It is actually a thanksgiving
letter as the year 2015 ended, I thought I would better write a
thanksgiving letter on behalf of a poor Afghan refugee who was once working in
a European country as his first work experience in Europe. So here it begins …
In the first week of the work you
expect some people to say welcome and introduce the workplace for you, but
instead in the first week of the work a black racist lady whose main central
ideology and the only thing which matters for her is the “color of the skin” of
the people; comes and says in a very bad accent:
- “Your country produces opium”.
- Yes Madam, it does produce some amount but not as much as you hear by the media. In the media it is exaggerated. By the other hand, opium has different uses, it can be used to produce heroin, and it can also be used to produce medicine. If you get some opium from Afghanistan, make sure that you don’t use it as heroin, because it will kill you, use it as medicine instead so that it can save some lives.
- No, no, no … opium is a bad thing …
- Well, it is not as bad as guns, because guns only kill people, guns can’t be used as medicines … producing opium is the same thing as producing a knife … you can kill yourself with a knife and also you can use it in the kitchen to cook food … the option is yours … what you are going to do with it, that is very important …
- The very next day the other instructor calls the Afghan refugee as a “tourist” but that is not what he means, what he means is a terrorist which rhymes with the tourist and the other colleagues explains that further “tourist” or terrorist” and then they all laugh … the Afghan refugee looks at them and keeps quiet and says nothing back to avoid fights and also because of the famous Afghan proverb which says that “Jawab-e- ablahaan khaamoshist” which means “Silence is the best answer to stupid people” …
- The next day some colleagues call the Afghan refugee “Taliban” and they think it is funny and a good thing to say … some other learnt to say that too …
- The Afghan refugee looks at them and smiles and says do you know what that the Taliban means? And do you know what kind of people they are? I think you have no idea what you are saying … they never come to Europe to look for asylum because they think that European countries are enemies of all Taliban. I think they know European countries much better than those who think that European people are nice and they will save Afghan refugees ..
- Some other refugee colleagues from other countries ask Afghan refugee “Why don’t you Muslims all go to Saudi Arabia that you all come here in Europe?”
- How come you are a refugee too and say something like that? What makes you better than the Afghan refugee? Is it because you are a Christian refugee and the Afghan refugee is a Muslim refugee? Shame on you with this kind of mentality.
- When they evaluate your work, they say all lies about you and they try their best to underestimate what you are doing … they try to accuse you of the being what you are not … they call you lazy … they tell you that you don’t work properly … all what you have to do is to keep silent and say “Yes sir” you are right …
- Never try to reason back or never say something back, otherwise they get angry and they create lots of extra work for you and make different kinds of problem for you …
- It is a very different and interesting working culture that you have to adopt to it and you have to learn how to cope with it …
- You need to learn to laugh at people who say bad words to you … who might call you terrorist but you have to laugh or try to smile even though if you are angry at the highest level … this is called compromise with the new work environment …
- They may ask someone to steal from your workplace to blame you for stealing, so you have to be very careful …
- They may call you a thief while you have not stolen a single piece of thing … you have to learn to deal with it and say that you are not a thief, you can’t shout or you can’t get angry because you will be fired, the only way to react is that you have to say politely “Sorry, it is a misunderstanding, I am not a thief and I have not stolen anything”
- They might also blame you for having an affair with a colleague, and you have to learn to say in a nice manner that “Sir, what you think is totally wrong”. I have got no affairs here in the working place …
- You are actually dealing with a number of psychos who hate you for no reason and you have to learn to manage all these issues so that you have a minor physical job to be able to pay your bills.
- This is the real situation of the refugees of Afghanistan in Europe.
