Taliban flag, which is white, but under the former flag of Afghanistan and its national anthem. The Taliban may claim some credit but it does not mean affirming their cruel state project. It would rather be symbolized as what James Scott calls "weapons of the weak," forcing the Taliban to appreciate the ethnic group they marginalize.

Despite facing systemic discrimination from the Pashtun majority and other groups, the Hazara people have consistently been at the forefront of Afghanistani sports, demonstrating a profound patriotism that stands in stark contrast to the injustice they endure. This legacy includes Afghanistan's first Olympic medal, won by a Hazara athlete, Rohullah Nikpai, in 2008, and a second in 2012.

Amin Saikal: the scholar who advocated for the Expulsion of the Hazara Immigrants from Australia

There is a plethora of studies and surveys on discrimination from host societies directed towards immigrants and refugees in Western countries, but studies on discrimination and prejudice from one immigrant group against another immigrant group are few and far between. In a year and a half of my fieldwork in the Washington, D.C. area, I have found that Hazara immigrants are suffering from discrimination, particularly from Afghan/Pashtun and Tajik immigrants. I will write about this another time, but now, Amin Saikal. 

He is an Afghan origin retired university professor in Australia. Born into a family of diplomat and upper-class ethno-hybrid Tajik-Pashtun parents, Saikal holds unearned privileges in life that the Hazara, whom he dislikes so much, cannot afford. "He is unaware of his privileges, and I doubt he would bother now, at the end of his life, to become introspective about the very privileges he is enjoying tied to historic and enduring racism and biases against the Hazara people," told me Ahmad - psydynam - an old classmate of his from high school in Kabul. Amin Saikal belongs to the Tajik ethnic group, one of the country's ruling ethnic groups.

He is married to a white Aussie woman, another societal privilege that brings him an abundance of social advantage over other racial or ethnic groups, particularly the Hazaras in Australia. They have three daughters, all of whom are successful. Saikal has written many books on Afghanistan and Iran. With this brief introduction, he is well-educated and a successful scholar, except that he has a dark side, and he does not hide it: he hates the Hazara immigrants in Australia. 

On November 03, 2010, journalist Alexandra Kirk from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Radio conducted an interview with Amin Saikal regarding the condition of the Hazaras in Afghanistan and why the Hazaras are risking their lives to arrive in Australia by boat. This was at a time when there was a big search for Hazara immigrants fleeing the Taliban atrocities in Afghanistan and Pakistan, reaching Indonesia, and from there risking their lives on boats to reach Australia.

Instead of explaining the dire situation that the Hazaras lived in, he claimed that Afghanistan is the safest place for Hazaras to live, and should the Australian government expel them to Afghanistan, there would be no problem. They are safe in Afghanistan, he said. Saikal went on to explain where Hazaras could live safely if they were returned to Afghanistan. 

In some ways, he proposed the expulsion of the Hazara immigrants and refugees from Australia back to Afghanistan, a country they were fleeing from because of the systematic atrocities. 

This was a time when Tony Abbott's anti-immigration opposition party was planning policies against migration and asylum seekers. Hazara migrants formed a significant portion of those arriving in Australia by boat, many of whom were fleeing systematic oppression and violence. Most of those who risked their lives were Hazaras living in refugee camps in Quetta or resettled. 

Between 2005 and 2010, as the Taliban began regrouping and gaining ground in the southern part of Afghanistan, violence against Hazaras spiked. On the other side of the border to the south, in Quetta, Pakistan, the situation for Hazaras was deteriorating. In the years 2010, 2011, and 2012, targeted and serial killings of Hazaras in Quetta were rampant. 

Some of those targeted attacks were reported in Human Rights Watch's Farsi reports from those exact years, when Amin Saikal was advocating for the Hazaras ' expulsion from Australia. During the very same years, Saikal claimed that Afghanistan was safe for Hazaras. In Afghanistan, during those years, Kuchis (Pashtun nomads) attacked Hazaras, drove them out of their lands, destroyed their pastures, and the Taliban put checkpoints on the highways, arresting Hazara men and beheading them. 

