Hamid stepped out of the mosque and into the day. The mountain air was crisp as he began his well worn pathway home. Well at least his body did. His mind, his thoughts, and his soul were a million miles removed. He had just had a debate with his Mullah that finished in a way he never expected. What he had been told made him want to die! No, worse than that – he wished that he had never been born! The poisonous ideas and thoughts that were choking him had been planted about 15 years prior, but in this latest heated argument they had just been harvested. And as produce they came with such inevitabiliy they would be likely to survive Armageddon.
For Hamid his life was fairly normal, but being a subsistence farmer in a backward, developing nation carries with it trials and choices that rest of the world have no concept of. If for instance Harmid witnessed one of his neighbours stealing something of his what should he do? Well he should go to the police. But in his country the forces of law and order have a bad reputation for impotence and corruption? In that context he can't assume that the outcomes would be to his advantage. Where Harmid lived and worked there were times when they didn't exist at all? He like everyone else had to rely on the church to be his source of justice with its Sharia Law. So like many millions of the earth's population he has had little or no experience of stable and reliable social structures.
Harmid is middle-aged, early forties. He is married and had four children, three girls and one boy. He was fortunate to have inherited a small but well established family farm. Those who measure these things estimate that he is part of another 2 billion individuals, or about 25% of the world's population, who are subsistence farmers. While his nation's governance has gone through long periods of disorder, in recent times the structures have been stable and everyday life for Hamid and his family had become a little more predictable. 70% of his country's population live in rural areas where concepts like order or instability are relative terms. The slow down from decades, nay centuries, of civil infighting has actually allowed him to maximise the use of his farm and he and his boy been able to grow enough to comfortably feed the family. They have also had a small amount of surplus produce to trade with neighbours. Then on top of all this good fortune they had in recent years been given the opportunity to grow a cash crop. For the first time in anyone's memory he and his fellow farmers were able to have modest savings over and above everyday need. All in all the combination of the political stability, hard work and the cash crop have improved circumstances in ways that his nation had not known for centuries. The recollections of infighting were fading along with memories of droughts and insect plagues. His just completed heated argument at the Mosque however exposed problems in Hamid's situation that had the potential to crush his and many other's recent good fortune.
The first problem for everyone is that the cash crop had been illegal production of the opium poppy. Hamid lives in the mountains of Afghanistan. The cropping that he and others have been deriving their modest prosperity from unfortunately is coming to an abrupt end. For some complex historical reasons the poor farmers of Afghanistan actually supply around 80% of the world's illegal heroin. In 20/21 the criminals who run this industry produced 320 tonnes of ready to use narcotics. If it all was sold in Australia iit would have had a street value of $145 billion. That is a lot of money for one of the poorest nations on earth. Illegal drug manufacture and supply is a very profitable business especially where operators don't have to expend time and resources evading law enforcement. The cash generated has provided a lot for famers, but also has been used as a cash cow by the Taliban, AL-Qaeda, ISIS, and other criminal and terrorist organisations. Because these tonnes of narcotics were being shot up the arms of mostly decadent western infidels the Taliban had chosen to overlook the obvious ethical ambiguity. This brings Harmid to his next problem.
Since 20/11/2001 the US had spent billions over 20 years of occupation trying to modernise his nation. They had tried to reduce primitive social structures. They had tried to destroy the safe environment for growing terrorism, as well as the drugs. At the same time they had hoped their presence would introduce changing attitudes to women, education, democracy, societal equality, and religious tolerance. Sadly just weeks after their embarrassing pull out the Taliban moved straight back in and planted themselves on the seats of authority that were still warm from American backsides. The Taliban had unlimited patience. They knew that the West would make zero progress in modernising their country. All they did was withdraw to their impenetrable mountain base and wait – 5 years, 10 years, 20 years – it didn't matter. The final outcome was always going to be the same. The old Afghanistan was back and the Taliban controls it.
The third and most serious problem Harmid has to confront is that now the Taliban were back in power, they have arbitarily banned opium production. The implications from this are huge. The only customer for the cash crop has been criminal drug cartels. Over 20 years they have become well established in the countryside. They employed many locals. The demand for their produce was endless. And they had been as helpful as anyone could be in assisting the farmers. Firstly they supplied the seeds for the crop at no charge. Secondly they collected the harvested produce with no transport costs. And thirdly, and most importantly, they actually paid Harmid and his neighbours cash up front for the results of the harvest when they delivered the free seed. These kinds of favourable trading terms were unheard of for any farmer, anywhere, and at anytime in history. Harmid and co. were just humble Afghan peasants who knew nothing about the international narcotics trade that had been such a focus of the West in recent times.
