Fieldnotes on Humanity

Afghanistan's modern history is shaped by significant violent events, wars, coups, and foreign invasions. One such event took place on August 15, 2021. On this day, Ashraf Ghani fled the country without notifying his cabinet and security apparatus, and so, he let the Taliban take over without any fight. Today marks the 4th year of the fall of Kabul to the hands of the Taliban. Though outwardly bloodless in its first hours, what followed in the coming days was nothing but a bloody, violent takeover.   It is a dark day by any measure. The fall of Afghanistan brought an abrupt end to the Hazara's liberation, a period that brought a brief respite to their relentless persecution and genocide. Today, Hazaras are being completely excluded from politics, barred from participating in government programs, contracts, and barred even from occupying menial jobs in their own districts and principalities. Thousands of Hazara families are being evicted from their villages and homes; instead, ...

American anthropologist Louis Dupree, in the early 1980s, coined the term "migratory genocide" in reference to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent displacement of hundreds of thousands of Afghanistani refugees to neighboring countries. His point was that the Soviet invasion had caused the forced displacement of the local population. In other words, Soviet forces deliberately employed military tactics to make people abandon their homes.  Now, the Taliban are doing precisely what the Soviets did, even worse than that but they are doing it against the Hazaras people. Recently, in the Panjab district in Bamiyan province, the Taliban forcibly evicted 25 Hazara families from their homes , essentially imposing forced displacement. Since August 2021, more than a thousand families in different regions of Hazaristan (or Hazarajat) have been forcibly displaced from their homes and villages. This is a clear example of the same "migratory genocide" or what coul...

My early education began with poetry recitation. And so goes the answer when people have asked me, so far, what made me interested in poetry. There is a grain of truth in it but that is a whole different story that I need to write later. But now, an Iraqi poem. I first heard this poem in Farsi, not Arabic, a long time ago in Iran. I was a refugee. I was attending a poetry gathering when a young Hazara poet stepped up to the podium and said, “Today I’d like to read a poem by an Iraqi poet.” I don’t remember if he mentioned the poet’s name, or whether it was even his own composition, but what he said stayed with me. I listened intently. The poem deeply resonated with the Hazara people, those who have been driven from their homeland, Hazaristan. It captured the sorrow of exile and the search for a meaningful way to express that longing. The version he read had already been translated into Farsi. As he recited it, something about the rhythm and emotion drew me in more and more, and before...

It seems Voice of America is finally close to being completely dismantled . Two days ago, a federal court in Washington, D.C., declared it would not intervene with presidential decisions. This means the court case that the Voice of America filed is no longer relevant. It is sad to see that VOA is going entirely, but it is probably good if the network is reshuffled and rebuilt, say, if it happens to return in four or so years from now.  The Afghanistan section was a total propaganda, the network did not have a good reputation in the past either, but in the aftermath of the US troop withdrawal and subsequent takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, VOA both Dari and Pashto sections shifted their narratives and ways of covering the news to cater the Taliban's ideology. In other words, VOA was sliding towards becoming the mouthpiece of the extreme ideology of the Taliban from afar with the US taxpayers' money. During my fieldwork, I talked to two employees, both females, and both co...

There is an "Afghan" restaurant in Saskatoon, Canada. It is called "Kabuli Authentic Afghan Cuisine & Café" or " Kabuli Cafe ". It is located at 325 3rd Ave N, Saskatoon. My sister worked in this restaurant for a few months. She was underpaid, $12 an hour, while others were paid $15 and above. She was told that a trial was needed, and then she would be on payroll, which never happened. The owner still owes $450 and refused to pay my sister's salary, and she could not file a complaint because the restaurant owner refused to provide paperwork. I looked at a few transactions in my sister's bank account. To my surprise, the payment was accompanied by slurs and curses, which my sister did not understand because her English is not very good. One transaction with an optional message goes “here is your money, stupid woman.” When I told her what her boss wrote to her, she felt sorry about her and her situation. "Maybe her malicious comments had to...

