Pasoon
The following article was written by Pasoon (an alias), an ex-Muslim Afghan rights activist, journalist, and former political programs presenter on TV and radio in Kabul. His brother was murdered by the Taliban just a few days after Pasoon contacted Secular Rescue to ask for help. The piece has been edited for clarity and space.
In 1995, the year of my birth, Kabul was the main battlefield in Afghanistan’s civil war. When the Taliban came to power, my family had abandoned urban life; we lived in an old house in a remote village. I would go to the nearby school in the morning and then to the mosque in the afternoon to study Islam. The mosque’s mullah always clutched a stick, and anyone who neglected his lessons would be severely beaten, which I will never forget. I soon became an excellent student of Arabic books, spending most of my time at the mosque. I was a fiercely religious child. If someone at home was listening to music, I would be combative with them. The mullah would praise me.
One day some the Taliban came to our school. They silenced our teachers, dismissed us, and set the school on fire. After that I went to the mosque in the morning and read only Islamic books.
In those days, the Taliban in Afghanistan would take children and youth from mosques and religious schools to Pakistan for a more robust Islamic education. We knew those kids were all preparing for suicide attacks. The mullah of the mosque declared to me, “You are very intelligent and faithful. I will send you to Pakistan, where you will learn more.” My family, though, was very worried about this. They instead sent me to the city and enrolled me in a school there. The mullah became angry with our family and began to threaten them routinely. I knew the Taliban wanted to torture me for studying in school.
After this, we were forced to move to a nearby city where I lived and went to school. When I turned sixteen, I fell in love with “free studying” and would visit the library weekly and began taking a special English-language course.
But free studying changed the course of my life and my thinking, because there were many books in the city’s libraries that foment religious extremism. Only violence and jihad were allowed in these books as extremist groups dominated the book market, so anyone who went to the library would read the same extremist books. No other books could be found in the Pashto language.
Many books focused on the formation of the Islamic State and the ongoing wars with non-Islamic nations. There were also stories about heaven in these books. They claimed that if someone fights for Islam, he will go to heaven upon his death, and there in heaven God will provide the warrior with seventy beautiful girls, ample stores of wine, and a house of gold. It was this narrow choice of books that helped turn me into an extremist Muslim, and I went on to study religious texts for six years.
During those years, I was a Muslim extremist and wrote on topics in support of Islamic extremist groups. I became distant from family and friends, spending most of my time praying and reading religious texts. I hated people who weren’t like me, and somehow I felt very lucky.
Of course, my family was worried about me. My mother would come to my room late at night and tell me, “Don’t read these books. These books drive you crazy.” I would answer in a defensive and pestering way: “These are Islamic books! That is the way of God. Don’t you agree? You don’t accept Islam?!” I could tell she was afraid of me.
Seeds of Doubt
In my third year at university, when I learned Persian and English, I began to access the internet for information, feeling I had read enough religious books at the library. I began to make acquaintances with people through Facebook who were fighting against religious extremism. These were fellow Afghans, most of whom were abroad or using aliases. I would curse them; I called them infidels. Yet they would make very logical arguments. They knew Islam and were very well-read in philosophy and science. And they were atheists, not accepting of Islam or any other religion.
One day in an online discussion, someone asked me, “Who discovered the Earth?” I replied, “God.”
“Who created God?,” he asked. I said, “God is the Creator, not the creature.”
“It has not been created yet,” he said. “It means it does not exist.”
To answer this question, I immediately turned to an Islamic teacher. “You have a mental illness,” he told me sharply. Stand up, pray, and remember God. Don’t ask these questions. I doubted my answer that fateful day. I was thinking, if God is not a creature, then it means denying the existence of God. That is, God was not created and does not exist. If God is a creature, then who is God’s creator? For a moment I thought of this hypothesis that God may not exist. My heart raced. I thought, in that case, everything we have learned is a lie.
With this, I doubted everything. If the basis for my belief is so meaningless, it is possible that maybe it is all lies. From this point, I began to study about God and belief. Islamic books could not prove God’s existence, so I began to read Nietzsche and Hegel. I studied Yuval Noah Harari’s first book Sapiens as well as Stephen Hawking. My questions inspired a thousand more questions inside of me. I doubted all my beliefs; I could not find answers in religious books. Instead, I dove into science and philosophy to find answers to such questions. By the end of that year, I—an extremist Muslim—had lost my faith and become an atheist. In a matter of months, I had abandoned Islam altogether.
In my fourth year at university, I would ask the professor different questions; sometimes I would even make fun of Islam. All I knew was that I had changed, transformed. No one knew that I was now an atheist, and yet all the students in our class were religious extremists. Many had links to the Taliban and other terrorist groups. If they had known there was an apostate among them, they would have killed me. I lived with this fear constantly. I knew they were wild and extreme enough to punish me for my apostasy.
During my final days at university, I had become afraid of my classmates, and they had become fearful and anxious of my questions. They saw the changes in me. One day a classmate, who had little care or sympathy for me, said to me, “Don’t come here anymore. If you agree with me, leave this city.” He then shared with me a secret plan my classmates had devised: to kill me. One thing you can easily find in Islamic books is divine permission to kill another human being. The Qur’an says clearly and concisely that if someone leaves Islam, “kill him.”
