Forced and voluntary return

I tried to walk faster but not so fast that it would look like running, which would let the Iranian police know that I (as an Afghan-Hazara) was scared and trying to flee. I didn’t look back, fearing they might notice. As soon as I got near the house, my hand froze on the doorbell, until the door opened and I jumped inside, relieved that I had once again evaded the Afghani-Begir (Afghan catching) police. It was the summer of 1995, and I was 16, living in Golshahr, Mashhad, Iran, as an Afghan forced migrant. I was always vigilant, my eyes constantly scanning the distance for police cars to avoid being caught off guard by the Afghani-Begir police. Even though I had a residency card (Blue card), it was of no use because if the police caught me, they would just tear it up and then issue a deportation letter to Afghanistan. Things were bad then for Afghan-Hazara in Iran; the arrest and forced deportation of Afghans was rampant, as it is nowadays (UNHCR 2024).

At that time, the forced return/deportation of Afghans was always portrayed as ‘voluntary return’ in the Iranian media. This was the case while Afghanistan was still at war, and the newly emerged Taliban were openly hostile towards the Hazaras (the largest migrant population residing in Iran), which later led to the mass killings of Hazaras in Mazar Sharif (1998) and Bamiyan (2001) (see Chapter 1). In discussions with family and friends about going/returning to Afghanistan, we never used the term ‘voluntary return’. We used the word Rad-e-Marz, which literally means to forcibly expel someone across the border and get rid of him or her. Rad-e-Marz implies compulsion, deportation, and fear, the fear of suddenly losing family, work, education, your life! My greatest source of fear was the unknown on the other side of the border, Afghanistan itself, a country that in my mind was another name for war and bloodshed. This was what I often heard about Afghanistan from the media. Sometimes I imagined Afghanistan through the stories of my parents as a remote village somewhere in Daykundi—a mountainous area with long, cold winters, pleasant summers, and refreshing springs of cold water. At the same time, poverty, suffering, and war were the dominant themes of the stories we heard from the mountains.

Contrary to the concept common to migration studies of the ‘myth of return’, I don’t recall my parents expressing a desire or longing to return to Afghanistan. In their conversations, return was more often mentioned as a threat and a source of worry. My father passed away in Mashhad in 2017, having lived approximately four decades of his life as an Afghan-Hazara migrant in Iran. He had lived in Iran more years than he had in Afghanistan. He had worked in Iran more than he had in Afghanistan, dug channels for telecommunications, gas, and sewage with his shovel and pickaxe, helped to build many buildings, and contributed to the prosperity of the city, yet he was not allowed to be a citizen of that city. In Iran, access to citizenship is extremely limited and in practice inaccessible for most Afghans.² As an Afghan-Hazara migrant, he had very limited job options, limitations that were enshrined in law in Iran. We were seen as uninvited guests in society, unwelcome guests-workers!

In 2008, despite having graduated from university, I couldn’t envision a future for myself in Iran as an Afghan-Hazara-forced migrant. I considered moving to Afghanistan. The serious idea of moving to Afghanistan began when some of my friends, after graduating from universities, went to Afghanistan through the Return and Reintegration of Qualified and Skilled Afghan Nationals from the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (RRQSA) programme, facilitated by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). This initiative is designed to encourage Afghans to ‘return’ to Afghanistan by finding placements for participants in either governmental or non-governmental private institutions, providing them with an eight-month temporary contract, including good salary provisions. I applied and was accepted for the programme in 2009. When I informed my father of my decision to move to Afghanistan for work, he didn’t say anything. He neither encouraged nor discouraged me. But it was clear from his face that he was worried. At that time, nearly three decades had passed since he had left Afghanistan, and it was likely that much had changed (politically, socially, economically), especially since Afghanistan had once again come to international attention after 2001 and the defeat of the Taliban. But he was still worried, and I couldn’t quite grasp why or why he himself had no desire to return!

The name of the programme sending me to Afghanistan intrigued me: Return and Reintegration of Qualified and Skilled Afghan Nationals from I.R Iran to I.R. Afghanistan. I grappled with the terms ‘return’ and ‘reintegration.’ ‘Return’ didn’t seem right to us—many of our generation had been raised or born in Iran. Some of us had never been to Afghanistan, and some of us had grown up in Iran with no memories of Afghanistan. Thus, going to Afghanistan felt more like a new exile than a ‘return’, more like ‘integration’ rather than ‘reintegration.’ For me, everything was new, as if I was migrating to a new country.