Recently, I became aware that some individuals whose names appeared as authors of a notorious submission , one laden with falsehoods, accusations, and hatred against the Hazara community in Australia, have expressed remorse. Some even claim they were unaware that their names had been used at all. Assuming, for the sake of speculation, that some individuals were indeed unaware of their names being used, there are legal venues resolving the issue. I looked online and realized that if a person's name is used in a document (any) without knowing or giving consent, serious concerns might be raised regarding misrepresentation and harm.   Let's approach this issue with a few questions:  What can a person do when their name is used in a document, online or offline, without their knowledge or consent? What legal options are available, and who might be held accountable? In this case, Arezo Zoe Safi, a registered solicitor, and her cousin Atal Zahid Safi appear to be central figures in t...

In my earlier post , I forgot to mention an important point: Arezo Zoe Safi is actively spreading hatred and hostility toward the Hazara community in Australia. Arezo, who was born and raised in Australia and has likely only visited Afghanistan briefly, has no direct lived experience of the country’s ethnic tensions, yet she chooses to vilify Hazara advocates speaking out against systemic violence. She is the niece of Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai , a prominent Afghan politician who formerly led the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and later served as the acting Minister of Defense.  On her  Facebook page  in 2023, she, while unemotionally controlled, launched a disturbing attack against Sitarah Mohammadi, a respected Hazara lawyer and activist, questioning why Sitarah should be allowed to speak about the ongoing genocidal violence targeting the Hazara people. Arezo appears particularly outraged at any suggestion that Pashtun groups, among others, bear responsibili...

The guy got trounced. I’m talking about Zahid Safi, the same man who attempted to enter the Australian Parliament under false pretenses. He allegedly faked his MA degree , misled people about his business record , and has a troubling history of hostility toward the Hazara community. Most recently, he tried to win support from Bruce through fear and intimidation . But the residents saw through the facade and rejected him, sending a clear message: he is dangerous and unfit for public office. Earlier, I unintentionally predicted the outcome of the election in the Division of Bruce in one of my blog posts titled “ Fake it to break it ,” referring to a candidate whose credibility was questionable due to a pattern of deception. The Liberal Party's decision to endorse him was flawed from the beginning. Now, some within the party are calling for a “ serious review ” of what went wrong. But the core issue is already clear: you didn’t listen to the people. Members of the Hazara community in ...

In my previous post, when I wrote that Afghans brought the persecution of the Hazaras to Australia, there was a reason. Clear signs of this persecution have emerged. Just yesterday, The Guardian Australia reported that Zahid Safi's campaign team has escalated their tactics. According to journalist Henry Belot, the team is now pressuring members of the Hazara diaspora, claiming that voting for anyone other than the Liberal Party constitutes a betrayal of Abdur Rahman Khan, often referred to as "Afghanistan's Hitler." Zahid campaign volunteers, mostly made up of Pashtuns, have told the Hazaras that we have to resurrect Abdur Rahman Khan.  Labor alleges the volunteer told people that a vote for anyone other than the Liberals would betray Khan, and called for him to be “brought back”. Khan is linked to the Hazara genocide in the late 1800s. “I am concerned that the reason Liberal volunteers are invoking Abdur Rahman Khan’s name is to harass and intimidate members of the ...

Afghans, and more precisely, in this case, a small number of Pashtuns residents of Bruce, are now rallying to support Zahid Safi. His campaign has already taken a hit: the manager has stepped down following backlash over offensive online remarks, and notably, there’s no Australian presence within Safi's team. In Bruce, the Safi clan, a large network of families sharing the same last names, has stepped in. Wearing matching blue, round-necked T-shirts and covering their paunches with bold “SAFI” lettering, they pose with forced smiles for the cameras. It may look like a campaign gaining momentum, but beyond appearances, what’s missing is substance, brain power, integrity, and a genuine understanding of basic responsibilities, such as not lying, not discriminating against people based on their ethnicity or race. Someone should tell this guy to go to the community and apologize for your blatant racism and take down the submission. Learn some decency. Someone needs to say it plainly: d...

