Befriending a potential Afghan insurgent in Quetta Pakistan ; his name was Najib

Please appreciate the insignificant refugee life of 12 year old Pushtoon orphan Najib in Quetta, Pakistan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aioZZKxUqsQ

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. I had just entered the law-less border town of Quetta to work among Afghan refugees and had the privilege of meeting Najib in the streets where he was rummaging through trash.

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.

Quetta is now touted as the headquarters of the Afghan Taliban under Mullah Omar and there are rumours of plans to bomb it, perhaps with the cold symbol of military pride, the drones.

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 was difficult.’

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

Quetta at the Afghan Pakistan border

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 alleys

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