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Here We Are Born

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Here We Are Born REFUGEE UNSETTLED AS I ROAM: MY ENDLESS SEARCH FOR A HOME AZMAT ASHRAF Suite 300 - 990 Fort St Victoria, BC, V8V 3K2 Canada www.friesenpress.com Copyright © 2020 by Azmat Ashraf First Edition — 2020 Cover Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information browsing, storage, or retrieval system, without permission in writing from FriesenPress. ISBN 978-1-5255-6382-9 (Hardcover) 978-1-5255-6383-6 (Paperback) 978-1-5255-6384-3 (eBook) 1. biography & autobiography, personal memoirs Distributed to the trade by The Ingram Book Company A true story of a family’s search for a home over three generations, told by one family member, in his own words. Dedicated to the courage and resilience of millions of refugees around the world. TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword ................................................................................ VII SIXTH MIGRATION ...................................................................... 1 BIRTH OF A REFUGEE ................................................................. 13 FIRST MIGRATION ....................................................................... 23 To the Land of Opportunity ......................................................... 23 The Innocent Sixties ................................................................. 35 The Maghreb Rule .................................................................... 41 The First True Friend ................................................................ 47 Life at Cadet College ................................................................ 51 The Writing on the Wall ............................................................. 61 The Summer of Our Lives .......................................................... 67 Elections and the Black Eid ........................................................ 71 Death of the Federation and Genocide of the Biharis ....................... 85 The End of a Dream ................................................................. 97 Homecoming Like No Other ........................................................ 129 SECOND MIGRATION .................................................................. 157 THIRD MIGRATION ...................................................................... 177 FOURTH MIGRATION ................................................................... 195 Rafiq in Saudi Arabia ................................................................ 195 Visit to My Birthplace and Catching Up with the Little Big Man .......... 205 The Forgotten Folks in Bangladesh .............................................. 217 FIFTH MIGRATION ....................................................................... 225 Back in Pakistan ...................................................................... 225 Calls from the Past .................................................................. 231 Acknowledgement .................................................................... 243 Foreword The lottery of birth decides where we are born. No one has a say, and no one can fix it, yet it can be utterly cruel on some for no fault of their own. For centuries parts of humanity have been persecuted, evicted, and forced to flee. Beyond the headlines, the pain and suffering of these people go largely unnoticed except by men and women of exceptional courage who stand up to protect them, often risking their own lives. Both the victims and those who stand by them need to be understood, and their resilience in the face of insurmountable odds should be celebrated. IX SIXTH MIGRATION Have you lived a life. and where is it, where is it? —A A RON Z EITLIN from A Visit to The Abyss Flight PK 782 has taken off from Karachi. I recline my seat in an attempt to relax by closing my eyes, but it’s in vain. My mind wanders despite my efforts to restrain it. I want to focus on the present, but it refuses to listen, as if it has a will of its own. It seems to be simultaneously in two lands—the past and the future. Like hundreds of thousands of refugees forced to flee their homes before me, my past is nothing but a collection of memories of hide and seek, and my future is yet to unfold. That is why I want my mind to focus only on the present, to rein it in, to no avail. In an effort to regain control, I pry open my eyes. I think of starting a conversation with my daughter, Sahar, sitting next to me but then decide not to. Instead, the glossy airline magazine provides a diversion as I flip though it aimlessly. The plane has left Karachi far behind and is now travelling over the Arabian Sea. At night there’s hardly anything to see outside except the carpet of fluffy multilayered clouds below. In the moonlight they appear like a collection of soft, giant cotton balls, their tips rising in places as if wanting to touch the aircraft, but they soon give up as the aircraft climbs higher. Due to light turbulence, the captain has kept the seatbelt sign on as the flight attendant dashes up