After crossing the border, as soon as the taxi filled with five passengers, we started heading towards Herat and the sound of music was turned up. It was Ahmad Zahir, one of the few Afghan singers I knew. I had listened to this music over and over again working in carpet-weaving and tailoring workshops in Iran when I was a child. Listening to Afghan music with an Afghan driver and Afghan passengers in Afghanistan was delightful, something I hadn’t heard in the public sphere in Iran during my lifetime there! All of this awakened a comforting feeling in me that I had never experienced in Iran, yet I was very cautious at the same time, as the environment was foreign to me. I had mostly lived in ghetto-like neighbourhoods like Golshahr on the outskirts of cities dominated by Hazara people like me, and I had little interaction with or understanding of the other ethnic groups in Afghanistan, only a vague impression formed from the internal wars in my mind, a hostile impression!

Upon entering Jebrael, another ghetto-like marginalised neighbourhood on the edge of Herat city in Western Afghanistan, I felt a greater sense of familiarity and comfort. Jebrael was a township established by Hazara displaced within Afghanistan and returnees from Iran. Most of my friends who had returned from Iran had settled around the major cities of Kabul, Herat, and Mazar. No one was returning to their villages in the central regions of Afghanistan. The harsh nature, scarce and infertile lands, and successive droughts had put the few remaining inhabitants of the Hazara villages at risk (in Bamiyan, Daykundi, Ghor, and Ghazni), forcing some to migrate to and settle in the outskirts of the big cities in search of work.

The increase in the Hazara returnee and internally displaced population in some cities, like Herat, was always accompanied by tension and conflict with the host community. Later due to my job as a researcher, I had the chance to travel to different provinces and converse with a variety of people. In 2011, during a visit to Herat, I chatted with a local identifying himself as a native Herati. He voiced his concerns regarding the influx of ‘migrants’ and ‘non-native’ residents in Herat. He drew a clear line between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ referring to the newcomers as ‘migrants’ and ‘non-natives’ who predominantly resided along the outskirts of the city in settlements like Jebreal. He viewed their presence as a potential threat to the cultural and demographic fabric of Herat, an area with a majority Tajik population and old history and bright civilization. This ‘othering’ and racialization of displaced Hazara wasn’t new to me, as I had often heard about this hostility from friends and family living in Herat’s suburbs.

My destination was Kabul. Kabul was a unique and different place. Despite its dusty and dirty streets, it was full of life and activity. It felt like you could meet people from all over the world there, including every Afghan ethnic group. Besides those who had come from remote Afghan villages, there were people who had come back from Pakistan and Iran. They were now joined by foreigners from places as far away as America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia. By comparison, Iran seemed much more homogenous than Kabul, which had really turned into a world city, full of diversity that was both new and exciting to me. The city was filled with the loud music of happy Indian and Afghan songs, something you wouldn’t find in Iran. It was amazing to see how, after years of war and hardship, music could still be so powerful, bringing life and energy to the community. The bright and happy clothes worn by both women and men were really uplifting, reminding me of Bollywood films.

In Kabul’s streets and alleys, people spoke Farsi with a Kabuli accent, but there were many different Farsi accents present: Panjshiri, Badakhshani, Bamyani, Kandahari, and Herati. Also, in some offices in Kabul, you could hear foreigners with different English accents, including American, British, New Zealand, and Australian, as well as English spoken with French and Italian accents. I had no trouble understanding people or making myself understood in Farsi; I could understand almost all the accents. Even though the Kabuli accent was seen as the standard and was everywhere—in the streets, markets, and media—giving it more importance, the variety of languages in Kabul really showed how inclusive and international the city had become after years of continuous war and conflict.

