Integration Program

The third world war began in Europe. Thousands of the citizens of the European countries immigrated to other unknown destinations. Some of them died on the way due to the harsh situation and many of them sank in the sea because they could not survive swimming for many days before the rescue team arrived. A group of the European refugees who were previously working in the refugee camps got into a new unknown land called Jarre Khushk (Dried Valley). Jarre Khushk was an amazing country with millions of people and a very strange primitive culture and traditions. They were had no clothes on them only some kind of leather skirts were hiding there reproduction systems and breasts. They all had some kind of spears with them as their guns. When they found the refugees, they all took their spears ready in their hands as they wanted to attack them. They said something in a strange language that none of the refugees were able to understand. They all pushed them to sleep and when the refugees slept; they all tied their hands behind and took them to the leader of the land. The leader looked at them and their clothes carefully turning round each one once in a while and talked to other men in their own language and laughed. They talked to each other for a while and then one of them went out with a horse and brought another man who could speak a broken English language. The man said that they are asking you that who are you and why are you here in this country? What do you want? Do you want to fight?

The refugees told their stories and how they were suffering because of war and how they escaped the war and they got there. The commander ordered to put them in separate cells and give them enough food and water and let them integrate to our culture and tradition. Meanwhile all the people of this land can bring their questions and to ask from these new comers about why they are here and after they answer all the questions then we vote about their stay here in this land.

They brought them the first day food and it was fried cockroaches with a kind of sauce which looked like mayonnaise sauce. Nobody could eat that kind of food. They were all punished for disrespect to the culture of that land and they were warned to being sent out of that land if they don’t want to eat or drink or if they don’t want to integrate.

Next time they were given a very nice meal. It was nice pieces of meat baked enough for everybody and they enjoyed it.

The commander was very happy and asked the soldier to bring them out of the cells for a walk in the open air and teach them the some manners of the village. They all gave their hands for them kiss and asked them to learn how they greet. They all kissed their hands and then they went to walk in a garden where they saw the death bodies of many dogs. They asked why those dogs were dead. The man said that the commander has ordered to kill the best dongs of the village for you guys and I hope you all enjoyed it. They all started puking when they heard that. The man looked worried and said why are you doing that? The refugees said that they don’t eat dogs’ mean. The man was so surprised to hear that because he thought that the meat of the dog was the best food they could make for these new guests. The man said that please don’t say these kinds of things if our commander hears all these things, he will get offended and he will think that you very unfriendly person. He still doesn't know what to do with you guys and he may decide to kill you all of he thinks you are not integrating. They were all afraid to hear all these things and even though everything these people were doing was so strange and unacceptable for the people refugee but still they had to follow their culture and tradition. After a while they were well integrated in that society and could eat what they were eating and do what they were doing. They were now part of that society. It was very hard for them and they said that we did the same things to those refugees who came to our countries and if we get a second chance, we would do our best. 

Why do some young boys go from Europe to support religious extremism or join the terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan?

The reason is very obvious and I think everyone knows that. The level of pressure on minority Muslim communities in European countries is very high, the hatred and deprivations from basic human rights and the way they are treated in these countries, are insane and inhuman. Some of the young generations of these families feel very insecure and feel themselves in the verge of dying. There are no opportunities for them to go and work and earn a living or join a university to study. What do you think they should do? They think they are marginalized and they are being attacked in every corner of life. They feel sympathy with those civilians of the Islamic countries which are in a political turmoil where hundreds of Muslim children, men and women are being murdered brutality in war. On the other hand, they have no information about the terrorist groups and their organizations, because they don’t believe the news they hear from media due to the high level of media bias. And what the media says and shows has a vise versa impact on some mentalities of the young generation in Europe who don’t feel themselves as part of the European society due to exposition to harsh discrimination, inequality and deprivation from access to basic human rights such as education and work. 

