A View from the Afghan Diaspora Tabasum Akseer
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30 Afghanistan’s displaced people: 2014 and beyond FMR 46 May 2014 A view from the Afghan diaspora Tabasum Akseer Although I have lived most of my life in Canada, Afghanistan is my family’s homeland and, along with other Canadians, we are committed to supporting its restoration. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan from by a doctor. The passion with which the clinic 1979 until 1989, over five million Afghans – is operated by two expatriates is a constant including my immediate family – fled abroad. reminder of the desires and hopes that many My parents settled in Canada in 1989 but, like Afghans abroad have for Afghanistan. many others, our family returns as regularly as possible to maintain our ties with our Many Afghans I have known in the West community and family back in Afghanistan. express their desire to return to their ancestral homeland – but only once they We are thankful for our status as Canadian have something to ‘give back’ or ‘contribute’. citizens and for the opportunities and Remittances, along with repatriation for freedoms we are afforded, yet we desire the purposes of capacity building and our homeland to return to peace so that international advocacy, are some of the we may eventually repatriate and continue more obvious ways in which Afghans in living out our interrupted dreams. While the West ‘give back’. It is difficult to make the current volatile situation makes it an accurate assessment of remittances impractical to repatriate, there are smaller because of the informal nature of such measures that many within the diaspora systems but the World Bank estimates that participate in – measures that show a remittances from abroad provide support collective commitment to the maintenance, for 15% of rural Afghan households, restoration, safety and prosperity of covering roughly 20% of a family’s daily Afghanistan. For us, with our memories expenditure. A report by the International and our allegiances, Afghanistan is not as a Fund for Agricultural Development in 2007 barren, war-torn society but rather one that estimated remittances to Afghanistan to has been neglected and is in need of repair. contribute 29.6% of Afghanistan’s total GDP.1 For example, our family makes annual trips, Dreams versus reality often for months at a time, to Afghanistan. My siblings and I had spent most of our lives For my father, Mir Ahmad Akseer Shinwari, a in Canada and knew little about the country doctor specialising in communicable diseases we had escaped decades previously. Thus, the who used to work in the refugee camps in concept of ‘giving back’ by contributing to a Pakistan, his focus has been the health and special project during our Afghan vacations well-being of those in our ancestral village and was, admittedly, romanticised. The first time I nearby, providing free medical consultations visited Afghanistan, in 2003, my siblings and from a small clinic he built years ago. My I took with us teaching supplies to support mother Ambara also plays an important Afghan girls’ education. Soon after we reached role, enabling rural women access to medical the village, however, it became clear that care; she either accompanies my father on many of the problems preventing rural girls’ house calls or sits alongside him in the clinic, access to education were logistical: unsafe providing a female presence to reassure school routes, hidden landmines, unsafe conservative women who are uncomfortable classrooms without walls or fences (hindering in such close proximity to a non-related male. purdah for females) and even local hooligans. The type of health care provided in this clinic Though a deeply conservative culture also is very basic, yet for locals it is significant and deterred some from attending school, many for some it is the first time they have been seen had support from their parents and would be Afghanistan’s displaced people: 2014 and beyond 31 FMR 46 May 2014 able to attend school if the aforementioned threats. Depending risks could be mitigated. The lack of purdah on the political was addressed initially by erecting a steel climate within fence for one of the local schools and later, their respective with the consent of our parents, by donating home areas, other some ancestral land for a new all-girls school. families within Ahmad NRC/Shahzad While our stationery and second-hand the Afghan laptops were a practical idea, realistically diaspora may the problems are more intrinsically feel differently. connected to infrastructure and safety. Drawing on In retrospect, that first trip was an interesting qualitative experience. As members of the Afghan research conducted diaspora, we had assumed we knew all the with young answers. We assumed a position of the (mis) Afghan women informed (though well-intentioned) outsider in Canada,2 my with our desire to bring change and offer opinion is that strength. It is important that Afghans within their return is Returnee refugee girls doing homework. the diaspora – and non-Afghans with the not contingent Maymana, Faryab Province, Afghanistan. passion and zeal for humanitarian goals – look on peace but beyond the immediate, quick-fix solutions rather on having ‘something to offer’. These and rather use an approach that is more active, vocal and motivated young women nuanced and focused on long-term solutions. in the diaspora have a zeal and passion for aiding the reconstruction efforts but are a And beyond 2014? resource not yet tapped by international The current transition, with all the political, humanitarian and development agencies. security and international funding implications, has not to date had an impact Tabasum Akseer [email protected] is on my own family’s plans or expectations. currently a doctoral candidate in the Cultural The area which we are mostly involved with Studies Program at Queen’s University in (Rodat district in Nangarhar) has maintained Kingston, Ontario. www.queensu.ca/ a degree of neutrality over the past ten years 1. Siegel M (2013) ‘Understanding Afghan migration’, Debating and though there are reminders of war Development blog http://blog.qeh.ox.ac.uk/?p=147 throughout the district and province, for 2. Akseer T (2011) Identity Formation and Negotiation of Afghan Female Youth in Ontario (Unpublished Masters of Education thesis), our family it has not posed any hindrance or Brock University, St Catharines, Canada. Afghan diaspora Pakistan and Iran together host some 2.5 million the diaspora outweighs its numerical significance. It Afghan registered refugees, with equivalent numbers sends home remittances on a significant scale that of unregistered refugees also expected to be present support households and communities in Afghanistan in both host countries. In addition, it is estimated (and in refugee camps), it invests in Afghanistan, and that there are some 300,000 settled in the United has contributed significantly to political processes States, at least 150,000 in the United Arab Emirates, over the past 12 years. perhaps 125,000 in Germany, and smaller numbers in Canada, Australia and across Europe. While many Extracted from: Tyler D ‘Reframing solutions for of those in the UAE are temporary labour migrants, Afghan refugees: the role of humanitarian NGOs’ the majority elsewhere are settled permanently and on p18-21; and Koser K (2014) Transition, Crisis often educated and skilled. It is estimated that there and Mobility in Afghanistan: Rhetoric and Reality, are about 10,000 Afghan refugees in India, mostly International Organization for Migration. settled in Delhi, including many Hindus and Sikhs. www.iom.int/files/live/sites/iom/files/Country/docs/ The economic and political significance of Transition-Crisis-and-Mobility-in-Afghanistan-2014.pdf .