Uplifting Afghan Stories and Storytellers

Like millions of Afghans, on the morning of August 15, 2021, I woke up to telltale signs of the looming specter of the country’s fall to the Taliban. At that time, I was the country director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based research center. An email from a senior colleague who had just arrived in Kabul a week earlier stirred me. It said that they were accepting an offer from their home country’s government for evacuation later that afternoon and that I could decide whether or not to close down our office.

My wife, who had mostly telecommuted since the pandemic outbreak, joined my daily commute to the office. Just the day before, as threats of the Taliban closing in grew, she and her colleagues — who were desperate to withdraw money — had been told to try the bank branch located within their office building’s parameters. With no luck at the bank, she headed back home only to find herself amid the chaos. At one point, she witnessed a shooting in front of a bank as she passed by. My wife and I both had worked for an organization that promoted democracy and “politics as a war without bloodshed.” It was heartbreaking to see everything unravel so quickly, dashing our hopes for political stability in our country.

The following days were fraught with tension as my family decided whether or not to leave. The options we had did not include a way out for our extended families — many of whom relied on us for financial support. Four days after the fall of Kabul, the U.S. embassy instructed its staff to go to the airport through the Abbey Gate with their immediate families. On that day, I witnessed firsthand how the Taliban treated the people who had thronged to the airport. At one point, I found myself at gunpoint after I confronted a Talib that beat a family member with a cable. We had to return home that day, but the traumatic experience compelled us to stop dithering: We knew then that a dignified life in Afghanistan would no longer be possible under the new regime. Six days later, we were able to get to the airport traveling on buses arranged by the embassy. At 11:30pm, my wife, our five-year-old son, and I boarded a military plane and we became refugees.

Twelve days after the collapse, my family and I arrived in the United States with two backpacks containing our education documents, appreciation letters from former supervisors, and a couple of hard disks that also included our digital wedding photos, which were especially valuable given that we had to shred the physical album. We also had a small suitcase with an extra set of clothes for each of us. We spent 40 days in a military base in Virginia and an additional month in a hotel and AirBnB before we rented an apartment. Without a current job, finding a permanent home was not possible. We felt grateful for the support of American friends who co-signed the lease on our apartment.

“It was heartbreaking to see everything unravel so quickly, dashing our hopes for political stability in our country.”

While grappling to process what had happened, we were being tormented by the guilt of leaving behind our extended families. During that time, we took solace in the response by New America’s Future Frontlines and Fellows Programs, which — through the creation of the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative — offered an opportunity for me and other displaced Afghan journalists, human rights activists, and champions of good governance to continue reporting on Afghanistan from afar. It has since served as both a learning and healing process.

We now approach the end of the inaugural year of the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative. Launched in the wake of the dramatic fall of Afghanistan into the hands of the Taliban, the initiative sought to cultivate a network of Afghan scholars to be a voice for millions of Afghans displaced by war and poverty. Close to 500 displaced Afghans had applied for the program. The initiative recruited and coached seven scholars now based in the United States and Europe. During the course of their fellowship, the scholars designed and undertook independent research projects around two major themes: migration and security. Scholars received specialized training in reporting techniques from New America’s partners at Bellingcat and the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley.

The migration team developed a podcast series through a partnership with The Intercept that will go live in early September. Each episode of “No Way Home” draws on the personal experiences of the Afghan scholars and documents the harrowing scramble to escape life under the Taliban and the struggles so many displaced Afghans have faced as they’ve tried to piece their lives back together. The first episode looks back at the flawed evacuation operations carried out by Western countries immediately after the swift fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban from August 15 to August 31, 2021, when the United States completed the withdrawal of its troops from the country. The second episode covers the tragedies associated with irregular migration into neighboring countries and onward to Europe following the withdrawal of U.S. troops and the Taliban’s takeover. The third episode centers on the Afghan evacuees as they attempt to cope with the challenges of resettlement and integration. Finally, the fourth episode zooms in on a survivor of the horrific suicide bombing orchestrated by the Islamic State Khorasan Province at Kabul airport that also killed 13 U.S. marines.

The security team conducted extensive research and dozens of interviews with veteran Afghan military and intelligence officers as well as high-ranking officials in the government of former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani to find out how and why the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorated so dramatically. The outcome of those investigations will also be published by The Intercept and New America’s Future Frontlines program.

All seven of the scholars are in exile. In fact, five of them — Mir Abdullah Miri, Maryam Barak, Abdul Qayoom Suroush, Fahim Abed, and Elyas Nawandish — were evacuated following the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban. Like me, they’ve left family and friends and homes behind, and they’ve all had to reckon with the possibility that they may never see their homeland again. Some are in the U.S., afloat in a country that is largely responsible for their fate but that is eager to move on after two decades of war. Others are in the U.K. and Europe, places that have been less then welcoming for Muslim refugees and riven by political divides over an influx of millions of refugees from the Global South. All have struggled to make sense of the strange irony that has left their families and communities feeling like pariahs while millions of displaced Ukrainians have been warmly embraced.

In the face of these challenges, the scholars showed great resilience, building new lives while simultaneously working on their projects under the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative. When the weekly program workshops began in early March 2022, four of the scholars — Mir, Maryam, Abdul Qayoom, and Fahim — were resettling in the U.S. and Europe, while one — Elyas — was still stuck in an evacuation transit hub in Albania. As talented and ambitious Afghans, they stayed deeply engaged in the Observatory work, even as they navigated themselves and their families through turbulent changes that came with their new lives. For me personally, it has been a rewarding experience to work with these young Afghan scholars who have gone through similar experiences as myself.

The Afghanistan Observatory Initiative is not just about building a network of Afghan scholars. It's also about the success story of a fruitful collaboration between a variety of partners that came together in the wake of the collapse of the Afghan government to help Afghans and provide a platform for their stories to reach a broader audience. For example, the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley and Bellingcat — training partners of the program — conducted intensive hands-on and practical courses for the scholars and trained them in open-source investigation techniques.

The Carnegie Corporation, the Open Society Foundations, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund provided generous support for the program. Arizona State University (ASU) is an important contributing partner. Two of the Afghanistan Observatory Scholars, Summia Tora and Fahim Abed — along with the Director of Future Frontlines Candace Rondeaux and I — traveled to Phoenix, Arizona, to participate in the “Cronkite Global Week: Conversations Surrounding Global Challenges,” organized and sponsored by ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications Global Initiatives. The two scholars and I shared our insights on the human rights situation in Afghanistan as well as our perspectives on what's next there. We also organized a discussion between Afghanistan Observatory Scholars and journalists engaged in the Humphrey Fellowship at Cronkite about the challenges they have all faced in reporting in tough environments and their experiences reporting in the United States.

The rich partnership formed across these diverse organizations is a testament to their shared commitment to the mission behind New America’s Afghanistan Observatory Initiative: to give Afghans a voice and a platform to tell their own stories. For me, to know that my colleagues and I are working to document aspects of the failures that led to the collapse of the Afghan government and help deliver accountability has brought deep purpose to an otherwise agonizing experience.

As Afghanistan continues to face an uncertain future, it is more important than ever to center the unique stories of its people, to ensure that these rich perspectives are not lost or overlooked. It is my hope that the Afghanistan Observatory Initiative continues to expand, offering more Afghan scholars and storytellers a space to grow their talents and deepen their contributions.

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