This diversity of people, accents, and languages created a good feeling in me. I felt satisfied to have left Iran and come to diverse Kabul. I was happy to have found work through my education, feeling valuable and useful, but most importantly, I had become hopeful about the future. I could think about the future, dream, something that had been denied to me in Iran. What could be more important than that for a person who had lived his life as a migrant with all sorts of limitations? This happiness and hope made the lack of amenities less bothersome. In Kabul, we usually didn’t have electricity at night or even during the day, the noise of generators was nerve-wracking, the streets were full of dust in the summer and mud in the winter, there was no drinking water, and public health standards were not observed, but I was increasingly focused on the future. I was happy to play a role in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

Accent, identity, and power

My first day at work started with meeting the IOM team in Kabul to introduce me to my workplace in one of the government departments in Kabul. Walking into the IOM office in Kabul was a surprise. After spending a few days in the vibrant and diverse city of Kabul, the office seemed homogeneous. Everyone I met was Pashtun and spoke Pashto between themselves, which I couldn’t understand. I looked around for some familiar faces but found no one. The IOM office didn’t represent Kabul’s diverse character. This big difference in diversity between the city life and IOM office was disappointing. It wasn’t a good sign.

Accompanied by an employee from the IOM office, we went to my workplace. I was introduced to the head and a few colleagues. Again, the diversity that I had seen in the streets and alleys of Kabul was absent. The group was relatively uniform, though this time most spoke Farsi. The colleagues were mostly Tajik. Yet again, I searched for a Hazara face, but there were only two others who, like me, had recently come to Kabul from Iran through the IOM programme. The Hazara features and Farsi accent distinguished us from our other colleagues. Our accent was not entirely Irani (Tehrani, Mashhadi...), not entirely Kabuli, and not entirely Hazaragi. It bore signs of all these, yet it was none of them, it was/is a distinct accent reflecting our mobility.

Our salary was approximately six times higher than that of a regular government employee starting their career in the public sector. The same programme by IOM was also accessible to Afghans residing in Europe, encouraging their participation in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Their salaries were five times higher than ours, and they had their European passport, which would allow them to return to Europe whenever they liked. This salary difference had created a kind of resentment among the other employees towards us in the department. In addition, we had not endured the hardships and sufferings of the war, had fled Afghanistan to Iran, had the chance to study abroad although with difficulty, and now had ‘returned’ to Afghanistan as qualified and skilled Afghan nationals. Often, the struggles and hardships of forced migration were overlooked by those who had never left Afghanistan.

I soon realised that in Kabul, with its vast diversity of people and accents, my mixed accent was deemed less legitimate and was sometimes challenged at work and in public as an ‘Iranian accent’. In public spaces, I could feel the disapproving looks and comments from others, which was unpleasant. We were accused of losing our ‘Afghan’ culture and identity and adopting an alien culture and accent. A label often used for returnees from Iran was Iranigak which literally means little Iranian, usually meant in a mocking and derogatory way. Gradually, in public spaces, I took more care to speak with a Kabuli accent and avoid speaking in a mixed accent or Iranian accent and tried not to use Farsi words common in Iran but not in Afghanistan. My friend Ahmad, a Hazara who returned from Iran and was working on a contract basis in a ministry, listened to Khane-Naw, Zendegi-Naw (‘New Home, New Life’), a programme on BBC Persian radio, and would repeat sentences after the presenter to learn the Kabuli accent. However, sometimes it didn’t work. He once told me that during a disagreement over a fare with a taxi driver, he remarked, ‘No problem, I’ll get another Mashin’ (car in Iranian Farsi). The driver mockingly responded, ‘Go get another Mashin,’ sneering as he echoed the term. In Afghanistan, the word for car is motar.

Beyond the streets and markets and into the media, we witnessed similar experiences. In 2009, on the ‘Afghan Star’ singing competition, Elaha Soroor, a Hazara Iran-born returnee girl, participated. For her audition, she sang a song called ‘Sultan-e Qalbha’ by the Iranian singer Aref, in the style of Ahmad Zahir, the famous Afghan singer. Her Iranian accent was clearly noticeable. She was told by one of the Pashtun judges with his accented Farsi, ‘Sing an Afghan song, whatever it is, just make sure it’s Afghan.’ Elaha tried to sing an Afghan song, but her accent tended to revert to Iranian accent while singing. Once again, the judge scolded her: ‘Whenever you sing, do not sing with an Iranian accent, only sing with an Afghan accent’, yet singing in Hindi was tolerated. Interestingly, despite all the challenges, Elaha Soroor managed to reach 8th place in Afghan Star in 2009, which was a significant achievement for a Hazara girl who had returned from Iran. Now she lives abroad and has become a professional singer.

