Hope Is the Last Thing to Die

[NOTE: This the fourth letter in a series from my friend in Helmand, Afghanistan. I am withholding his identity.]

"We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual." -- Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search For Meaning)

___________________________

I have received the latest message from my friend in Helmand:

Dear David,

These days I am putting a lot of thought into how I should plan for my future. Going to Iran is not a good idea. So the only option seems to be to stay in Afghanistan. 

Afghanistan is like Auschwitz now. I will need hope and meaning if I am to continue to live here. As Viktor Frankl says in his book Man’s Search for Meaning, “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” 

So I have decided to change my plans and my dreams because I have to do so. 

I analogize Afghanistan now to Auschwitz not because of slaughter, but because of lack of hope. As a Persian poem says: “hope is the last thing to die.”

***

There are many ways to end another human being's life but they all amount to murder. Then there is an even greater crime and that is to slaughter the hope of an entire people. Normally I do not condone invoking the Holocaust when describing another situation but I understand my friend's feelings in this case on behalf of the Afghan people.

Some Afghans are being killed outright -- those are terrible crimes individually and human rights violations. But what we must realize is that we are also dealing with the crushing of the aspirations of an entire people.

If I were as great a writer as I aspire to be, these words might come easier. 

***

When I learned I was being sent by the Peace Corps to Afghanistan to work as a teacher there, I undertook a crash course in Persian language, culture and history. There were no actual courses I could attend; this was independent research and reading only.

That education continued with a brief, two-month training in Kabul, followed by trial teaching in Mazar-e-Sharif and then a permanent post at Taloqan.

I read the Quran in Taloqan and any histories of the region I could obtain. After returning to the States, I've continued trying to stay informed over the years, reading translated Persian literature and English language histories of the region.

At one point, after the Soviet invasion of the country, I tried to get a book contract and nearly succeeded, but a major New York publisher deemed there were too many books already in the pipeline and so rejected mine.

That was as close as I ever got to achieving a wider audience for my desire to capture my enduring love for the tragedy that is Afghanistan. Now it is simply my blog and Facebook.

Perhaps the best way for Westerners to approach the situation is not through journalism at all but through the great Arabic/Persian love story of "Layla and Majnun."

It is the equivalent of "Romeo and Juliet" in the West, with all of the attendant tragically romantic elements and it has inspired poets down through the ages.

In the story a boy, Qays, falls in love with a girl, Layla, but her father disapproves so they can never be together. His love grows into an obsession, thus he is forever known as Majnun, which in Arabic and Persian means "crazy." مجنون

It was common in the town where I lived for a man to occasionally be called "majnun," which is what led me to discover the myth for the first time 50 years ago. When people described a man this way it was not dismissive but more like as if he had been taken away by a spirit.

Over my life, I have come to appreciate that if I were an Afghan, I would also on occasion be called "magnum," for that is what it has been for me the very few times I have fallen in love. مجنون

Our individual lives are one matter. The fate of an entire people is another. I write now with the hopelessness of one who has fallen in love with the Afghan people but that love cannot be realized. It is making me crazy. مجنون

Their hopes are being crushed. And hope is the last thing to die.

***

This letter was edited by my friend. Her identity will remain secret. 

THE HEADLINES:

* Afghanistan in ‘darkest hour of need,’ U.N. says (WP)

* Taliban Are Poised to Map Out Their Government -- They are likely to name Haibatullah Akhundzada, a key religious leader, as Afghanistan’s supreme authority. (NYT) 

* I was a combat interpreter in Afghanistan, where cultural illiteracy led to U.S. failure (WP)

* Texas’ Near-Ban on Abortions Takes Effect After Supreme Court Does Not Act -- Abortion providers asked the court to block the measure, which is the most restrictive abortion law in the U.S., and a decision is expected soon. (NYT)

* The U.S. Supreme Court allowed a restrictive Texas law to go into effect that criminalizes abortion at six weeks and deputizes citizens to enforce the ban. The Supreme Court took no action on an emergency request to stop the law by pro-choice groups. The ban offers private citizens a $10,000 bounty if they successfully sue someone "aiding or abetting" abortion-seeking patients in Texas. [HuffPost]

* California fire approaches Lake Tahoe after mass evacuation (WP)

* Will the Caldor Fire bring the worst disaster in Tahoe’s history? (SF Chronicle)

* Despite firefighters’ best efforts, the Caldor fire burst across a granite ridge into the Lake Tahoe basin, where it now threatens tens of thousands of homes. (California Today)

* Pace of U.S. vaccinations picks up with 14 million first shots in August (WP)

* As bodies of COVID-19 victims piled up in Los Angeles County, local air quality regulators repeatedly lifted cremation limits to help cope with the backlog of corpses. The lifting of these pollution restriction raises the question: What are the environmental impacts of our deaths — and how can we reduce them? [HuffPost]

* Biden's top-down booster plan sparks anger at FDA (Politico)

* Despite Democratic lawmakers' repeated efforts to block the legislation, the Texas Senate passed a sweeping bill restricting access to the vote. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is expected to sign it into law. Texas Democrats have called the bill “anti-voter” and an “assault on our democracy.” [HuffPost]

* New Orleans power failures could pose more dangers than the hurricane itself, aid workers warn (WP) 

* ‘I Helped Destroy People’ Terry Albury, an idealistic F.B.I. agent, grew so disillusioned by the war on terror that he was willing to leak classified documents — and go to prison for doing it.  (NYT)

* Latinos across the country shifted incrementally toward Donald J. Trump in 2020. Now, polls suggest this once reliable and fast-growing voting bloc for Democrats is softening on Newsom, another reminder that Latino support for Democrats is not a given. (Politico)

* Corporate America launches massive lobbying blitz to kill key parts of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion economic plan. (WP)

* G.O.P. Election Reviews Create a New Kind of Security Threat (NYT)

* In an Increasingly Noisy Arctic. Will Narwhals Fall Silent? The marine mammals have been observed to stop vocalizing, hunting, and feeding after hearing underwater blasts. (New Yorker)

* Federal judge throws out Trump administration rule allowing the draining and filling of streams, marshes and wetlands (WP)

* She spent her life working for women’s rights in Afghanistan. She barely made it out. (WP)

* Abandoned Balloon Adopted By Flock Of Migrating Geese (The Onion)

 ***

The story of Layla and Majnun (in English): <http://www.heliotricity.com/layla-and-majnun.html>