Afghanistan’s Post-9/11 Generation by Suleiman Amanzad – Wall Street Journal
I am an Afghan, and I belong to the first post-9/11 generation. I was 4 when the Taliban took over my native Bamiyan in 1998. Bamiyan is one of the most beautiful provinces of Afghanistan, covered with towering mountains and lush green fields. It’s also home to the world’s largest standing Buddha statues. Or it was until the Taliban destroyed them.
In 1998 my parents lived in a little mud house at the bottom of the mountain in Dukani village, located in a narrow valley in between the mountains. Word of the Taliban’s brutality—how they would torture, imprison and murder Shiite Muslims—had spread among villagers. Women were advised to wear ragged clothes to avoid being raped. The women of our family had woven scarves for themselves out of old blankets.
When the Taliban murdered villagers in 1999, people ran for their lives, leaving their homes and belongings. My family fled to the mountains and hid in a small cave along with two other families. The only light in the cave came through a small hole, which we had to seal to avoid detection.
The Taliban would kill and pillage during the day and retreat at night when the temperature fell below freezing. After dark my father and uncles would sneak into the village and bring back as much food as they could find. We spent weeks in that cave, starving, scared and waiting for death. After several weeks, when local militias began fighting back, our family snuck out and fled to Kabul…
I will embrace the Taliban if they come in peace. I will try to get past their brutality against my family. But I will not accept the Taliban if they try to force us to go back to their version of Islam. And this is not just my sentiment. This is the view of millions of young Afghan men and women of my generation who came of age in the new Afghanistan…