Our mixed accent, which in Iran could sometimes act as a protective shield against hostility and violence in the host society, had become a tool for exposure to hostility and violence at ‘home’, in Kabul. In both societies, I learned (tried to speak) with another accent (Kabuli, Mashhadi, Tehrani) more for protection and legitimacy rather than assimilation or integration. Protecting against potential dangers, safeguarding against verbal violence, and shielding from demeaning glances were all important measures against a dominant and hostile society. However, these efforts were often in vain, as our distinct physical Hazaragi features set us apart from the dominant members of society (Iranians in Iran and Pashtuns and Tajiks in Afghanistan). Accent was highly hierarchical and intertwined with ethnicity and power in Afghanistan history.

The Iranian accent in Hazara returnees from Iran sometimes limited their access to resources and job opportunities in contrast to those who returned from Europe or America. Ahmad, who had become fluent in the Kabuli accent after several years, mentioned that there was a debate in the ministry he worked for about giving a job to a returnee from Iran. Despite his high skills and qualifications, the ministry’s leadership was reluctant to place him in the position because it was a public relations position that attracted media attention and there were still faint traces of an Iranian accent in his speech. Additionally, there were concerns that his accent could have been suspicious or questionable to some American donors too, given the hostile relations between Iran and the US.

The presence of American military forces in Afghanistan was perceived as a threat by Iran, which shares about 900 kilometres of border with Afghanistan. Iran was under sanctions imposed by the United States, and as a result, Afghanistan’s trade and political dealings with Iran were approached with increased caution and scrutiny. American donors in Afghanistan explicitly stated that no Iranian goods should be purchased with American funds in Afghanistan.

In this setting, the Iranian accent of the so-called Iranigaks, regardless of its cultural and social dimensions as a consequence of migration, was understood in an entirely political context. The Iranian accent of Hazara returnees was perceived as a continuation of the ideological influence of Iran’s Shia rule in Afghanistan. Linking Hazaras to Iran was used strategically to suppress their political movements in Afghanistan, such as the Roshanaee ³ (Enlightenment) movement in 2016. Even nowadays, some Hazara political leaders and intellectuals are concerned about being linked to Iran by Pashtun and Tajik political leaders in Afghanistan. This concern persists even though Hazara people (and Tajiks and Pashtuns) migrate to Iran for pilgrimage and work, a pattern that has existed for centuries. This political misuse by dominant political ethnic groups is problematic. Iran, as an ideologically Shia, Farsi speaking country, is mistrusted in Afghanistan, a predominantly Sunni country governed by Pashto speakers, and was always under suspicion, especially in a country under the influence of the US and Europe.

As a result, these accents, along with other cultural markers like clothing, food, and music, born from the Hazaras’ forced migration to Iran, were not trusted. Instead, they were viewed as signs of political loyalty to Iran and as a drifting away from Afghan culture. This perspective served as a basis for a new layer of discrimination by the more dominant groups, effectively leading to Hazaras being racially categorised upon our return from Iran. Accents, in this context, took on a political dimension far beyond the usual consequences of migration, becoming entangled in the larger geopolitical tensions and domestic power struggles within Afghanistan.

Furthermore, Hazara returnees from Iran who spoke with a Hazaragi accent found themselves lacking in perceived legitimacy within the public sphere and were often subject to ridicule. The long-standing history of discrimination against Hazaras had pushed the Hazaragi accent into a private sphere, such that when used in public settings, it was deemed insufficiently legitimate for interaction and consequently marginalised. Against this backdrop, the act of speaking in a Hazaragi accent and the public embrace of Hazara cultural symbols effectively became a form of resistance against their marginalisation.