So on a cold, winter day I departed with my family and headed for Kabul. I decided to avoid religion and religious discussions, and this is when I began my career in journalism and the media.
Everything was going well! The meaning of life had changed for me; I had given up supernaturalism and worshiping God. On top of that I fell in love with an amazing woman. During my free time, I would even smoke a pipe and listen to forbidden music. Then one day there was a terrorist attack at Kabul University, and I subtitled one of my articles, “The License for the Attack on Kabul University Is Taught in the Textbooks of the Faculty of Islamic Studies at Kabul University. Extremism Must Be Eliminated from the University Curriculum.”
Because of this article, I once again drew the ire of extremists. Even my boss told me that Islamic groups were becoming increasingly hostile. “They will target us because of your articles.” This made me angry. Targeted killings of journalists and rights activists in Kabul were increasing. It culminated the day my boss said, “You have to resign because your work here is also a threat to your life.”
A month passed when I watched two helicopters dipped to a low altitude from the presidential palace with the president onboard, flying off to an unknown location as the government collapsed and waves of Taliban fighters entered the city.
The Return of the Taliban
The scenario that occurred in 1995 was being repeated in August 2021, except this time I was on my own; there was no father or mother to help me. I was afraid; it was all on my shoulders, and I had to get myself and my family to safety. One afternoon I went to various friends’ places, but with each friend I visited the door was locked and my knocks were met with silence. Their mobile numbers were dead. I had no idea where they all went. With each subsequent locked door and silent house, my heart thumped more and more, until it was pounding.
News spread quickly: the city was overrun by the Taliban, checkpoints were everywhere, and these same extremists against whom we had fought for years, this same group we described as the “enemy” in every one of our writings, had come to our streets, our homes, our everything. All our frontline comrades had been killed, fled, or were in hiding. One night I decided I had to leave Kabul, though getting out wasn’t easy and I didn’t know where to go. Where will we be safe?
When one of my sisters realized that we had become separated, she wept until morning and kept asking me, “Where are you going? For whom do you want to leave us?” The truth of the matter was they had no one else; Afghan girls are not like other women who can make their own decisions. They have to rely on a man; he has to be everything to them. But I didn’t know what to do; I felt paralyzed. As I was leaving the east side of Kabul, wiping away tears, I looked upon this road for the last time. Behind the blur of tears, the street became hidden from view. I kept walking.
The next morning I crossed over and arrived in Pakistan. My problems were not solved, though. I had no money and left three younger sisters and a brother at home to fend for themselves as best they could. Three days after I left, a group of Taliban arrived at our house. They searched the house, but I was not there. In their anger, the Taliban shot my brother to death right in front of my screaming sisters.
I couldn’t attend his funeral. I couldn’t be with my sisters to offer support and condolences. There was a horrible emptiness inside me. I had lost everything I cared about. I was scared. I was broken. My clothes were ragged. Most of the time I was hungry and had lost a lot of weight. When I would chance upon some friends or kindly Afghan strangers, I would spend the night with them. I borrowed some money from those who had extra, but hotel prices were very high. Sometimes I slept in parks under the cover of darkness, but it was terrifying. My days were filled with horrible thoughts, and my eyes constantly filled with tears. I simply didn’t know what to do.
Light of Hope
I reached out to various international organizations, but no one responded in any positive way. They said they were inundated and overwhelmed; they couldn’t help. Then one day I got in touch with a friend, an atheist who lives in Germany and provides immigration information to endangered atheists wherever they may be. She told me about the Center for Inquiry’s Secular Rescue program. I sent a desperate message.
I received a response from someone at Secular Rescue. He quickly confirmed my situation and details. Then days later, he offered to help me financially during a time in my life when I was beyond desperate. Meanwhile, I had applied for a humanitarian visa from the Brazilian Embassy in Islamabad, which was granted in short order. However, the flight and the high cost of staying in Brazil weighed on me. And yet, Secular Rescue, through its separate Afghan Rescue Fund, covered everything—all my expenses. It was an enormous burden removed from my mind, and the vital aid arrived at the proverbial eleventh hour. Secular Rescue also paid for my family’s passports, visas, and transportation costs. I was ecstatic; they would be saved too!
I’ve had some good days in my life; I have found love and friendships and a career, but I have suffered enormously because of the Taliban, because of extremism and hardline Islamic dogma. I lost my brother forever. And I have fallen several times into traps set by religious extremists, but I got out and now I have started a new life in Brazil. I am enamored with its unique natural beauty, its freedom, and its diverse population, which has allowed me to experience peace and relaxation, a unique calmness, and hope. My dreams have been rejuvenated and now I am looking forward.
These days, one year after the fall of Kabul and Afghanistan to a gang of extremist, religious thugs, I am safe in Brazil studying Portuguese. I have found a place to live and am looking forward to seeing my family soon. I am also hoping beyond hope that my lover back in Kabul will one day join me here, too. The enveloping darkness is fading.
We can learn here; we can work and enjoy life here … but I would not have had this wonderful opportunity, and neither would my family, without Secular Rescue.