In my previous post , I wrote: “The rotten stench is rising from the corpse of the Australian Liberal Party’s pitch for the division of Bruce in the upcoming federal election.” There was a reason for that choice of words. The Liberal candidate, Zahid Safi, has now been revealed as a university dropout. It reminds me of George Santos, who successfully made his debut in the US Congress for a brief period but was recently sentenced to seven years in a New York federal court for a slew of deceptions. So how did someone like Zahid slip into the ranks of the Liberal Party? The answer is clear: fake it to make it but now, it ironically translates as fake it to break it. The candidate has become a laughingstock. Touted as a wildly successful businessman, Safi’s record tells a very different story: businesses that were de-registered because of being unable to pay the fees, listed under a fake address, peppered with phony reviews, and littered with stock images. The most successful part in h...

The rotten stench is rising from the corpse of the Australian Liberal Party’s pitch for the division of Bruce for the upcoming federal election. In a recent exposé for The Age , journalist Charlotte Grieve uncovers a disturbing truth: Zahi Safi, the man being paraded as a "successful businessman" by the party, is little more than a fraud. Many of Safi’s businesses appear to exist only on paper, at best. Take Willow Support Services, an NDIS provider supposedly owned by Safi. When Grieve visited its listed address, she found not an office or facility, but a private residence. It gets worse: multiple Safi-affiliated businesses have been deregistered since March for failing to pay basic fees. His websites are padded with fake reviews, featuring photos recycled across countless unrelated pages. The so-called reviewers? Their LinkedIn profiles list them as being overseas and spread across hundreds of pages on the web. Faced with this mountain of fakery, Grieve wonders the obvious:...

Here are the six individuals, along with some background, who co-authored the 2021 parliamentary submission (see page 3, document number 43) targeting the Hazara community—an inquiry widely criticized for its blatant racism, distortions, and falsehoods. The submission resurfaced recently after The Guardian Australia revealed that one of its authors is none other than Atal Zahid Safi, also known as Zahid Safi, the current Liberal candidate for Bruce, an electorate with one of Australia's largest Hazara populations. The irony is hard to miss. In their submission, the authors attempt to frame Hazaras as a national security threat to Australia (see page 14). At one point, they even write: “The Australian Government should work closely with key stakeholders from the Afghan Diaspora, including the authors of these submissions.” In other words, they’re positioning themselves as the authoritative voices of the community, people to be consulted, reconciled with, and trusted. The implica...

In my previous posts , I discussed corruption within the RFE/RL bureau, specifically Radio Azadi, in Kabul. I also alluded to another serious issue: sexual harassment. In this post, I want to share a few specific examples to shed light on what occurred during the bureau’s early years. At the time, and still, Radio Azadi broadcast its programs in two major languages: Farsi/Dari and Pashto. Each language section operated under a separate editor, and every report or segment created by journalists had to pass through these editors before being sent to Prague for broadcast. While the editorial review process was intended to ensure quality and consistency, it was frequently misused by certain opportunistic men to exploit their female colleagues. Many of these men were married, yet that didn’t stop them from making inappropriate advances toward the women they worked with. One of the more insidious methods of control was the misuse of editorial authority. Let me explain how this played out. Ea...

It would have been better if Radio Azaid, the Afghanistan Service, had been renamed Radio of Pashtuns. Radio Azadi, which means a free radio, is a misnomer for a radio that is strongly controlled and catered towards Pathun ethnonationalism. Radio Azadi not only amplified through its biased programs but also discriminated against hiring Hazara applicants and employees. This post is in a series of blog posts that I have decided to write about Radio Azadi, reflecting on my experience and the experience of others who worked in this organization.   When Radio Azadi opened its bureau in Kabul, it hired four Hazara employees; the rest were mostly Pashtuns and Tajiks, except the administrative manager and a guard who belonged to the Turkman ethnic group. Two Czech technicians from Prague hired me; had they been Pashuns or Tajiks, I had zero chance of employment. A year later, I was fired just because I was a Hazara.  A year later, only one Hazara remained. The rest were pushed ou...