The presence of Hazaras, especially those returning from Iran with a distinct accent, was hard to digest within the system, as historically, Hazaras had been conspicuously absent from both governmental and non-governmental institutions. Our emergence, especially in senior roles within these institutions, represented a departure from dominant traditional, social, and political norms, making their acceptance difficult and subject to scrutiny. The assembly of several Hazaras in a single office space was often met with suspicion and provoked questions and sensitivities, contrasting sharply with the unremarked and normalised presence of other ethnic groups in similar settings, which aligned with the established historical, social, and political expectations and did not invite suspicion.

In 2014, I was working at a non-governmental organisation within a research institute focusing on human rights. I was one of the senior employees and usually participated in job interviews. For one of the positions, the most suitable candidate based on meritocracy was Hazara. After the interviews, one of the non-Hazara managers, a member of the interviewing panel, openly apologised to me and then stated that we should not hire more Hazaras, claiming we had enough Hazaras and that hiring more would create sensitivities and disrupt the ethnic balance. Such a perspective was a result of the deep-rooted historical bias in the minds of individuals within Afghan society against Hazaras.

During a stay at a non-Hazara friend’s house in Kabul, an evening conversation with his father brought up the common question of my origins in Afghanistan, a detail deeply intertwined with one’s identity. Upon learning I was from Daykundi, a province predominantly inhabited by Hazaras, he remarked on the hardworking nature of its people. This observation, while intended as a compliment, resonated differently with me. Despite hearing similar remarks even in London, the label ‘hardworking’ carried a bittersweet undertone for Hazaras, more reflecting a history of systemic deprivation than a positive trait.

The perception of Hazaras as hardworking is rooted in their historical exclusion from higher education and government roles, relegating many to menial labour in Kabul’s markets—a testament to their resilience in the face of discrimination. Within my circle, it’s rare to find anyone whose relatives were part of the governmental or non-governmental sectors, academia, or national media. This gap in our collective history poses a profound question for the current generation of Hazaras, highlighting a legacy of exclusion and the ongoing journey towards inclusion and recognition.

National labels

When I was in Iran, I got tired of anything labelled ‘national’—I resented it. The term ‘national’ made me question my identity every day and reminded me I didn’t belong. Sadly, in Iran, lots of things were tagged with ‘national’. The national anthem, national ID, national car, national park, National Bank, National Library, National Iranian Oil Company, National Iranian Gas Company, national production, national team, even national shoes, everything was branded as national and, of course, Islamic. ‘National’ was an exclusionary term, and Afghan forced migrants were positioned as outsiders, a potential threat to this ‘national’ integrity and disruptive of it.

I recall, whenever the Iranian national football team played, I found myself automatically supporting the other team. It felt like Iran was my opponent. Particularly during matches against South Korea, Japan, or China, I somehow saw a reflection of myself in their almond-shaped eyes, even though that was the only thing we had in common. Those same almond eyes that always caused us trouble in Iran. The racialisation of Afghan forced migrants in Iran is manifested through the physical appearance of Hazaras who are exposed to overt racism, discrimination, and physical attacks, while for other Afghan ethnic groups (Tajik and Pashtun), their facial features, similar to those of Iranians, are a protective shield.

When I went to Afghanistan, my issue with national suffixes intensified. In Afghanistan, the problem was that I couldn’t understand most of the national things because they were in the Pashto language. The national ID card was in Pashto, the national currency had inscriptions in Pashto, and the national anthem was in Pashto. I didn’t know the national anthem and didn’t feel any connection to it because I couldn’t see myself in it. During ceremonies when the national anthem was played, I would silently observe my colleagues who would sometimes hum the anthem with pride and joy. Playing the national anthem at the start of events was common in Afghanistan, often interpreted as patriotism. I participated in this display, playing my role in silence. Either I was not part of the nation or the anthem wasn’t national. I had become sceptical of all things labelled national. The national things challenged and denied me in different ways both in Iran and Afghanistan. I (a Hazara Shia Farsi Speaker) was also disrupting the dominant national order in both countries.

One day in 2012, I went to the Ministry of Finance in Kabul for an interview for a research project. I was supposed to interview a young woman who worked in a high position at the Ministry of Finance. I didn’t know Pashto, and she didn’t understand Farsi, so we began to speak in English. She spoke English with an American accent, while my English was broken. Both of us were discussing significant national issues of Afghanistan in a non-national language. We were speaking the language of donors, which was more important and powerful than the national languages in Afghanistan. She had become a compatriot and co-linguist through migration to the donor countries. Probably, when my parents migrated to Iran, her parents had migrated to the West as they might have had better resources.

