Issue 36

After leaving the country and everything he knew behind, one Afghan undergoes a perilous journey before finding a new home. 

Student Journalist (The School of the New York Times) 

—Reporting from New York City—

What Yahya Qanie remembers about August 15th, 2021, the day that the Taliban retook control of Kabul after twenty years of American occupation was the eerie silence. The entire city of Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, had halted: no motorcycles, no cars, just silence. The previous day, Qanie, a 27-year-old nonprofit youth leader who represented the future of a democratic Afghanistan, told his colleagues: “We need to stay in this country, and we need to think about the future of this country.” Yet, the sight of American C-17 planes flying overhead, taking the last semblances of freedom with them, represented the total loss of hope.

Qanie was one of 124,000 Afghans who were airlifted out of the country via military aircraft in the aftermath of American withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent takeover of the country by the authoritarian Taliban. This marked the end of 20 years of American occupation, fighting the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, and other terrorist groups. Many of them, like Qanie, left behind high-status jobs and prestigious diplomas, to start new lives.

Many, like Qanie, grew up during those 20 years, immersed in American culture and values, in an increasingly progressive nation. Watching Hollywood blockbusters such as Prison Break or the Life of Pi, he developed a distinct association with America. Indeed, in university, Qanie founded his own organizations, including Kabul Model United Nations, focusing on the empowerment of youth and women, democratic goals and human rights. “I wanted to make Afghanistan like the United States,” he says. Thus, the Taliban takeover was particularly horrifying. “It was emotionally and physically very hard to accept.”

Afterwards, due to his activism and the Taliban’s crackdown on social freedoms, Qanie was a prime target for persecution. “I was just a Google search away from the Taliban,” he says. Aware that his continued presence in Afghanistan would put him and his family in danger, Qanie frantically searched for a way out, calling his contacts in the international community, including the US Embassy and the United Nations. Eventually, on the last day of the US departure, he received a call stating that one seat was available on the last evacuation from Afghanistan. Qanie, distraught about leaving his family behind, was encouraged nonetheless to leave.

Equipped with a laptop containing his life’s work, documentation, his university certifications, a pair of clothes, the 48 Laws of Power and $2000 in cash, Qanie set on a months-long journey to seek a new home, traveling through Qatar and Ramstein Air Base in Germany until he reached Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Throughout the strenuous journey, Qanie relied on his ambition to provide him solace. “I live in my dreams, in the future.” Indeed, his dream never wavered. Advised by a few friends that being a student was a good way to start a life in the US, Qanie applied to several US universities and was accepted on a full-tuition scholarship to New York University in New York City.

Qanie has found a community in the United States, receiving attention, love and care from those who understand the plight of Afghans, He is a part of International House (I-House), a program for graduate students across the world designed to promote cross-cultural understanding. “They are my family here,” he says. He is currently an advocacy fellow at Search For Common Ground, an organization advocating for peace as a means to addressing global issues, and is applying for full-time jobs.

Yet, while he has come a long way, he says that Afghans have a long way to go. “I would say my whole generation went back in time.” Some friends, he says, that were working in the presidential palace in Kabul are now starting from scratch. As such, he feels as if it is a personal duty to share his experience and advise others in similar situations. He regularly speaks to his family (who were able to leave Kabul and relocate to Belgium four months after his departure), particularly his younger brothers who are interested in attending university in the United States. “It’s up to us to identify and contribute to make the lives of people better.”

What you wish you could tell the girl you are babysitting when she says her opinion doesn’t matter: a monologue

