NOTE: For the past year, since the Taliban assumed power, I have been publishing the letters and conversations I am having with a friend in Helmand Province, 39 to date. He is a young, well-educated Hazara man whose English has been improving rapidly through the process of working with me. I edit his words lightly for publication. His identity must remain secret to protect his safety and that of his family. His dream is to publish in English in the West. Please contact me if you can help.
Dear David:
One year has passed since we have fallen under the rule of an illiterate, totalitarian, religious extremist group.
For me, the past year has felt like a century of being thirsty in a remote desert, waiting for a caravan. I ran for every exit, trying to escape this nightmare, but each path was only a mirage.
All over Afghanistan, insecurity has increased, poverty is rampant now, many have lost their jobs, one hundred thousand became immigrants, women have been imprisoned at home, the price of food doubled, and the rate of suicide became higher.
These are all according to reports from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the United Nations.
Many bad things have happened in our family, and to my friends. My younger brother, 16, tried three times to be smuggled to Iran, but each time he was arrested, tortured by the Iranian police, and returned.
Four months ago, my older brother, 30, wanted to illegally cross the Iran-Turkey border and go to Turkey and then to Europe. He walked over the mountains and plains for weeks. Then, after crossing the Iranian border and reaching Turkey. he was arrested by the Turkish police who kicked him like a soccer ball back to Iran, where he was handed over to the Iranian police. They kicked him back to Afghanistan.
When the Taliban came, they took all the key jobs. As a result, thousands of people lost their income, including five of my friends. Now they are doing hard labor in Iran to provide food for their families. Musa, a friend of mine, is a case in point. He was a professor in one of the colleges. Two weeks ago, Musa was fired on the pretext that he was incompetent, even though he was the only one who had a master's degree among his thirty colleagues on the faculty, and was highly competent.
But because he is Hazara and defenseless, they easily booted him aside.
That is what has become of us in Afghanistan.
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