Returnees from Western countries with Western passports in their pocket, often secured better job opportunities and commanded higher salaries, leading to resentment among Afghans who had endured the difficulties of decades of conflict. These Afghans found themselves with only a minimal portion of the international aid and investment entering the country on their behalf. In a derogatory fashion, those who had returned from the West were pejoratively termed Sag Shoi (dog washer). As dogs are considered najes (ritually impure) in Islamic tradition, the label implied that these returnees had engaged in menial or demeaning tasks in the West.

Kabul became a hub for numerous international NGOs, which sought returnee or local employees fluent in English. As a result, learning English became a widespread pursuit, transcending its practical utility to become a benchmark for assessing an individual’s knowledge and skills. In this environment, the concept of Khareji, denoting a foreigner or outsider, assumed a status of prestige and desirability, specifically referring to individuals from affluent Western nations. Iranians and Pakistanis did not fit into this category of Khareji. Typically, the ideal Khareji was imagined as someone white, with blond hair and blue eyes, setting a standard that marginalised other foreigners as less important. This distinction underscored the complex dynamics of global influence and local perceptions in Afghanistan.

In 2011, I travelled to Nangarhar province in eastern Afghanistan with a work team to collect data for a research project. I was in charge of the team, having trained them for data collection and conducting interviews. People in Jalalabad spoke Pashto, and few knew Farsi, which frustrated me as I struggled to communicate with the locals. However, I accompanied kind and friendly Pashtun colleagues in the field during the interviews, dressed in traditional attire as usual. A Pashto-speaking colleague approached a bakery to conduct an interview when the baker upon seeing me left his oven and rushed towards me, starting to speak in English: ‘Hello, how are you?’ Surprised, I responded with a smile and in English, ‘I’m fine, how are you?’ Suddenly, my colleague burst into laughter and said: ‘He isn’t Khareji, he is Afghan.’ Although my appearance didn’t closely resemble that of a ‘standard’ Khareji, the baker had assumed I might be from East Asia due to the absence of Hazaras in that area and was excited to see me in his bakery.

Besides English, which was considered the primary power in the hierarchical language system, many jobs in Afghanistan required proficiency in the national languages (Pashto and Farsi). Priority was given to those who were fluent in both national languages. Pashto, more than being a communicative necessity in the workplace in Kabul, had become a technique for excluding Farsi speakers from job opportunities. Those of us who had returned from Iran were automatically disqualified from many jobs because we did not know Pashto, the more ‘national’ language. Pashto was part of the curriculum in primary and higher education in Afghanistan, and Farsi speakers who had been educated in Afghanistan were familiar with Pashto to a basic extent, enough to fit into the dominant national order and have a better chance of employment than those of us educated in Iran.

My friend Karim, a Hazara returnee from Iran who had studied English literature in Iran and had a high proficiency in English, had started learning Pashto because he had lost a good job opportunity at an international organisation solely because he didn’t know Pashto. It was fascinating to me how, over two decades (2001–2021), everyone tried to find a way to bypass the Pashto language barrier in job interviews. For example, one recommendation was to always write in the CV under the Pashto language skills section: ‘Currently learning Pashto.’ Sometimes, this expressed interest in learning the more ‘national’ language solved the problem. Some Pashtun employers were satisfied just seeing us trying to become more ‘national.’ Sadeq, who didn’t know Pashto, in a job interview, when asked about his Pashto proficiency, started singing in Pashto. He had memorised one of the songs by a famous Pashto singer. It was effective—the panel members were pleased, and he got the job.

National ID (Tazkera)

With rage and in a Hazaragi accent, he shouted: ‘Aren’t we citizens of this country? If we are not considered citizens, then tell us we are not! If we are, then why won’t you solve the problem and give me the National ID?’ Then, with even greater anger, he yelled: ‘I don’t even want this National ID anymore!’ The tired and angry old man tore up his National ID application and the attached documents, throwing them towards the sky. The National ID office worker was taken aback by the old man’s fury, seemingly not expecting it and slightly shocked.

