Being Christan under Taleban rule
M is a Catholic Afghani and a refugee in Italy. He told his story to AsiaNews, an account of discrimination and threats under the Taleban regime owing to his family faith. His father was killed because he converted, and to save his son, he did not tell him that he had been baptised. It was only when he arrived in Italy that the boy discovered he was a Christian. "Now I want to live for Jesus even when I am with my Muslim friends".
(AsiaNews) Subjected to discrimination and scorn at the hands of the Taleban in Afghanistan, he was forced to flee, losing his entire family. M (whose real name cannot be disclosed for security reasons) is an Afghan youth who is a refugee in Italy. He has always been a Catholic, however without knowing it: his father, a convert from Islam, had to hide the truth from him to protect him. M only discovered his religion a year ago: an Italian cultural mediator explained to him that Isai, the term used by his peers to denigrate him, meant "Christian". And he saw images in churches, which his family would keep hidden at home, and in the hands of one of his teachers, he saw a rosary like his mother's.
M lived in a small mountain village. When he was still a child, his father, a landowner, was killed by neighbours, who accused him of having made money by betraying his Islamic faith and becoming a Christian. In reality, they wanted to take over his lands. According to local laws, the males of the family of the victim, once they come of age, have the right to avenge the death, with the tacit consent of all. So those who had murdered M's father started to persecute him and his brother, with the intention of killing them before they came of age and could take justice into their hands. M and his brother escaped. Their mother also escaped and the brothers have not heard from her since. This was at the end of 1999 under the Taleban regime, during the civil war.
"From when I was young, I tried to enter the mosque like everyone else," recalled M. "But the others prevented me from doing so and they accused me of not being a Muslim. I did not understand but I saw small signs, which made me think that my family and me were different: no one wanted to eat with us, they said they would prefer to have a dog touch the bread rather than us. We lived an isolated life without friends. When I tried to play with other children, they kept their distance from me, at school they mocked me and beat me. All families kept at least one weapon per member at home; we only had an old hunting rifle hung on the wall, which my father rarely used. My companions offended me, using the word Isai: I thought it meant 'criminal' or 'assassin' and I felt dirty. Meanwhile, I continued to press my father for explanations. I would see him and my mother say the rosary (at the time I did not even know what it was) and I looked at the image of Jesus and the Virgin Mary hung on the wall in one of the rooms of the house, which was always kept closed. I would ask and demand, my father would only reply, 'When you are old, you will understand'."
M does not know much about his father's faith choice. "He travelled often, sometimes for work but also for his own safety, not to stay too long in the sights of those who threatened him. Despite everything, papa was serene, when we talked about me, he always encouraged me to study to become somebody and to help those who were less fortunate than me." Now M dreams of a future when he will be a doctor and he really wants to ask many questions of those who knew his father; alas, he no longer has any contact with his family or friends. "When I meet some Afghan, I always ask if he knows my brother or my mother, but so far no one has been able to tell me anything."
On his school diary, M wrote the invitation extended by John Paul II to youth: "Do not be afraid". Fear hounded him everywhere: from Afghanistan he escaped first to Pakistan, then to Iran, Turkey and finally to Italy. "In Pakistan, I worked as a tailor, but I stayed there only for a few months because the murderers of my father continued to search for me. In Iran I polished car parts for one year, but I had to flee from there too for security reasons and I headed for Turkey. In the trip to cross the border, I was with my uncle and my brother, but I walked ahead of them, together with the smugglers, because I was small. When we arrived close to the border, I remember that the police started shooting, the shots lit up the darkness of the night; I remember it as if it happened yesterday. During the shootout, we all threw ourselves on the ground, but once we were able to get up again, I could not find my uncle and my brother." Only six out of the 70 or so refugees following the smugglers that night would cross the border. "In Istanbul I cut rubber tyres to make the soles of shoes in order to survive and to pay my ticket to Italy (2,500 US dollars). I lived in terror there: the police made daily incursions into the factory and we used to hide behind stacks of car wheels." In Turkey, M met his "his two guardian angels". "They were two youth who were older than me and who helped me so much although they did not know me. First they helped me to find a house and work and they continued to keep an eye on me until the end." It was these youth who encouraged M to leave for Italy, where he could "hope to be recognised as a refugee". Then it was a matter of choosing how to travel: " Many refugees in Turkey decide to buy an inflatable dinghy and to reach Greece after a seven-hour voyage at sea. But the number of fatalities among those who try is very high every time. One of the 'two angels' always told me this, he worked as a doctor and would go to recover bodies from the shores. It was he who advised me to wait a while, and to save some money to travel clandestinely on a tourist ship."
Once he arrived in Italy, M discovered what had sealed his difficult destiny: the faith of his parents. "At first I was confused, but I immediately felt a strong sense of freedom. As soon as I saw a policeman I was afraid, but then I saw that no one wanted to harm me, that it was not like Turkey." After he contacted the state agencies which offer welcome services for refugees, M had to tell his story. " From that time, I began to link all the details together and I understood that my family was Catholic. The cultural mediator told me the meaning of the insult which was used against me in Afghanistan Isai, Christian; I saw a rosary in the hands of my school teacher, who explained to me what it was and the same thing happened with the images of Jesus and Mary."
After discovering the religion of his family, M was "angry with his father". "He did not allow me to participate in his faith and he made us suffer much pain for it". Then, every night before going to bed, he started to question himself and "to feel the desire to know more about what his father had endangered his life and that of his dear ones for". He said: "I started to go to church, I met friends and together we are part of the parish choir and I also do voluntary work with old people. In the other countries where I lived, I would try to go to the mosque, but the church is different; the mosque always reminds me of the feeling of rejection I experienced. In church I feel at home, I am not judged, I am welcomed for who I am."
M has many Muslim friends in Italy who, with time, learned to accept him even if he was a Christian. "At first, they considered me a Muslim like them," he recalls. "They took it for granted because of my nationality. When they saw me going to mass, they looked askance at me for a while: Muslims did not go to church and so they did not understand. Last year, when I chose not to observe Ramadan, they criticised me." But by then, M had decided to bear witness about his faith: "Three days ago, a Moroccan friend came into the room, opened my locker and saw the cross and a picture of Jesus there. He asked me why I was doing this and I explained that I was a Christian without any sense of shame."
The hope of M is to resume contact with his mother and brother: "I still suffer so much, I miss my family, but at least all these trials have served for one thing: now I understand that the reason my father died, Jesus, is truth and the source of life."
.png)
30/03/2006
01/08/2016 07:53
