Afghan Americans voice struggles during war

  Photos by DANIEL WONG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Nargis Faizy, a fifth-year history student,
discusses war in her life.

By Rachel Makabi
Daily Bruin Reporter

Anila Daulatzai stared at the green-blinking lights on her
television screen the first day of U.S.-led airstrikes on
Afghanistan, wondering if the cities and camps she had visited just
a few weeks before would be attacked.

In the days following, her fears were confirmed when she
discovered that the Red Cross building she once worked at was
bombed.

Daulatzai, a UCLA alumna and a graduate student in international
public health, was working in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan
during the Sept. 11 attacks.

As she struggled to find a ticket to leave the country, she knew
others in the refugee camps would not have the luxury she had to
come to the United States.

“It just felt so wrong, and I felt so guilty because the
only difference between us was that I had the money to get out and
avoid the bombs,” she said.

“These are people who are already on the go, so now they
are like double refugees, but after everything that they have been
through, they really do put their hands in God and say
“˜Insha’Allah’ ““ “˜everything will be
ok,'” she continued.

Daulatzi was referring to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in
1979, when many Afghans were left as refugees and, she said,
America did not continue to give aid once its troops pulled out of
the country.

As people struggle to resume life in the aftermath of Sept. 11,
Afghan-Americans are contending with another facet of warfare
““ one which presses together two countries they call
home.

  Yasameen Faizy, a third-year
mathematics/economics student. “America has given me
tremendous opportunities, like an education,” Daulatzai said.
“But there is something very wrong that money my family is
paying as taxpayers is being used to bomb my people. It
doesn’t make sense to me.”

Yasameen Faizy, a third-year mathematics and economics student
and a member of the Afghan Student Association, said it is
difficult to live in a country that is at war with the country in
which she was born.

“I care for both sides,” Yasameen said. “It
really hurt me when I heard about the World Trade Center, and it
also really hurt me when I heard about the attacks on Afghanistan.
It’s not like one of them mattered to me more than the
other.”

Her sister, Nargis Faizy, a fifth-year history student, said
that though she lives in America, she will always refer to herself
as an Afghan American.

“I am an American citizen now, and I am very thankful for
that, but I will also always be proud of being an Afghan,”
Nargis said. “It doesn’t set me apart. (In) America in
general, a lot of people refer to themselves as Mexican American or
African American; we are just part of this big salad bowl that
makes up America.”

In addition to worrying about friends and family in the states,
Yasameen and Nargis are also fearful for their aunt in Afghanistan.
They have not heard from her since the beginning of the year due to
difficulty in getting letters across the border and because phone
lines are down.

“It isn’t even so much the fact that she is part of
our family; it is the idea of everyone there being in danger and
the idea of innocent lives being taken,” Yasameen said.

For Daulatzai, her concern for the Afghan refugees before Sept.
11 has multiplied as reports come in that millions will not survive
the upcoming winter because of food shortage and improper
health-care.

“The attacks on Sept. 11 were terrible and incredibly
unfortunate, but a death in Afghanistan is worth just as much, and
I feel like people are forgetting that,” Daulatzai said.

“I’m not proud to be American, Afghan or Pakistani
and I’m not even proud to be a human being these days because
of the things that human beings are doing to each other,” she
continued.

Instead of dwelling on the situation, Daulatzai said she wants
to channel her feelings into action that will help Afghan refugees
by starting a relief program and focusing on issues of
women’s reproductive health.

“Whenever I go back there and see the poverty, I recognize
my privilege, and instead of feeling guilty, I want to do something
with my privilege,” she said.

Like Daulatzai, fourth-year history student Mahboob hopes to use
his privileges to help those living in Afghanistan.

“I am very fortunate to have the lifestyle I have;
it’s difficult to see others who don’t have the basic
things I have,” Mahboob said. “It makes me feel like I
have a responsibility to use the good things I do have here to help
others.”

Mahboob said he experienced what the Afghan refugees are facing
when he and his family were forced to live in a refugee camp in
Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion.

Since the attacks, Mahboob has been involved in telling people
about the plight of Afghans in order to raise money and social
consciousness.

With some students struggling with the double impact of having
two of their countries at war with one another, some said they feel
supported by their peers and others in the community.

In the midst of panicked phone calls to Afghanistan and tuning
in to news stations 24 hours a day, Yasameen and Nargis said it was
comforting to hear friends and neighbors checking up on them,
including high school teachers from several years ago.

“I have never felt endangered here, and I have never felt
like an outsider here,” Nargis said. “I have never
gotten that feeling before, and I don’t have it
now.”

As people begin to learn more about suspected terrorist Osama
bin Laden ““ who is not an Afghan ““ and the Taliban, the
ruling government in Afghanistan, Nargis said she finds herself
explaining the situation in Afghanistan a lot more than she used
to.

“Before the attacks, most people didn’t even know
where Afghanistan was,” Nargis said

Daulatzai said most people don’t realize that although
Afghans have suffered tremendously for more than 20 years, the
suffering has made them stronger in their faith in God and in their
resolution to survive.

“It’s not that I go to Afghanistan to help them;
they are the ones that help me,” Daulatzai said.
“Despite their suffering, they have such strong values and
such a strong sense of character ““ you can’t capture
that in an article.”