Invisible Wounds: The Story of an Afghan Student

Symbolic image: AI-generated / Zan TV

By Mursal Qaisari

Sometimes I think that perhaps the heaviest thing an Afghan migrant carries is not a passport, a visa or even the suitcase brought from home. The heaviest burden is being Afghan.

I am a third-year international relations student in Pakistan. Like any other student, I attend classes in the morning, study late into the night, worry about exams, miss my family and work towards a better future.

The greatest difference between me and my classmates lies in one thing: whenever someone asks me, “Where are you from?”, my answer means more to them than a simple response and sometimes becomes the beginning of a misunderstanding.

A few months ago, while returning to my dormitory after visiting my sister, the taxi was stopped at a checkpoint.

The police officer was initially speaking to the driver when he noticed me. I do not know how, but I think he realised that I was not Pakistani.

He did not ask where I was from. He simply said, “I think you are Afghan.”

Although I had all my legal documents with me, my heart trembled because I was alone.

I said, “Yes, I am Afghan.”

He then asked for my documents one by one. First, I showed him my student card and dormitory card so he would know that I was an international student living legally in Pakistan. But he insisted, saying, “Legal documents.”

He meant my visa and police registration document. Fortunately, I had everything with me and showed them to him.

I understand that checking documents is part of the responsibility of security forces and that no country can maintain security without enforcing the law. As an international student, I also consider it my duty to respect the law. But what troubled me was not the law itself. It was the feeling I experienced while it was being enforced.

During those few minutes, I felt that before they saw me as a student, they saw me as an Afghan. I felt that I had to prove I was not a threat to anyone.

After checking my documents, they showed them to another officer and photographed all of them. I could not even ask why. They then returned my documents and said, “You may go.”

That night passed, and I thought perhaps it was something that had happened only once and would not be repeated. But a few weeks later, the same thing happened again.

Once again, I was returning after visiting my sister. I rarely leave the university or dormitory alone, but it was my sister’s birthday, and I wanted to be with her so she would feel less lonely and far from our family. I had to return at night because the final semester exams were approaching.

On the way, the taxi was stopped again. This time, the police officer asked me, “Where are you from?”

At first, I said, “I am an international student.”

He smiled and asked again, “From which country?”

I remained silent for a moment because I knew what was coming.

I said, “I am from Afghanistan.” He immediately asked for my documents. Unfortunately, I did not have a printed copy of my renewed visa with me. I only had the file on my phone.

As I searched through the folders on my phone for the file, my hands trembled. Not because I lacked the document, but because I did not want anyone, even for a few minutes, to think that my presence was illegal.

Since that day, I have repeatedly asked myself: why do we Afghans always feel that we must explain ourselves more than others? Why do we sometimes have to speak about the legality of our presence before introducing our personality, education and dreams?

For years, Afghanistan has been associated in the world’s mind with war, suicide attacks, migration, the Taliban and crisis. This image has been repeated so often that people sometimes forget that Afghanistan is not only war.

Afghanistan is the thousands of students studying at universities around the world.

Afghanistan is a girl who, despite every hardship, continues to fight for education.

Afghanistan is young people whose only dream is that one day their country will be known for knowledge and humanity, not for news of war.

Our pain is not that we are asked for documents or that the law is enforced. Our pain is that we sometimes feel our nationality has become a prejudice before it is simply a nationality.

Perhaps no one notices that brief look, the pause of a few seconds or the change in tone. But for someone who has experienced it repeatedly, each one is a small wound, a wound that cannot be seen but slowly accumulates in the heart.

Despite all this, I still say with pride that I am Afghan.

I belong to Afghanistan, with all its wounds.

I am proud of my language, my culture, my people and my memories.

But sometimes I wish for the day when someone asks me, “Where are you from?”, and I smile and say, “Afghanistan”, and nothing changes, not their expression, not their tone and not the distance that suddenly appears between us.

I do not want anyone to pity me for being Afghan.

I only hope that one day being Afghan will be neither a reason for pity nor an excuse for suspicion.

It should simply be a nationality, just as every other person’s nationality is only one part of their identity, not a judgement about their character.

Perhaps the greatest dream of an Afghan girl is to have a life without fear.

Perhaps an even greater dream is that one day, wherever in the world she is asked, “Where are you from?”, she can proudly say, “Afghanistan”, and the only response she receives is an ordinary smile, not a look that forces her once again to prove that she is only a student, only a human being, and guilty of nothing except being Afghan.