The bitter truth
All Ammanullah really knows is a life surrounded by men, whose only employable trait is that of a gun.
The writer is author of The Gun Tree: One Woman’s War (Oxford University Press, 2001) and lives in Bhurban
The metal trunk, grey painted and padlocked, holds pride of place in the spick and span room which — motionless air swimming with the dark gold light of a Kabul sunset — resembles a goldfish bowl as three of its walls comprise one-way, supposedly ‘bombproof’, glass. The room, softened by an equidistant row of brightly coloured coleus plants in pots on the curving window sill, is the personal space of Ammanullah, a merciless, gun-toting, wiry man of late middle age who, like so many others in Afghanistan, is fast reaching the end of his incredibly stretched tether.
Laying his gleaming Kalashnikov carefully down on the red blanket covering the mattress of his ground level bed, he unbuckles his bullet-proof vest — which, as always, is ‘fully loaded’ with grenades, ammunition and other such accoutrements of war — and props it up on the red plastic chair by the door. He searches his zippered pockets for a precious bunch of keys, kneels by the trunk, opens the padlock and begins to rummage through its contents, the deep lines etched in his face becoming deeper with concentration. Grey eyes narrow when, initially, he fails to locate that which he seeks and in a spurt of sudden desperation, he flings clothes, papers and unmatched socks out onto the threadbare carpet until finally, with a huge sigh of relief, he waves a prized passport in the air and smiles.
A high-ranking member of a former mujahid-turned-warlord’s private army, he is preparing to leave for Pakistan where, like so many other battle-hardened men, he stashes his family in the comparative safety of Peshawar.
“This time I am NOT coming back to this hell hole,” he swears vehemently. “I have had enough of fighting, enough of killing, enough of this sad apology of existence. I fought the Russians. I fought Hekmatyar. I fought the Taliban. I fought bandits and now I am expected to fight the Taliban again when all I want is a life!”
Killing machine that he is, he has never experienced family life for more than a precious few weeks at a time and such times have been long months, sometimes years, apart. His wife is all but a stranger, his three sons and a daughter likewise. All Ammanullah really knows is a life surrounded by men: men as furiously desperate as him and their only employable trade is that of the gun.
A man with little education, he was 17-years-old when the then Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan back in 1979. The farmer’s life he sometimes dreams of now, was blown to smithereens by the bombs that flattened his ancestral village in the rugged eastern mountains, so, when his badly injured father handed him the ancient family rifle and instructed him to join the Mujahideen, he — along with a high percentage of his neighbours — did just that and now, dream as he does, fighting is all that he, and thousands like him, know.
He will — there is no other option — return from visiting his family as soon as the money runs out. He will wearily pick up his gun and fight whoever there is to fight in return for payment that would disappear if, and when, there is ever peace — after which he, thousands like him and their dependents will all starve.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2013.
Laying his gleaming Kalashnikov carefully down on the red blanket covering the mattress of his ground level bed, he unbuckles his bullet-proof vest — which, as always, is ‘fully loaded’ with grenades, ammunition and other such accoutrements of war — and props it up on the red plastic chair by the door. He searches his zippered pockets for a precious bunch of keys, kneels by the trunk, opens the padlock and begins to rummage through its contents, the deep lines etched in his face becoming deeper with concentration. Grey eyes narrow when, initially, he fails to locate that which he seeks and in a spurt of sudden desperation, he flings clothes, papers and unmatched socks out onto the threadbare carpet until finally, with a huge sigh of relief, he waves a prized passport in the air and smiles.
A high-ranking member of a former mujahid-turned-warlord’s private army, he is preparing to leave for Pakistan where, like so many other battle-hardened men, he stashes his family in the comparative safety of Peshawar.
“This time I am NOT coming back to this hell hole,” he swears vehemently. “I have had enough of fighting, enough of killing, enough of this sad apology of existence. I fought the Russians. I fought Hekmatyar. I fought the Taliban. I fought bandits and now I am expected to fight the Taliban again when all I want is a life!”
Killing machine that he is, he has never experienced family life for more than a precious few weeks at a time and such times have been long months, sometimes years, apart. His wife is all but a stranger, his three sons and a daughter likewise. All Ammanullah really knows is a life surrounded by men: men as furiously desperate as him and their only employable trade is that of the gun.
A man with little education, he was 17-years-old when the then Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan back in 1979. The farmer’s life he sometimes dreams of now, was blown to smithereens by the bombs that flattened his ancestral village in the rugged eastern mountains, so, when his badly injured father handed him the ancient family rifle and instructed him to join the Mujahideen, he — along with a high percentage of his neighbours — did just that and now, dream as he does, fighting is all that he, and thousands like him, know.
He will — there is no other option — return from visiting his family as soon as the money runs out. He will wearily pick up his gun and fight whoever there is to fight in return for payment that would disappear if, and when, there is ever peace — after which he, thousands like him and their dependents will all starve.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 4th, 2013.