Neocolonialism and military intervention in Islamic states give chances for the terrorist organizations to be able to attract and use the emotions of the young generations in Europe. They mainly target those generations who have never been to those countries and who have never seen the behavior and crimes of those terrorist groups and their organizations in the field of war so that they know how they commit murders and brutally commit massacres.  They are using religion as a motivation to attract new human resources (soldiers) while none of their actions are Islamic or logically acceptable for a true Muslim.

Once they fall in the trap of those organizations, then they can’t escape, even if they want to go back home and even if they manage to escape and return back, then they are no longer welcomed and appreciated back home in their host countries but rather being suspected and accused of many uncommitted crimes.

Now what the European countries can do to prevent such kind mistakes which take the lives of many Muslims and newly converted Muslims who join these groups?

It is very easy but needs a good management. “Treat the minority Muslim community in your respective countries the way that you want to be treated” the same as what a great Afghan quote says. Respect their religion and beliefs so that they can respect yours. They are mostly depressed, distressed and deprived refugee families in your countries.

First make a draft “codes of conducts” for those social workers who are in contact with them in your countries in which you write how the Muslim communities should be treated to prevent human rights violations against them when they are in the refugee camps, in the social houses or inside the community or when they are at school. 

Then think about what they need? When a newly arrived refugee in your country is depressed and distressed refugee family, it is obvious that it is not the hatred, racism or discrimination or stupid comments about their beliefs, traditions or about their life style what they need. It is not integration courses as a priority what they need. It is good for European citizens to understand the real situation of a homeless refugee who has immigrated many countries on foot for many years to reach to your country; it is good to give him/her a peaceful life.

The language course is not the prior thing they need. The interview for asylum application with 200 questions and chances of failure which creates and intensifies their stress and tension and depression is not what they need. The refugee camp with racist social workers is not what they need. The racist doctors with an injection to end their lives are not what they need. The long term unemployment with no income is not what they need. A life with a negative answer to asylum application and sleeping in the park is not what they need. The free money is not what they appreciate. What they need is a welcome with a heart free from hatred, discrimination and a nice behavior based on human rights and chances to study or work. You should ask them what they want to do. Work? or study?

If they want to work, give them the opportunity to work with “on the job training” and if they want to study, ask them in which language, you can make a university with their own language by employing teachers from their own countrymen who can speak that language and give lessons in that language.  All other things can come as a second step priority for them and let them feel at home and let them identify violations of human rights with an open eye without feeling bad about their complaints.

The European universities give scholarships to many foreign students every year. But why don’t they give priority to those who are coming to your doors by themselves that you are spending lots of money bringing others here? The education strategies of the European countries should give priority to those who are already inside your country and then for others who are outside your borders.

Giving an opportunity for poor Muslim young generations to study what they want, and that will help them get rid of religious narrow mindedness and will also give them a feeling of gratefulness for the host country and that will make them try to do something good for that country.

By giving them the opportunity to work, the host countries will make them build their own self confidence and will allow them solve their financial problems and that will protect them and it will turn them into good tax payers for the host countries and it will also save them from harsh destructive and distressing poverty, which can force them at any time to join those terrorist groups.

If the host countries implement these instructions, I will guarantee that there will be no chances for radicalization or joining terrorist groups because the great Afghan proverb suggests that “Idleness is the evilness”.  