Hamid was a loving father and a kind husband who tried to be a decent human being. He adored his wife, and would do anything for his children. His fantasy was one day watching his boy realising his talent and bowling for their liberated nation in some T20 Cricket finals. But he was no activist or leader. He was a bit troubled when it was suggested to him that he should get on the train with everybody else and start using his land for opium poppies. He had recently witnessed what smoking opium and hash does to a person as he observed the oldest two boys of one of his cousin's disintegrate when they took up the habit and ran with it. He was not educated beyond the very basics. He has remembered spending all of his life making sure that his family had enough of everything to survive. He had only read one book, The Koran. He actually only had access to one book. The only knowledge he had of anything beyond his immediate region was the odd bit of gossip he would pick up here and there. The one exception of course were the cricket scores. Like everybody else he takes guidance on any “big” issues from his local Mullah and those who worked at the Mosque. They had assured him that all was in order. His nation is part of the war against the unrighteous servants of Satan. He should follow the example of the others and use his talents at growing things to help with the fight against the infidel.
For about the last 18 years every other farmer he knew had been doing it. There had never been any public discussion about the rights and wrongs of the situation. Almost everybody he knew was illiterate. The levels of prosperity, peace, and living conditions that had come as a result of this good fortune were undeniable. His children were clothed well and were healthy. His boy rarely missed school because he had to work on the farm. Secretly he and the family encouraged his boy to use his relatively free evenings at home to teach his sisters the lessons that he had learned that day at school. These particular actions were extremely dangerous however, and all in the family were sworn to extreme secrecy. The uncovering of this godless behaviour would lead to multiple stonings and of course death for those involved. This had been his only ever aberrant behaviour. He was otherwise honest and law abiding and he relied on his religious leaders who knew so much more to make the crucial decisions for him.
But things had changed. The infidel aggressors were gone. The Taliban was back in charge. The vital cash crop is banned. The regular customer has as usual paid everyone in advance and all the farmers were now in debt to them. They have turned up wanting their product supplied, or their debt repaid. It is at this point that things get really messy and complicated for Hamid, and many like him. He hadn't used up all of his cash advance, but there is no way he could repay any of his debt from what's left, or from any other source. He doesn't know a lot about the internal wokings of illegal drug cartels, but there are a few things that he was pretty certain of. Concepts like compassion, understanding, or tolerance are not – and never have been – part of their operating manual! They will extract what they feel they need to in order to settle whatever they consider their due. And they will never appear weak when it comes to settlement!
Harmid had just had it explained to him by his Mullah that the most common method of solving the situation will be as follows. You Hamid owe the drug dealers a significant amount of produce from the seeds they gave you. If you don't have that opium, then you owe them the cash advance they gave you. If you have neither then you have a significant debt. In lieu of your debt, they will offer to buy one of your daughters. If you do this you clear what is owed and you will save yourself, your wife, and your son. From the perspective of those who deal in the drug world this exchange is purely pragmatic. Why are you upset? They're not asking for your son. If you don't pay up however no one can say what might happen.
All of the above was explained to Hamid just 2 days ago by a pair of huge, gun-toting, foreign sounding enforcers that had paid him an unannounced visit. He was given 48 hours to provide a reply, or in other words chose a daughter. It was pointed out to him that all his neighbours were doing it. So his girls would likely end up being with many of their friends. The details of modern slavery with its potential for things like – 24/7 brutal servitude in the large houses of wealthy families – or 7 day a week prostitution – the savagery of being a child soldier – or worse the joyous world of organ harvesting. These were all pieces of information that were intentionally withheld. And yet, even with their erroneous presentation to him of some sort of holiday camp scenario he could not bring himself to think of an exchange that involved a human life. There was no monetary amount to compare to one his beloved children. All through his life his friends, his neighbours, his family, and his religious leaders had all told him that he was too emotional, too woolly and too soft, and his sentimentality would render him of no use in the service of Allah or Jihad.
“Doesn't anyone get it?” he shouted (nay screamed), “This is as serious as it can be. They want one of my girls. They are saying that I should just accept it as god's will and do what is necessary. Am I the odd one out? Am I the one who is in the wrong? But no, no, no! This is wrong. Abraham was wrong. God is wrong. Scriptures are wrong. I won't do this. I can't do this anymore. I want to die. Allah send me to hell. I am no use to you. I am no use to anyone. I am no use to my family. I am no use to my children. I do not deserve life. Take it away.”
After this extremely blashphemous rant Hamid turned and walked away. Those at the mosque who heard him were in such shock they didn't instantly decapitate him as they normally would have. Was this sooky Harmid? They were stunned. As he walked away he remembered his school days. His nickname then was “Crybaby”. In retrospect he was very sensitive. And certainly too emotional for the rigours of life in Afghanistan. He was never selected for training by the Mujaheddin. He was the last one picked for cricket or football. He was never given weapons to play with, and never instructed in their use. His father told him he feared he might be effeminate, which of course was a worse sin than being a girl. For Hamid all he could do was work. So that's what he did. His father whispered to himself a quiet “Praise be to Allah” when he finally married – he wasn't gay after all. But then he stuffed it all up again by having 3 girls before his only boy. He clearly was not bold and consequently not favoured by god.