In my heart, I admired him; how bravely he had stepped forward with his Hazaragi accent, striking right at the heart of the matter with honesty and courage: ‘Aren’t we citizens of this country?’ Even years later, every time I face discrimination and prejudice his words still resonate in my mind with that Hazaragi accent. Usually, those of us who came from Iran became prey to the corruption in Afghan bureaucratic systems, and with our mixed (Mashhadi, Tehrani, Hazaragi, Kabuli) accents, we did not dare to protest—we were more likely to compromise. How could one protest in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, with a Mashhadi or Tehrani accent? It wasn’t legitimate enough.

Ali’s Mashhadi accent was noticeable. When applying for a National ID card and speaking Farsi with a mix of Kabul and Mashhadi accents, he was treated with mistrust and suspicion. His father had migrated to Iran 40 years ago and had passed away there a few years before, without a National ID card. Ali’s elderly mother also did not have a National ID card. Ali had lost contact with his relatives and kin in Afghanistan long ago. He knew no one, having only recently arrived in Afghanistan. To obtain a National ID card, he needed to find a National ID card of a father, uncle, brother, or close first-degree male relative and, in addition, find two currently employed government workers who could testify they knew him and confirm his residency in a specific city, village, or town. Many of us did not know anyone in Afghanistan, let alone have government employees as acquaintances.

We had just arrived and still did not understand the language and the relationships governing Afghan institutions. A good network or money solved all administrative and national issues in Afghanistan, but we had neither such a network nor had we accumulated enough money during the years of migration. Therefore, we became easy prey in the corrupt administrative environment of Afghanistan, searching for national documents to prove that we are Afghan nationals and establish our lives and homes in Afghanistan.

Fluid spaces and identity

At home in Kabul, I sometimes listened to Iranian music, read books published in Iran, and enjoyed some Iranian dishes. Occasionally, I watched Iranian movies and series or films with Iranian dubbing. At home, we spoke in our mixed Farsi accent, but outdoors, we tried to speak more in the Kabuli accent.

Gradually, in the 2010s beyond the private spaces of our homes, in the Pul-e-Sorkh area of Kabul, restaurants serving Iranian cuisine began to emerge, such as Nan-e Dagh Kabab Dagh, Negin Asia, and Khalifa Avaz, all offering dishes with Iranian flavours. Iranian sweets and traditional ice cream were also available. Many bookstores had opened, primarily selling books printed in Iran by Iranian authors and translators. As cafes were established, they became gathering spots for Iranigaks, where people sipped green and black tea and coffee, discussing everything from migration, art, literature, discrimination, corruption, to suicide bombings. Occasionally, in the evenings, I would go to the traditional restaurant Maiwand, and hangout with my friends (often with experience of living in Iran), to drink tea and share stories. Although the spaces created in Pul-e-Sorkh carried some cultural symbols of Iran and were labelled as Iranigak, the perception of Iran in those spaces was extremely negative. Most Hazara people with lived experiences in Iran had largely bitter memories of life there, were averse to Iran’s ideological atmosphere, and felt a sense of solidarity with Iranian dissidents and members of the arts and literature community who criticised the current conditions in Iran.

Despite the bitterness of migration in Iran, one of the most significant achievements of the Hazara diaspora was the educated individuals who returned to Afghanistan, revitalising the cultural and educational landscape in western Kabul and throughout Afghanistan, even though they were largely excluded from political and economic power. Around Pul-e-Sorkh in Kabul, private universities were established by Hazara returnees from Iran. I, too, taught part-time at some of these universities. In these universities, lecturers were not forced to disguise our hybrid accents, which posed less of a challenge even for non-Hazara students. These professors, who often struggled to overcome the corrupt and discriminatory hiring processes at Kabul’s public universities, succeeded in creating their own educational and cultural spaces around Pul-e-Sorkh. The demand for such education was very high, attracting many young people from more distant provinces to Kabul, Herat, and Mazar for their studies.