As a result, hundreds were killed, and thousands were displaced. In the Jalrez, famously called by Hazaras the "death valley," Hazara people were beheaded on a daily basis. It was around this time that Amin Saikal intensified his antagonism and advocacy for Hazara immigrants to Afghanistan by penning "scholarly" pieces painting Hazaras as stewards of their destiny through power they shared with Pashtuns and others. In his interviews, he described Afghanistan as the safest place for Hazaras, ignoring the ongoing genocidal violence. 

In the following interview with ABC Radio, Amin Saikal clearly proposed and justified the expulsion of the Hazara immigrants from Australia. 

You can listen to his interview with Alexandra Kirk but here is the transcript:

ELEANOR HALL: Last night's arrival of two more boatloads of asylum seekers will see the Federal Government overtake a record that had been held by the Howard government.

Labor now presides over the largest annual intake of asylum seekers arriving by boat with the number of arrivals so far this year coming in at 5,547.

The Government says it expects that a higher proportion of Sri Lankan and Afghan refugee claims will now be rejected, arguing that conditions in those two countries have improved.

But Professor Amin Saikal who heads the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University told Alexandra Kirk that the measures used to judge whether Afghans should be granted refugee status are too restrictive.

AMIN SAIKAL: Well I think their information by and large is correct. And I think it does provide justification for some of the Government policies.

But what I'm really concerned about is specifically in relation to the status of Hazara because the bulk of the asylum seekers who have come to Australia are made up of people from the Shi'ite sect of Islam in Afghanistan which constitutes about 15 to 20 per cent of the population.

And as far as I understand that the situation is not as desperate for the Hazara population of Afghanistan or for that matter the Shi'ite population of Afghanistan these days as it has been in the past, particularly when the Taliban was ruling the country.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So what's your concern then?

AMIN SAIKAL: My concern now is that that situation of the Hazaras are pretty much the same as many other groups in their country. And in fact I think the Hazaras are having better security and more stability in the areas where they are concentrated, than has been the case in the past.

I think it singles out the Hazaras as fairly deprived in this group. And what I'm basically trying to say that while that has been really the case in the past, but I think in the current situation in Afghanistan the standing of the Hazaras has improved in the sense that they do have a share in the power structure in the country and they have a share in the running of the government.

And the areas where they are concentrated, that is central Afghanistan and western Afghanistan, is relatively the most peaceful and secure areas in the country.

And of course the governor of Bamiyan who herself is a Hazara and the first woman to become a governor in the history of Afghanistan has important plans, not only for a cultural development but also building a new city for the Hazaras.

And the New Zealanders have deployed their troops and have done a very good job and provincial reconstruction team that they are running.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Are you saying that it would be safer to return Hazaras to a number of areas in Afghanistan, safer than the guide suggests?

AMIN SAIKAL: I think there is going to be no impediment as far as I can see for the return of the Hazaras to Afghanistan provided that they are, and they are willing to return to their areas where there is concentration of the Hazaras, areas that is in central Afghanistan and western Afghanistan. And those areas are fairly safe.

Of course if you do return the Hazaras to the southern and eastern province of Afghanistan which is the hotbed of fighting between the Taliban and government forces and their international supporters, then obviously their life would be more in danger.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: So you don't think that Hazaras returning to areas where Hazaras are in a majority would face persecution?

AMIN SAIKAL: I don't think so for a minute that that would really happen.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: You think then that the guide is too conservative when it comes to you know whether it's safe for Hazaras to return there, to some areas of Afghanistan?

AMIN SAIKAL: I think that is very, that is the case to a considerable extent. And if Hazaras if returned to provinces where the Hazaras form the majority I think they can feel very safe.

And at the same time you are not going to really suffer any more than many other peoples in Afghanistan who are living, other ethnic groups or sectarian groups who are living in different parts of the country apart from the south and eastern Afghanistan, which is basically where the fighting is concentrated.

ELEANOR HALL: That's Professor Amin Saikal from the ANU's Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies speaking to Alexandra Kirk in Canberra.

In one part, Amin Saikal states that Hazaras in Afghanistan never face problems and could be sent back, particularly to areas where most Hazaras live, such as Hazarajat. He claims there are "areas where there is the concentration of the Hazaras, areas that are in central Afghanistan and western Afghanistan,"  which is a prescription for the expulsion of the Hazaras in Afghanistan.

"I think it’s clear that these are baseless claims. He is perhaps overwhelmed by his prejudice against the Hazara people," Ahmad, his high school classmate, said. 