How the terrorist groups can use religion to motivate or attract and deceive the young generation and those who have less knowledge about Islam and those who don’t know what that religion really teaches other people? There is the Islamic preaching terminology which can be easily used as a deceptive means to achieve political goals which happened in Afghanistan when America funded some projects in Afghanistan to fight against Russian soldiers and now the same discourse and techniques are being used by the Taliban to fight against foreign troops in Afghanistan. For example the word “Jihad” is an Arabic word which means to strive, to struggle, to try … but this word has been used in the history of Islam when it first appeared as a religion in the Arabic countries, other people saw this religion as something new and attacked those who were Muslims and the Muslim leaders gave them the permission to struggle and fight back if someone attacks their houses. Literally in this historical context it means “a defensive struggle to protect yourself from someone who attacked your house”. But now this word has a broader meaning and it can be used with anything like Jihad for gaining knowledge which means trying best to learn more knowledge. Terrorist groups are using this word to motivate and attract people to go and fight against foreign troops in Afghanistan. They say that foreign troops invaded an Islamic country and Muslim people need to protect these countries from military attacks. This idea looks a very acceptable reason for those who face many kinds of discrimination within European countries and they are disgraced, distressed and hopeless of a brighter future for themselves, and this will easily attract them while they do not have that much knowledge and analytic power to analyze the situation and differentiate between a real Jihad and that one of the terrorist groups for political purposes. If you are a person from Afghanistan, Syria is not your home. It is not invaded; it is not a real Jihad because two political parties are fighting with each other for power. It is none of your business to interfere. If you look at Afghanistan, Taliban are brutal terrorist groups who were and still are killing the Afghan people and foreign troops went there to help the people of Afghanistan to fight against them and get rid of them. If you look at Iraq and what those terrorist groups are doing there, it is not acceptable for any Muslim and their behaviors are not Islamic and no one should take part in that kind of brutality and murder of civilian unarmed people in those countries.

Cultural Clash برخورد فرهنگی

People tend to remember God and his mercy in the time of distress particularly when they face problem, stress and disappointments. The Afghan refugees in Europe are living a life similar of the one in the hell because of different kinds of discrimination, financial sanctions and racism. Their level of depression is the highest and they live in a trauma even without knowing about it. Some of them can’t survive that situation and they kill themselves and it does not come on the media due to the media bias. When you look at their faces in the refugee camps, even their faces do not have the normal color and it makes you remind the faces of those Afghan hostages caught by the Taliban. In the normal circumstances when you look their faces, it is usually red and tan but when they are afraid of something that color turns into pale and shows a whiter face without blood circulation in the skin. I had seen so many of those frightened faces during the war in Afghanistan many years before, but it was usually temporary like for one week or so when the rocket was fired inside the house of a neighbor.

But in Europe, it is not temporary because there is no hope that the situation will change for Afghan refugees in the near future, because the situation of the refugees are dependent on the mentality of the people of the host countries. If the mentalities of the people of the host country do not change positively towards the immigration, the situation would never change. To change the mentality of the people of the host countries, the media and the education system can play a better role. They should have cultural diversity programs and they need start working for freedom of religion and belief as well as freedom of expression in order to eradicate racism and discrimination in the host countries.  

When you go to refugee camps, you will find Afghan refugees rising in the number even more than Iraqis and Syrians who also escaped the same war in their respective countries.

Even those who were not religious in Afghanistan will tend to remember God and pray for their situation and ask God to help them in finding a better life or for surviving the harsh discrimination of the environment which is not always very friendly but sometimes harsh and hostile.

In Afghanistan when Muslim people pray for a death person but not the Hindus and Sikhs, they organize a religious ceremony and cook lots of good food and invite people to read all pages of Quran in one day which is called “Khatme Quran”, a hard work for a single person to do, that’s why they have to invite so many people so that everyone can read some chapters to get the job done so that the recompense will go to the death person and he shall be blessed in the other world. They have to pray in Arabic because the religion comes with an Arabic language and they don’t know and they don’t speak that language, so when they need to pray, they have to read some pages of the Holy Book Quran which is written in Arabic with the same alphabet as the language of the people of Afghanistan. Some of them read the translation in Dari if they have got a little bit of education at school and know how to read Dari. Some people can’t read and write but feel shy to say that they can’t read. They take some pages and move their lips and make some noises to show and pretend as if they are reading it with themselves. Most people don’t know what they read and what does those lines in Arabic mean due to the high rate of illiteracy in the country as an impact of the war in Afghanistan. But they are sure for one thing, and that is that reading Quran has “Sawaab” which means “recompense” and it is a good thing and God likes those who read Quran and he will pay them back in some ways in this world or in the next.

