They’re not going back where they came from. As you read this, hundreds of thousands of human beings who have never even seen Afghanistan are being sent to the country of their ethnic origin.
Brace yourselves as news of one of the largest cases of forced migration on the planet unfolds, because sad stories abound. We are not merely talking about the political activists, artists and people associated with the erstwhile Afghan regime, who have a target painted on their backs as soon as they go back. But we are talking about the ordinary people who have absolutely no bearing in that country and do not know the lay of the land to begin with. In fact, some who have married non-Pashtun Pakistani nationals and who have lived outside the Pashtun belt within Pakistan, have begotten children who don’t even know Pashto, what to speak of Dari.
We are sending scores of little girls and young women to perhaps the only country on the face of the planet whose (de facto) government has banned female education.
Plenty of activists are rightly talking about the need to provide nationality, and therefore retain, individuals born in Pakistan. But a case can very well be made even for those who weren’t born in Pakistan but have stayed here for decades, on humanitarian grounds, especially considering the nature of the current regime in Afghanistan.
Of those Afghans that have Proof of Registration (PoR) cards, there are reports of some being bussed out because of clerical and bureaucratic errors.
As the world watches with horror the genocide that is happening in Gaza by the fascist Israeli state, we need to take stock of our own sins, as responsible citizens of the world. Speaking out against atrocities on the other side of the world, though important, is easy. To have the moral fortitude of calling it out in our own backyard is difficult.