My friend Davood, who held a doctoral degree in social science from Iran and was a senior lecturer at one of these private universities, had applied for an academic position at Kabul University. A non-Hazara senior lecturer from Kabul University, who only had a bachelor’s degree, conducted his job interview. Ultimately, he was not accepted for the position at Kabul University for reasons that were unclear to him, but we all knew that the underlying reason was the usual discrimination against Hazaras, especially those who had returned from Iran. Ironically, several years later, when the first master’s courses were offered at this private university, that same Kabul University senior lecturer attended classes taught by the same Davood who he had rejected from Kabul University.

In liminal places like Pul-e-Surkh in Kabul and Golshahr in Mashhad, national identity boundaries blur, leading to the emergence of a new space that is neither fully Afghan nor entirely Iranian. Instead, it embodies elements of both while remaining distinct from each. Identities in such spaces are fluid but constantly face challenges amid the struggles of nationalist powers that branded some identities as national and others non-national. These hybrid identities are often seen as a threat and typically marginalised and perceived as outside the conventional national and patriotic norms.

Re-migration

From 2015, there was an alarming surge in suicide bombings and explosive attacks targeting the Hazara community, a trend that persists into 2024 under the Taliban. The improved security trumpeted by the Taliban regime does not extend to Hazara communities. These attacks have occurred in schools, educational centres, places of worship, hospitals, sports centres, cultural and commercial centres, voter registration sites, protest gatherings, and public transportation, especially in Hazara-dominated areas, notably in western Kabul. These attacks did not target any specific military, political, cultural category, or age or gender group; simply being Hazara, regardless of any category, is enough to be targeted. It is a Hazara genocide (Hakimi, 2023).

The continuous explosions disrupted the daily lives of Hazara people, filling commuting with fear and caution. Whenever I used public transportation, I thought about explosions and death. This fear of being blown up accompanied me in all public spaces. The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’s government failed to protect the Hazaras and did not show a serious desire to stop the attacks.

In 2016, tired of the discrimination we faced and the disheartening social atmosphere, filled with corruption and violence in the political landscape, I posted a poem by Langston Hughes, the African American poet, translated by Ahmad Shamlou, the Iranian poet, on Facebook. Shamlou had replaced ‘America’ with ‘homeland’ in his translation, and for me it referred to the fragile situation in Afghanistan and expressed the desire for this country to truly be our homeland:

And I too had wished to let this homeland be a homeland for me, for all Hazara. A former colleague commented under my post, ‘You have a homeland, your homeland is Iran’. In the aftermath of each suicide attack targeting the Hazara community, the idea of leaving Afghanistan weighed heavily on my mind. The fear that a tragedy might strike my family haunted me, stirring worries that I would be consumed by self-blame if any harm came to them. However, the prospect of migrating back to Iran, where our extended families resided, was no longer an option we considered. I was determined to find pathways to Western countries instead. To return to Iran would feel like stepping back into a past I had struggled to move beyond, a sentiment none of us wished to revisit.

In 2021, when the Taliban took over the capital, I was living in a building with seven apartments. All the families had something in common: we had grown up in Iran as migrants, had been educated there, and then returned to Afghanistan. To make those difficult days a bit easier (from August 15 when they rolled into Kabul to my evacuation on August 19), we would gather together, all the while thinking about how to leave Afghanistan. Everyone was considering moving to the West. However, for many people, moving to Iran remained the only possible choice for survival, despite the discrimination humiliation, and restrictive policies they would face.

With the Taliban’s control over the country, conditions for minority groups like the Hazaras worsened, involving arrests, removals from offices, and forced relocations to seize Hazara lands. Furthermore, widespread unemployment and poverty have led to a significant number of people migrating towards Pakistan and Iran.

Evacuated from Afghanistan to Poland on August 19, 2021, I subsequently moved to the UK to finish my doctoral studies that had started in 2020. While living in Afghanistan, I struggled to forge a bond with the concept of a homeland. This detachment was deeply rooted in my experiences and interactions within Afghanistan. While living in Iran as an Afghan migrant, my perception of homeland was shaped, mainly as a response to the discrimination I faced there.

I gradually came to understand my father’s silence about returning to Afghanistan and his lack of interest in living there. His apprehension stemmed from enduring the prejudices of being Hazara in Afghanistan. Despite the passage of time, the fall of multiple governments, and the rise of new ones, certain realities remained unchanged. The bias against Hazaras persisted, underscoring a continuity amidst change.