I was invited to a refugee camp run by the Red Cross where Afghan refugees including men, women and children were afraid of the uncertain future of their asylum application. They brought an electronic kettle from a hidden cupboard and asked another Afghan boy to watch outside so that the social workers of camp should not arrive suddenly to catch them while boiling water and making some green tea for their guest. I asked them why were they hiding their teapot and glasses? “Alcohol drinking was a crime in Afghanistan and you escaped that situation and came to Europe and now here drinking tea is a crime or what?” I told them.  

“No, they made some kind of stupid rules and regulations here for us that we don’t have to make tea or cook our own food in this camp because they want us to eat and drink what they give us. We don’t really know whether what they give us is Hallaal (allowed in Islam) or Harraam (forbidden in Islam) but we have to eat and drink what they give us in order to survive. They give us tea and water only three times a day, but we don’t drink black tea, we make our own green tea here” answered one of the guys in that camp and continued “there are many Afghan refugees here who lived here for more than 8 years without a positive answer from their asylum application and they are depressed and almost lost their senses and they are now kind of crazy saying irrelevant things and sometimes crying and sometimes laughing, may Allah help us all, I think we came to the wrong place” he said.

“Allah doesn’t work here” shouted the other guy. “Here is the territory of the Jesus and only he can save us from his own followers” smiled the guy and all others laughed.

“Gandhi was so right about the Christians when he said that he loves Jesus the Christ but his followers are so unlike to him” another boy who seemed to be more educated than others quoted Gandhi.

“He is right” shouted the other guy. “Tell him the story of Fahim and what happened to him and his friends” he suggested pouring some warm green tea for me in a partly broken glass of his own. “This glass is barakati (blessed)” he told me pointing at his own glass. It has traveled with me many countries and that is why I love it a lot.

“Fahim and all his other four friends who were living in different refugee camps had undergone unwanted belly operations in the same way when they wanted to make an appointment for a dentist, for a disinfection of an injury or went to hospital because of health checkups” said one of the guys in the refugee camp “and they all are complaining of the same bellyache now” said the boy. “They think that this is a hostile attack on Afghan Muslim refugees who are living in the camps and warns everyone else to be careful about such kind of unwanted operations” continued the boy.

One of the guys came in and asked everybody to join a praying for a better situation of Afghan refugees organized by an Afghan refugee in the other room. We all went to the other refugee room and the guy borrowed from a mosque a whole Quran printed in separated chapters for everyone to read so that Allah will recompense the good deed and improve the situation of Afghan refugees. First he asked everybody if they could read and then he distributed the chapters to everyone and all started to read the chapters to complete the reading of the whole book in an hour or so. The social workers of the camp suddenly appeared and started shouting at all the Afghan refugees and asked them to get out of the room immediately. They also collected the electronic kettles and warned everybody of reporting such things to the immigration office and they will all receive negative responses to their asylum applications. The Afghan refugees stood against this action and they all came out of the room and shouted “Freedom of Religion” and “Freedom of Religion and belief is a basic human right”. The social workers of the camp said we are not going to allow such kind of religious things under the Red Cross and we will punish the organizer of this gathering. I asked all the Afghan guys to go to their rooms without further reactions. Later they sent a warning later of everybody and changed the organizer to a closed camp as a punishment.  

What kinds of fruits does Afghanistan produce?

Afghanistan has two kinds of different climates. In one part which is bordered with Pakistan, the weather is tropical and warm where there is only rain during the 3 months of the winter and in some high mountains of Salang Pass, you can see snow covered mountains all 12 months of the year and in the northern Afghanistan there are four different seasons. In the spring, it is mild and windy with sunny days, in the summer it is hot and sun is present almost everyday with rear cloudy days. In the fall it is windy sunny and cloudy days. In the winter it rains and snows in some parts of the country. In the central highlands the winter lasts for six moths. This nice weather of the country gives this opportunity for Afghanistan to grow a great number of different varieties of fruits and vegetables in different parts of the country. The tropical fruits are grown in southern provinces of Afghanistan while those fruits which need cold weather grow in the central highlands and those fruits which can grow in a mild temperature is mostly grown in the north part of the country. It is really amazing to the see the photos of different organic varieties of fruits harvested in Afghanistan which is never shown in the media: