Please appreciate the insignificant refugee life of 12 year old Pushtoon orphan Najib in Quetta, Pakistan
In short, I learnt form Najib that the world needs to build wide-scale humane relationships across all barriers so as to turn the tide on an increasingly proud and violent regression of humanity.
Najib was a 12 year old Pushtoon refugee orphan who collected rubbish for a living in Quetta , Pakistan Quetta
We became friends.
Our means of communication was just a sense of goodwill, as both of us were rudimentary with Urdu. But we clicked like kindred spirits who wondered if any meaning could be found in war, in safety or in friendship.
I was wondering if I could be of help. How proud that thought turned out to be, especially with the forgotten destitute like Najib. He was the soul who helped me understand what humanitarian workers need to live out, that we can only begin to be of some transient help when we understand the practice of love.
Love is freed through friendship that’s oblivious to race, class and religion.
Love is impossible in war because war destroys and kills.
Love sees that we have the same ‘dirt’ in our lives and that we need to somehow recover together from our frailties.
I’ve no idea if Najib is still alive today. Or if he has not become the hunted and ‘demonized’ Afghan insurgent.
There were certainly many ‘madrassahs’ ( religious schools ) training young boys in ‘jihad’ while I was there in 2002 through to 2004, probably a peak period of the re-grouping of Afghan fighters following the bombing of Afghanistan post September 11.
I shudder to think how different things may have been for me if I were not a civilian humanitarian worker but a uniformed soldier, however well-intentioned a soldier I may have been. I would never have become Najib’s friend.
We should all shudder to think that the hearts of the world’s religious, intellectual and political elite of today unquestioningly accept militarism as a response to hate, anger and a vacuum of meaningful relationships.
We should shudder at its sheer amoral-ness, emptiness and senseless-ness.
For a few months, Najib visited me frequently, sharing food with me, looking to me for healing when he pricked his finger with a used syringe needle he had collected in his trash sack and enjoying a Coke treat on a warm summer day.
I will never know if he appreciated our interaction, but I can declare that I did.
In season, I invited Najib and his aged grandma ( both his parents had been killed in the war ) to share some delicious Pakistani mangoes. I was overjoyed to wash Najib’s soiled hands and feet before the ‘meal’. When I asked to take a photo with Najib and his grandma, I asked Najib to smile.
Najib’s grandma chided me in Kandahri Pushto, “Why are you asking Najib to smile? He doesn’t have any reason to smile.”
Then ,on a dreary late afternoon, Najib informed me with teary eyes that he was leaving to cross borders again, this time into Iran , because ‘life in Quetta
How I wish I could meet Najib again.
Najib was illiterate. One day, I had taught him to write his name in my journal and had recorded my thoughts in the verses below.
نجیب
On this quiet page
On this quiet page
I taught him to write his name
His life, just like this safha صفحه
Will turn the corner and move on again
Not seeing how the end will B بor be
Nor how to start with the N نor end
But scribbling with fortitude and persistence
a wandering spirit and a weary hand
Trying to chance upon some line
That will spell real hope from above
And form a meaning kind and true
And have roots in unfading love
My deep concern for this orphan boy
Whose name and friendship I chanced upon
Who gave me a privileged moment
When on this page his name was formed
The quiet voice and silent name of Najib نجیب
Video Script
The Af-Pak border is now labeled an ‘epicenter of terrorism’
We should remember that refugee settlements house human beings
Afghan wars mean Afghan refugees
In 2002, I met Afghan refugee children collecting trash in the Quetta
12-year-old Pushtoon orphan Najib lost his parents & fled Kandahar
Najib had eyes of life and grief
He collected trash to re-sell for a few rupees
No trash was too ‘lowly’ for him
He’s one among the destitute, unknown masses
Unknowingly, Najib turned my life upside down…
…when he offered me his hand of friendship
…and shared his journey with me
We had Coca Cola together
Ate apples together
Yes, even mused over technology together
One day, Najib’s hand was hurt by a syringe needle he had collected
He came running bare-feet, to ‘un-burden’ his pain with me
Another day, I cleaned Najib’s soiled hands for a meal
His grandma said that Najib had no reason to smile
But you know, Najib had a smile…
He smiled when he was with friends
Like many impoverished Afghans, Najib lived in a silence
Like many impoverished Afghans, he expected little of life
We can make peace with potential insurgents by befriending them
Love is impossible in war as war destroys & kills.
Love is freed thru friendship that’s oblivious to race, class & religion
Love sees that we have the same ‘dirt’ in our lives
that we need to somehow recover together from our frailties.
Love is how we will ask for peace