On January 20, 2015, Radio Azadi, the Afghanistan Service, purposefully published a parnicious video report from Herat, located in western Afghanistan, which was subsequently published on its website, YouTube , and social media platforms. The report centered around Iranian influence in Afghanistan, and the reporter sought to cast doubt on the presence of Hazaras in Herat. In the report, the reporter visits the Jebrael neighborhood, a Hazara-majority area, and claims that Jebrael suddenly appeared in what was once an empty plain. The implication is clear: the Hazaras were not originally from Herat but were recently brought there by Iran. The reporter further questions local residents, asking if their homes were built by Iran. One elderly man responds, firmly stating, "No, we built everything with our own money and with our own hands." The underlying message of the report is that the presence of Hazaras in Herat is part of a covert Iranian government plan to establish a corrid...

In my previous post , I wrote about theft at Radio Azadi. Here’s an example: The RFE/RL Afghanistan bureau in Kabul had just moved from the Mustafa Hotel in the buffer zone, located between downtown and Shahr-e Naw, to Wazir Akbar Khan, a more opulent and safe neighborhood. It was sometime in late 2002. The city's electricity was rarely available, let alone reliable, so the office has received permission from the main office in Prague, the Czech Republic, to purchase a generator to provide electricity to our newly built two studios plus nearly 45 desktop computers. I was a technician and, therefore, was responsible for any technological problems.  I went to Shahr-e-Naw and found a computer shop owned by a Herati merchant that sold German generators. It was nearly two years after the people of the Taliban regime, and finding a powerful generator was like a dream come true. The only generator that the store had was 5000W, which was considered pretty good given the scarcity. Plus, if ...

When Kari Lake was nominated as a special advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media, some media outlets reported that Trump had asked Lake to gut the government agency that oversees Voice of America (VOA). Instead of gutting, Kari Lake dismantled the agency, which oversees six organizations, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America. I don’t know much about the other organizations that were closed, but I know a lot about Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Afghan Service, known as Radio Azadi . (to call it Azadi, which means freedom, is a misnomer; I will write on this more in an upcoming blog post). I worked in its Kabul bureau as a technical manager in 2003. I was responsible for all communication tools, technology, radio broadcasting, and relay systems. I know how corrupt this organization was. I mean corrupt in every sense, ethically and financially. During the time I worked, male journalists would openly demand sex from their female colleagues in bro...

This morning, I was walking along a winding path through the university campus until I reached the bottom of the hill. From there, I followed the serpentine path upwards. Along the way, I saw a beautiful butterfly adorned with red and black spots. I knelt down quietly to take a short clip and share it with my nephew, Amir who is in fifth grade. The emergence of such a beautiful butterfly was mesmerizing. I didn't move for a minute, just to appreciate its beauty and presence in such an early spring. I haven't seen a butterfly yet. Just as I was gingerly prostrating over the grass while filming, it flew off timidly. Without hesitation, I shared the short clip with Amir. "Hey Amir, check out this surprise of mother nature," I texted, accompanied by a smily emoji. He immediately called, and we briefly video-chatted, after which I continued. As I was meandering through the hills, a not-so-distant memory suddenly rushed to my mind—the moment when I had walked this same pat...

Photo source: x/twitter One of the questions that has preoccupied the minds of contemporary Hazaras is: Who are we, and where do we come from? This question has no historical basis, but nevertheless, a question is a question. So, why is this question raised in the first place? Who is asking it? What has fueled this question more than anyone else is not the Hazaras themselves but the non-Hazaras, the Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan. The origin of this question lies among those who do not consider the Hazaras native to Afghanistan. It stems from those who claim that the Hazaras are outsiders and that they arrived in Afghanistan with such-and-such army in such-and-such century, but they never bother to question or think about their originality, how they did come to Afghanistan. This question also originates in the inhumane attitudes and behaviors of members of the dominant ethnic groups towards the Hazaras, which persist to this day. The roots of this discriminatory outlook lie with th...