HATE
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I watched my country torn apart. Don’t let it happen here. BY NAVEED AHMAD
A photo my friend took while fleeing Kabul, Afghanisan
O
n August 15th, rays of sun splashed my eyes, waking me up to a beautiful Maryland sunrise. Nevertheless, I quickly brought myself back to the reality of Afghanistan, checking my Facebook feed for updates regarding the situation in my home country. That morning, my mom had made me pancakes, my favorite. We were all seated together, eating breakfast, when I noticed that my dad seemed upset. I did not think anything of it, nor did I ask what was wrong; he worked from home and is a journalist, so it was not unusual for a journalist. After breakfast, I went to my room and checked my phone. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I thought to myself I could not have read the message properly. I skimmed through all my messages and they were all the same. One of the messages, from my best friend, struck me especially; it read, “Kabul has fallen to the Taliban. I am so scared.” I went to check the news and other social media platforms to see if it was true. Unfortunately, it was. Kabul was trending on social media. My heart skipped a beat and I immediately called my friend to ask what was going on. He was so scared and even cried at the thought of what might happen to him and his family. I tried to calm him down by saying that everything would
be fine. I went out of my room to tell my family, but they already knew about it. It was then that I came to know the reason for my father’s dismay. He had gotten the news early in the morningdaytime in Kabul-but elected to keep the news to himself. Maybe he did so hoping the news would end up being false. I cannot blame him. He has spent a couple of years working in various government, non-government, national, and international organizations and has huge hopes for the future of Afghanistan. Not only that, but my father’s brothers, sisters, and close friends still live in Afghanistan. The Taliban’s brutality continued as they tried to cement their grip on the city. Watching news footage of how people were running and crying to save their lives made me feel like it was the end of the world. The country was gripped by terror, and hearing that the government officials had fled the country was even worse. I would recall those memories of myself enjoying Afghanistan and how things were normal just weeks before this tragedy. Day and night I thought about my relatives, not to mention all of the other innocent people. Everytime these two questions came to my mind: How are they feeling? What are they going to do?
When I watched the news, I saw thousands of people in the airport trying to flee the country to save their lives. Those who were lucky pushed themselves among the crowd and somehow managed to get onto an airplane. It was chaos in the airport; people spent days and nights just to get a chance to get onto a flight. In one instance, people were so frightened by the prospect of living under the Taliban that they clung to an airplane’s wing; when the plane took off, they all fell off and died. A few days later, there was a bombing attack on the airport, killing hundreds of innocent people. The streams of Kabul, once blue and filled with water, were now red and filled with blood. Though the collapse of the democratic system in Afghanistan affected me negatively, causing me unspeakable anguish, I am still optimistic about the future of my country. I believe that throughout our history, Afghanistan has been through its ups and downs. I, as a teenager, have a lot of hopes for my country’s future. I am certain that one day the people of my country will wake up to a peaceful, bright morning, as I can in Maryland. Rather than bad news or gunfire, they will be greeted by the sounds of birds chirping a happy hymn. Naveed is currently a sophomore at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School