His despair as he trudged home was immeasurable. Where he spent his eternity was predestined by what had just happened. If one more person says to him that, “it's not like they want your son, it's only a girl they want”, he thinks even his gentle sensitive self has the potential to kill that person with his bare hands. Yet the counsel he just received from the Mullah was actually worse that that. It was pointed out to him that the Taliban were working directly for Allah in the cause of Jihad. If under that divine sanction it was deemed that growing opium was god's will, so be it. If it is then decided that the process should be stopped, who are you to question the wishes of Allah? If Allah requires the sacrificial use of one of your girls, well you question his will at your peril.
At this point Hamid did something in his mind that he instantly deemed to be unforgivable. For the shortest of nanoseconds he wondered if he had to choose between them which of the three would it be? The shame he felt for only briefly thinking this horrible thought was then piled on top of his despair. Is this what life has dealt to him? He then importantly concluded that whatever the consequence to him, they will not take any his daughters. In his moment of thinking of this horrible choice he actually opened his mind to another perspective and he started to see the reality of his dilemma. If anything was going to happen it will be over his dead body.
In a very strange twist of consciousness he actually felt his shame had allowed him to loosen the vice-like grip of his despair. Without any awareness Hamid, having been pushed so hard, had made a critical choice. He was not going to pay for his mistake with the life of somebody else, and certainly never with one of his children. He was sure that these thugs would have come up against somebody like him before, and they would have some clever way of turning the gun towards another family member and make them the issue. He could offer himself as a sacrifice, but in the real world, that would surely mean the end for somebody else as well. These were not nice people.
While he was no sophisticated thinker he saw now that, yes he had made a bad choice all those years ago when everyone said take the drug money, and do the will of Allah. But it was his bad choice. If someone was going to pay the price for that it was firstly going to be him. He was not sure how he would facilitate that. Guns will shoot. Bullets will fly. Others will most likely be killed. Hamid knew this. Growing up in Afghanistan he had seen more than enough violence with its so-called “collateral damage”, but Hamid would do his best to use his body as a shield. He might fail. The outcomes might all end up just the same, but at least he will have have done all he could. Yes, he was only one helpless, pathetic individual but he wouldn't be able to live with himself if he bowed passively to the real powers of evil. Whatever he did he thought for certain would be futile, but at least it would be his futility. The more he went along this line of thinking the clearer it all became to him, the more he began to feel like he was taking back control, and the more he began to feel a kind of peace. Even the pleasures of hell faded in the face of the power of his individual conscience.
His other line of thinking was this “Will of Allah” thing. He just didn't get it anymore. Everything that the Taliban did was the will of Allah, or so they said. If this week things were white, and to the right, then next week they might just as surely be black, and to the left. How can a simple uneducated soul like him know which is which? His unquestioning trust of the Taliban has lead him to a place where it is god's will to sell one of his daughters into slavery. Has the Mosque never made an error, or ever admitted to one? Has the Mullah never got it wrong? For Hamid the even bigger question was, “If god is prepared to allow me to sacrifice one of my daughters to a less than human drug dealer, and that is his will, I'm not so sure I want to live in a universe that has been created by a mind that thinks that's ok”. He then accepted that to even think such a thing meant he was already destined for hell. So, regardless of what he did his thoughts have condemned him and he is doomed to the flames.
For a short period of time on his long walk home it all became clear to the suffering Hamid. He was not going to let anyone else carry his can, and he was totally sick of the flexibility of the “Will of Allah”. No matter how painful the potential outcomes were going to be for him, he was at last at peace about it. Right there, at that moment, and more that at any other time in his life, he was being the person he wanted to be. He was not the creation of somebody else's expectation, someone else's religion, or some invisible and distant god's obscure and ever-changing will. He went home to his family for no doubt the last time. He hugged his kids, greeted his wife, and bravely kept everything to himself.
Very very early the next morning, about 1 am, there was a loud confrontation inside Hamid's home across his large dinner table. The table itself was a family heirloom that had come down through the generations. The family joke was that Noah had made it from the off cuts of gopher wood he used on the Ark. That the table was made strongly turned out to be an important factor in what was about to happen.
Because the act of exchanging a daughter for debts was a reasonably well established tradition in Afghanistan the drug cartels assumed the calling in of such debts would be relatively straight forward. The lack of raw opium they knew would create a supply chain blockage somewhere up the tree, but the payment swap process in Hamid's region seemed to be going sort of smoothly, and by the time a pair of dealers from the cartel had got around to his account it was not battle-hardened operators that they sent. The two enforcers that sat across the table from Hamid weren't green, but at the same time they weren't that experienced either. When they got to this small, modest, gentle, and inoffensive Hamid they would have no doubt thought “Well this one will be easy”. But it wasn't.