the aisle to remind a lady passenger in the front of us to remain seated when she gets up to reach for her bag from the overhead compartment. Sarah (17) and Samia (16) appear engrossed in conversation while Sahar (13), sitting between her mom and me, reads Harry Potter. After the long day she has had, my wife, Fatma, is too tired to keep her eyes open and dozes off, relieved to be able to finally put her 1 SIXTH Migration feet up. On the face of it, there is nothing unusual about a family travelling together, but this is hardly a holiday trip. Soon my eyes become heavy too, and I start losing grip on the present. Once again, my impatient mind starts wandering aimlessly. Where did it all begin? I ask myself as I try to revisit my first migration— the train journey that I made on my mother’s lap back in 1953. I have no memory of it, yet I try to imagine what it would have been like. Excited about his first train journey, my elder brother, Iqbal, keeps looking out of the window, not complaining about being hungry, not demanding anything, just content to enjoy the scenery. Oblivious that he may never see his friends back in the village again, occasionally wiping his eyes with his shirt as the coal dust from the locomotive blows over his face, forcing him to pull away from the window. Then as darkness falls, he slowly crawls next to Mother to fall asleep. Suddenly, the deafening shrill of the train’s whistle jolts him out of his slumber, sending a chill down his spine. After a brief respite, the shrill returns, piercing the young boy’s ears, forcing him to huddle ever closer to Mother. He grabs a corner of her sari to reassure himself that he would not lose her if he goes back to sleep again. Tossed around in the ocean of humanity by the tides of history, a refugee for life, I begin to revisit all the migrations I have experienced. They start to flow in, one by one: 1971, 1972, 1977, 1989, and tonight, August 2002. This journey may be the one to end all those in the past, or it could turn out to be yet another episode in my never-ending quest for a home. They say every word that hurts one in childhood leaves a deep imprint on one’s mind. More so if that happens to be a contemptuous nickname given to a child by others. The words “Bihari” and “refugee” were etched on my heart early in life. Ever since they have been competing to replace the name my parents gave me. In school, a sense of insecurity would prompt me to hide my Bihari identity. Slowly but surely I would emulate the Bengalis and learn to speak their language fluently. But despite all my precautions, frequently I would be found out and be embarrassed for no particular reason. Carrying the deep scars of the numer- ous migrations on my soul, I continue the unfinished journey of my life. Memories of childhood run wild in my unsettled mind. I hear the faint 2 REFUGEE laughter of my brothers playing in the courtyard as I feel a creeping pain in the corner of my chest. Then, in an instant, my mind switches back to the present. It tries to convince me that this is a new beginning. Unlike in the past, this migration of 2002 is planned, and I am in control of the events. It tries to reassure me that the penalty for failure will be less severe this time. But it still cannot tell me why I have to keep running. As I try to imagine my new life in Canada, I am loaded with the luxury of hope and cushioned by my small savings to sustain my family until regular employment or business or something works out. I am not the least afraid to rough it in what will still be a five-star location with a welcome sign com- pared to the tribulations of the migration my parents faced, when unknown hardship lay ahead even as they were escaping from riots and bloodshed. They found respite and joy in their new home. For a while they even prospered. But in less than twenty years, it all caught up with them again. When their options ran out, surrounded by bloodthirsty vigilantes in 1971, my parents would have given their limbs to have their offspring transported to the safety of a place like Canada. Today the low probability of my own success in finding a suitable livelihood at age fifty is far outweighed by the prospect of a better life for my young daughters. They are being transported to a place where they can live and flourish without any fear of persecution. Then I pause to think again. Human nature doesn’t change, and in the post-9/11 world, the people from my part of the world may have to face new and unknown challenges even in Canada. Therefore, I cannot answer the one question that has been eluding me: how many times will the Ashrafs have to migrate before they settle down in one place? For how many generations will they remain refugees? Then it dawns on me that perhaps my final resting place will be the one that my children begin to call home; perhaps it will be Canada. Over the past few weeks, I quietly watched every interaction my wife had with her mother. It felt like I was watching a replay of the conversations between my own mother and my grandmother almost fifty years earlier.
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