"He is bitter and mean," Ahmad said, explaining that in high school, he disliked students who performed better than him. "On many occasions, he fought with us. He could not control his anger," he added. 

In 2013, at a conference on Afghanistan in New York, while delivering a presentation by a PhD on the condition of the Hazaras, Amin Saikal stood up from the audience and began shouting, questioning the findings of the student and accusing her of spreading false information. "Stop it! The Hazaras have no problems in Afghanistan." He shouted and did not allow the student to finish her presentation. She wept right there on the stage.

Amin Saikal even propagated the idea that the Hazara refugees were fraudsters because he believed they were Pakistanis. One immigration caseworker wrote on his Facebook page that Mahmoud Saikal, Amin Saikal's brother, who was Afghanistan's ambassador to Australia at the time, once said that he labeled Hazaras as "imposters," claiming they were all actually Pakistanis.

It is known that immigrants bring their pre-existing social and cultural experiences and perspectives with them. In the State of California, in Silicon Valley, the caste system has been practiced by Indians, which is a practice that was recently outlawed by the state. Seattle was the first city to ban case practice. 

In the past several years and during my fieldwork, I came across individuals who said they were discriminated against at the resettlement agencies when the caseworkers were non-Hazaras.  So, just like Indians, Afghans/Pashtuns, and Tajiks, individuals like Amin Saikal bring their caste-based discrimination and ethnic prejudices with them to Australia, Europe, and America. 

In the United States, I have documented numerous cases in which Hazaras have been discriminated against by Pashtun and Tajik immigrants and refugees. In the next blog post, I will write about his journal article on the state of the Hazara people in Afghanistan. He basically penned everything he said in the interview and turned it into a journal article, which shamefully paints Afghanistan as the safest place for Hazaras. It was a blueprint for Hazaras' expulsion from Australia.

Note: I initially explored the topic discussed above in 2023 in a series of blog posts on my Farsi blog, which I'm linking here. 

طرح امین صیقل برای اخراج هزاره ها از آسترالیا

امین صیقل: یک ضدهزاره به تمام معنا

محمود صیقل و امین صیقل: دو برادر هزاره ستیز

زبان تحقیرآمیز امین صیقل

The commerce of suffering

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 exist or are being sold. Today, I discovered that identical T-shirts, though without the image of the falling individuals, are still being sold on a website called "American Triggers Pullers." Who truly wants to wear these T-shirts? What must they be feeling?

After seeing the images of those t-shirts, it felt like a wound in my soul was torn open anew. It was a stark reminder of our profound suffering and how our experiences and traumas are stripped of their context and transformed into tokens to be sold. 

Ah, what a world we are living in! Our pain and suffering have been commodified, transformed into garments for others to wear and enjoy. Our agony is frozen into images and sold for profit, enabling people to build capital and indulge in pleasure. Our anguish becomes a pretext for mockery and scorn. Our misery fuels companies' profits, ensuring the chariot of capitalism never ceases its movement and our blood has become the lubricating grease for its wheels.

How seeds of greed are planted in children

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. How can I explain this to a refugee child that material possessions do not bring happiness and do not make life easier? How can I explain that contentment is the source of happiness and generosity makes life easier, and that materialistic values are ephemeral and sources of unhappiness? 

Welcome to the world of capitalism and greed.

Afghanistan's internet blackout and the anatomy of fascism

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 control.

The Taliban is a fascist group based on a Pashtun-ethnonationalist agenda, which at the core promotes an exclusive "Afghanness" (a euphemism for Pashtun supremacy) and a Pashtun tribal form of Sunni Islam. Controlling and restricting the internet has no reason other than keeping the people in the dark and severing their connection with the outside world. This way, it is easier to control and govern them.

Now, the media has reported that the reason for the internet blackout, according to the Taliban, is "morality." Morality from the Taliban's point of view is: anti-woman, anti-religious and ethnic minorities, anti-Hazara, anti-education, anti-modern values, anti-human rights—basically anti-anything they had not seen in the caves and mountains over the past few decades. Some commentators, clinging to civility, describe the Taliban as merely an extreme group. The raw reality, however, is that this is a terror group that descended from the mountains and caves.