The following is a brief outline of the crucial points of discussion that ensued.
“Get f****d you total d***head.
Who the f**k do you think the you are you a***hole.
You're going to get a f*****g bullet in your f*****g head.
You don't tell us what the f**k you're doing.
We tell you what the f**k you're doing.
You got that s***head!!!”
“Yes, well I understand this isn't your plan and that you're feeling a bit....”
“Didn't I just tell you to F*****G SHUT UP!!!”
A bullet was fired randomly as a show of strength and Hamid thought, yes this is serious. Hamid had several times tried to explain that he was not going to trade one of his daughters. He had a small amount of the cash advance left over. He also had some very modest savings, and was prepared to sell some farm tools, but it was still going to fall quite a bit short. Imagine several variations of the above stream of expletives, and this was the nature of responses. It all went back and forth and over and over. But this collection of expletives sounded like gentle prayers from the faithful when Hamid informed them that his girls weren't even at home. They had in fact been sent away for a few days. This disclosure caused No 2 to raise his semi-automatic aimed directly at Hamid's forehead.
“I'm going to right now blow your f******g head off you piece of camel dung!”
“Just cool it for a second,” said no 1, “we need to think for amoment!”
Then Hamid's son Omar came from behind his bed curtain and said, “You are not taking any of my sisters.”
Hamid screamed as loudly as a gentle kind man could at Omar to bet back to his bed, but Omar only held more tightly to his father's arm. He was going disobey, and he was not going to change. Then only maybe a few seconds later Hamid's wife joined her two men and assumed the same stance as Omar. Hamid could not believe what was happening. It was alright for him to take the rap for this debacle but it was not his son or wife's duty to do the same. He quickly looked at both their faces and saw the calm resolve in their eyes .
He was as angry as a father could be at his son's foolhardy bravery, but he also he felt proud that a sensitive “cry baby” of a man like him could have a son of true courage. Equally he wondered how a woman of such individual bravery, could love a man like him. Hamid felt right there that his modest contribution to the overall good of the cosmos were these two incredible souls who he had some input into releasing onto the world..
“Oh f**k me, I'm broken up,' mocked no 2 and again raised his semi-automatic, only to be cooled down again by no1.
“NO, hold it! Look brother,if we go back with no drugs, no cash, no girl, at least three dead bodies, and one of them a child, on only our fifth collection, we are f****d. With all the chaos from this f****d up Taliban situation, they'll probably take us out and shoot us. You know man, they want to stay under the radar. They don't want this kind of publicity.'
“Well I'll just take out the old c***head, and we'll leave the other two!”
“Yep, ok bro, that sounds like a plan.”
Harmid braced himself. His modest plan to divert all attention onto him had actually achieved the outcome he desired. He was satisfied. While it had not gone as he expected, for the moment his girls were out of the picture, and now so was his wife and son. The enforcers' inexperience had opened the way for him to take sole responsibilty. No 1 agreed that shooting Hamid would keep the reputation of the cartel in tact. So no 2 raised his gun.
At exactly 1:30am on the 22nd of June 2022 a massive earthquake hit the Eastern border region of Afghanistan. Hamid, his wife, and Omar were of course natives and had been taught from childhood the correct drill when such things happen. They all dived under the kitchen table – yes, the ultra stable antique table that had allegedly been made from Noah's gopher wood. No1 and no2 on the other hand were not locals, or even nationals, and they made the same error everyone does. That is, they ran for it in panic As they approached the kitchen door to the outside the huge supporting beam from the wall collapsed.
As the debri settled Hamid had no idea what had happened, other than that everybody had followed correct procedure, and for now were safe. He checked on their well being and waited for the inevitable aftershocks. They cleared whatever rubble they could without creating anymore instability in their current safe position. As he tried to hear anything above the noise of after shocks and shattered buildings gradually falling over he realised he could hear nothing of the drug dealers. “They've probably got as far away as they could for now”, he thought, but equally knew they would be back. Then he stopped and he realised something. He was alive, and so were his wife, and his son, and they were praying for his girls. Just what this all meant he would worry about later. For the moment he huddled in with those two brave souls and felt like there was something worthwhile in all the fight and struggle.
In the next few days, and then the next weeks, in the absolute chaos that followed the earthquake Hamid, and what was left of his family, sort of vanished off into the dust. Nobody ever heard anything of them from that day on. Two unidentifiable male bodies were uncovered in the rubble around Hamid's former house. Whether they were drug dealers nobody knew, or cared. Afghanistan is a place where individual life is so devalued no one even bothered to try and find out. The only thing that could be said for sure is that Hamid, whatever his post earthquake survival status, would have treasured every minute of his life, no matter how difficult or brief, from that point on.
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