[NOTE: This is the latest in a series of letters from a friend inside Afghanistan who shall remain anonymous. He describes conditions on the ground since the Taliban took power in late August.]
Dear David:
Autumn has come, but I barely know it. From a lifetime of experience, I know the pattern. Just as flowers announce the coming of spring, in autumn the trees reveal the change as the leaves turn yellow.
But this year, all I see is the timelessness of despair. The sullen faces of the vendors who can’t sell their wares. The sorrowful faces of the laborers who, lacking work, must go home day after day empty-handed. The woman wearing her burqa, sitting in the street begging for money.
The only shift I can feel is that from warm weather to cold.
We are trapped here. No matter how much we scramble, we cannot escape from this morass.
Sometimes despair penetrates me so deeply that it’s all I can do to drag my exhausted body through the motions of living. And sometimes a window as small as the eye of a needle offers the chance to dream, to imagine I can flee, sowing the seed of hope in my heart.
In the darkest times I think that this misery is my fault, that I haven't tried hard enough in my life. I am always tired, and with no good choices. I always seem to make the wrong ones. But finally I realize that it is this time and this place that are to blame. That I am not alone in this hardship – I and my countrymen are all in the same sinking boat.
We cannot survive without begging. I hear, see and read that my countrymen beg for asylum from every country, but most often we are deported, humiliated. Still we clean the sweat of embarrassment from our forehead and put our hand back out to keep begging. We’ve learned this behavior from the so-called leaders of our half-stable government over the years. Our politicians have danced to the tune of every country’s anthem to collect more charity.
As I write today, two quotes are on my mind. One is from the Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz: “Home is not where you are born; home is where all your attempts to escape cease.” If this is true, I have been homeless all my life.
The other is from the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish: “Exile is more than a geographical concept. You can be an exile in your homeland, in your own house, in a room.”
Thus I have lived all my life in exile.
Because I was born in Afghanistan.
***
Normally, I choose to let my Afghan friend's words speak for him and do not add my own comments. But today's letter brings up a topic I often struggle with: Depression.
A common assumption among both therapists and patients is that the cause of depression is internal, personal. Perhaps it was something in the way we were raised, something from our childhood. Or maybe some sort of chemical imbalance in our brain.
But what if one of the major causes of depression are the conditions in which we too often find ourselves -- alone, disconnected, powerless, ill, poor, abandoned, hopeless?
I would recommend reading today's letter in that context. And then ask yourself, "Why wouldn't he be depressed?"
***
THE HEADLINES:
* Women in Kabul return to work, school and the streets, in defiance of the Taliban (CNN)
* Can Nuclear Fusion Put the Brakes on Climate Change? (New Yorker)
* In Alaska’s Covid Crisis, Doctors Must Decide Who Lives and Who Dies -- Amid the nation’s worst Covid-19 outbreak, patients are trapped in remote communities and doctors are prioritizing treatment based on who is most likely to survive. (NYT)
* VIDEO: Tens of Thousands of Gallons of Oil Leak Into Pacific Ocean (AP)
* Private financial records shared with The Washington Post and media partners in more than 100 countries expose vast reaches of the offshore system used to hide billions of dollars from tax collectors, creditors, criminal investigators and — in cases involving 14 world leaders — citizens around the world. (WP)
* Foreign money secretly floods U.S. tax havens. Some of it is tainted. -- A burgeoning trust industry in South Dakota and other U.S. states is sheltering the assets of international millionaires and billionaires — some linked to money laundering, corruption and worker exploitation — by promising levels of concealment that rival or surpass those offered in overseas tax havens. (WP)
* Taliban raid suspected IS hideout after bombing in capital (AP)
* Skateboards, Climate Change and Freedom: Germany’s Next-Generation Parliament -- A new generation of lawmakers is entering Germany’s Parliament. They felt ignored by the previous government, so they set out to change that by winning elections. (NYT)
* A whistleblower who worked on Facebook's civic misinformation team during the 2020 election said in an explosive "60 Minutes" interview that the platform fails to weed out "angry, hateful, polarizing content" because it drives engagement and makes money. [HuffPost]
* European politicians call for Facebook investigation after whistleblower revelation (Reuters)
* The Facebook Whistleblower, Frances Haugen, Says She Wants to Fix the Company, Not Harm It (WSJ)
* In Mexico, Nearly 100,000 People Are Missing -- Nearly 100,000 people have disappeared in Mexico. Their families now search for clues among the dead. (NYT)
* Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones lost another lawsuit — his third in a week — seeking damages for his lies that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax. A jury will decide later how much he'll have to pay. [HuffPost]
* In a Surge of Military Flights, China Tests and Warns Taiwan (NYT)
* Protecting indigenous people key to saving Amazon, say environmentalists (Reuters)
* Russia film crew set to blast off to make 1st movie in space (AP)
* Vietnamese Americans, Once Displaced Themselves, Mobilize to Help Afghans (NYT)
* A landmark opioid trial puts spotlight on pharmacy chains CVS, Walmart and Walgreens (NPR)
* California may be the first state to try treatment that pays people not to use meth. (KQED)
* Swedish 'Mohammad' cartoonist Lars Vilks killed in car crash (Reuters)
* The Bay Area’s opioid crisis is only getting worse (SFC)
* The San Francisco Giants won their division title on the last day of the regular season with the best record in the major leagues (107-55) and the most wins their storied franchise history. (DW)
* In fantasy baseball, the Mud Lake Mafia for the first time in its 20-year history won the championship in the Champs of Summer League. (DW)
* Walls Of Congress Dissolve Into Endless Blue Void As Zuckerberg Informs Lawmakers There No Way To Escape Facebook (The Onion)
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