Time to salvage core human values

PESHAWAR:

I am not sure how people trending #SealAfghanBorder on Twitter plan to undertake or even comprehend the impossibility of the task. But after a closer assessment of the tweets, it is not very difficult to gauge the microcosm of racial slurs directed towards a community displaced for almost three decades. Historically, refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced persons are victims of racial discrimination, xenophobia and ethnic intolerance.

In case we forgot, violence was the only reason Afghans left their homes and began living in shanty towns which they built themselves on the outskirts of Peshawar and Karachi. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported Afghanistan remained the world’s top producer of refugees for the 32nd year in a row until 2015 and Pakistan has been hosting the largest number of these refugees ever since.

However, after the attack on Army Public School (APS) Peshawar in December 2014, and the subsequent formulation of National Action Plan (NAP), it was decided Afghans need to be repatriated. However, at the end of 2015, an interim arrangement was made to extend the stay of Afghan refugees in Pakistan till June 2016. If officials dealing with the matter are to be believed, 2016 is definitely not the end of the deadline. With escalation of violence across the border in Afghanistan and more people wanting to escape the effects of war, the dates will be extended further.

Scapegoating

There are two dimensions to this long war – the paradigm of violence and the humanitarian crisis created by the phase of terror. The problem arises when there is little clarity in differentiating both.

Violence today has drafted its own racial identities and those affected directly or indirectly need an enemy (an outsider) to be blamed for their problems. And while the official narrative has been that Afghan soil has been used to carry out attacks inside Pakistan, the brunt of that has been faced by Afghan refugees.

Correlation and irony

However, racism is both a cause and a product of forced displacement. In other words the influx of refugees will not end till violence ends.

The issue at hand is then to put an end to marginalising a community that has been living in a host country for more than thirty years. The UNHCR says Pakistan alone has issued 800,000 birth certificates to Afghan children.

Newspapers and television channels highlight suspects apprehended by the police daily and Afghans are categorised as a separate entity altogether. However, it is ironic that people in Pakistan express fury at the West’s treatment of refugees from the Middle East seeking asylum and then go on to do exactly that to their guests, Afghan refugees.

Much can be written and said about ethnic bifurcations being created because of the surge in violence globally. But the foundation of every society, nation and country is based on core human values. Relative peace exists because there are people and institutions who believe in those values. If those values are lost, violence has already won.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd,  2016.