So, what does the Taliban's "morality" look like? It is a heinous strategy used as a tool for social engineering. By implementing their own "morality," they want to create a specific moral subject, one whose worldview, interactions, and consciousness are being shaped solely by the Taliban's ideology.

September 25 Hazara Genocide Remembrance Day

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 day of remembrance for Hazaras as a collective and distinct cultural and ethnic group, recognizing that the past is not a static fact but an active process that shapes the lives of Hazaras today and in the future. The Hazaras have been experiencing genocide since then, and it continues. Have a look at this extensive report by the New Line Institute on September 1, 2025, about the ongoing genocide of the Hazaras under the de facto regime of the Taliban.

Through this calendrical ritual, the Hazaras are attempting to understand their past, which is so deeply ingrained that it will continue to impact their future. Transforming a historical event into an annual recurring practice will reinforce the Hazara group's solidarity, and it represents a crucial first step in understanding what happened in the 1890s and its subsequent consequences. 

September 25 Hazara genocide remembrance is happening almost entirely online. Digital content such as writing stories, creating art, and music videos, and organizing spaces where the Hazara genocide is being discussed are all marked under the hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide, which has so far garnered more than 50 million tweets. This means that the traditional spaces of remembrance (which used to be in masjid and minbar) are moved to a new space. There is now a diasporic public sphere in which Hazaras worldwide participate, engage, and strengthen their transnational Hazara identity. This synchronized effort, initiated in the aftermath of the Enlightenment Movement, will continue to strengthen the global community of Hazaras. 

How to explain the meaning of "citizen" to a 6th grader?

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 perspective of companies and the corporate world that are controlled by one percent, an ordinary citizen is worthless; a good citizen is the one who consumes the most.

"How?" he asks.

For example, from the perspective of corporations, you are not a good citizen when you use your legs and walk to school every day. (This is directly related to Amir's request that he made a few days ago. He has asked his mom to buy him an electric scooter so that he can commute between home and school.) 

"Why?" Amir asks, using only one-word sentences.

Because you are a healthy person. When you buy an electric scooter, the companies that produced that scooter are happy. The money your dad or mom earns goes directly into the pockets of the bankers and people who invest in that scooter. Their pockets get fatter while your mom and dad's pockets get emptier. And that's not the end of the story. When you are commuting the 15-minute walking distance from home to school on an electric scooter, over time you get fatter, lazier, and more bored, then one day the scooter may get out of your control or break, and you fall to the ground because you are too heavy. Your body may break in two or three places. You need to visit the doctor, and you will have to pay a significant amount of money for surgery and medication. It's not just the banks and corporations that are happy and think you're the best citizen, but the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies, the hospitals, the doctors, and the companies that are built to profit from your sick body, they are all happy because you have to pay for all these expenses, which of course falls on your mom and dad. At this point, you become the best citizen.

Oh, wait, I forgot to add. You sometimes crave soda and fast food, which are all unhealthy because they are processed and they're full of sugar, fat, and salt. They make you sick. You get heart disease or diabetes and dozens of other diseases. The more you consume, the more you become dependent on it. The more unhealthy you become, the more you are loved not only by fast food industries but also by doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. Because you're paying them money and becoming their customer.

Do you know who is the worst citizen for these people and companies? I ask.

"No. Who is it?" he asks.

A healthy person. Someone who uses his legs walks every day to school. Someone who plays soccer for at least an hour or two a day. Someone who drinks water or tea instead of soda. Someone who eats his mom's food instead of burgers, pizza, chips, and junk food.

As I see it on my screen, a demure calmness envelops his round, innocent face, which I'm unsure is a result of satisfaction or confusion etched on it. I say, "Azizm (my dear), I have to go." I say goodbye to him. His little hand waves on the screen as I pressed the end call button.

Hazaras and their enthusiasm as a weapon against evil

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 Dasht-e Barchi, the Hazara neighborhood, to district 12, in eastern Kabul, which is predominantly occupied by Pashtuns. This happens despite the repeated pleas from residents of Dasht-e Barchi. Mohammad Ali Jinnah Hospital in Dasht-e Barchi, west of Kabul, was built with Pakistani aid and became functional in 2019. Removing necessary equipment from the hospital is detrimental because it directly hampers patient care and causes operational inefficiencies. 

Muhammad Ali Jinnah Hospital in the west of Kabul. Image source: social media