You’ve bent my limbs and condensed my still growing body into the tight container of me when I was nine. It’s not your fault, how could you have known? I sit parallel to your long division homework and you keep scribbling correct answers like the air in the room hasn’t disappeared. If you looked up, you would see the bruise your words gave me. But you haven’t disconnected from that sheet and I haven’t yet grabbed your small hands and given you all that I have learned the hard way. I won’t tell you, because there’s math homework to be done and the cruelty of the world will flatten your hair and shrivel your kindness, but not really. You’ll never not be kind. But, you’re allowed to ration your empathy and use your best judgment. (You’re allowed to use bad judgment sometimes.) If you looked up, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from extending your bedtime to the moment a man apologizes and means it. Your voice is a hand-me-down that grows every time you don’t apologize for something you didn’t do. You’re allowed to say “excuse me” instead of sorry. You’re allowed to stand in line and get to the front. You’re allowed to not be chill. The rules of long division don’t apply to the volume of your voice. You’re allowed to use your outside voice in suffocating rooms. And while we’re talking about it, wait as long as possible to get Instagram. Wait to post the first infographic you see when you do. I had to learn too that people die whether or not your favorite social justice account posts about it. Build core beliefs. Abandoned them. You’re allowed to have a value change. Look at your screen and see burning buildings and cry during SAT tutoring. Dip your toe into politics, run for president and then get a little depressed and meet a boy at a party and forget about it all. You’ve got my vote already.

You’re allowed! Who is going to stop you? The dickhead who’s never left New Jersey? Yeah, and I’ll tell you another thing: he’s also allowed. He’s allowed to shame every person he thinks is below him, and when it’s his turn to share pronouns, he’s allowed to say, “Ummm, I’m a guy?”

You’re allowed to get on CNN and villainize. You’re allowed to get on Fox News and lie! You’re allowed to eat a soft pretzel and two cigarettes for breakfast. You’re allowed to break up with your partner for no good reason, and when you get sad and scared under your covers, you’re allowed to go back! I’m telling you, the best opinion is the one you believe in wholeheartedly. I am not as lucky, but that’s another story. No, please. Don’t ask.

Your opinion is already better than mine. I’ve read every book about the Ottomans and sat down with those who have survived and those who haven’t. Put yourself in a dangerous situation and tell yourself you can’t do it, and then leave yourself no choice but to do it well. You’re allowed to cancel a coffee date because your stomach hurts and the New York Times op ed section has selected a date for Doomsday and it’s when the reboot of “And Just Like That” season four comes out.

The opinion you have about doomsday matters, even if you don’t believe in it. Especially if you don’t believe. I’ll educate you. The history, the personal stakes. I know a soldier and a baby. I know the recoil and the sprint. But you, you, you you you don’t need permission. Not like me.

Run into the streets and stick stickers of the face of the service worker who took too long making your order. Drive a truck around with her home address on it. Tell your grandma she’s beautiful. You’re allowed to love the lines that dance on her face, and you’re allowed to love your own dancing. Steal a diary and cry like you lived through all their hardships. You’re allowed to steal, if it means empathy blooms in the corners of steel. And, I know you’ve been advised against this, but you’re allowed to pray, and actually believe. Trust wasn’t born a weapon, you’ve just been taught how to wield it.

Your opinion is so important, and I am never going to ask you back it up with footnotes. I know what it feels like to lose a best friend because my dad’s opinion on a war was so offensive to her  parents’ that   there was no other option than to stop all communication. I’m cleaning up the rubble from the havoc that opinions have wreaked. The rubble came from the Gaza Strip.

The worst offense to me is when you say you aren’t smart. You’re the smartest damn girl I’ve ever met and I’m not just saying that because I see myself in every question you ask.

Call that best friends’ dad and ask if he misses his childhood dog. Tell him you’re so sorry. Tell him you will never forgive him for not asking what you thought. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re allowed to demand someone ask your opinion and then not share it. Write a poem. You’re allowed to like your own poetry. Make up a word. Get a patent for it. Only share it with someone if they are honest with you, or buy you an expensive coffee, or listen to you ramble about a non-fiction teacher in the hand state that you’re pretty sure changed your life. Cut your hair. It looks horrible. You’re allowed to look ugly. No one deserves your beauty; they must earn it. I have spoken to every living creature and they all told me to tell you that they love your short hair.

Naomi Beinart is a sixteen-year-old girl who lives with her parents on the Upper West Side. She attends school at Saint Ann’s in Brooklyn, where she squeezes out poems on her notes app in between classes. Her writing has been recognized by multiple institutions, including Rider University, Blue Marble Review  and Scholastic.