My favorite warlord

This morning I listened to my Kabul-based Dari teacher talk about life in Afghanistan. Her English is laced with surprising slang (e.g. “bro”) and the occasional swear word (the Taliban are “shit”), which both impresses and delights me.

What started with me asking about traffic in Kabul led to a conversation that ebbed and flowed from tribalism to her thoughts on Ahmad Shah Massoud to systemic racism to being told to wear gloves by the Taliban, lest her hands tempt a man to commit a crime. We both agreed wholeheartedly that the Taliban can fuck right off to Mars.

I was particularly interested in her thoughts on Ahmad Shah Massoud, as I had read over the weekend that his soldiers massacred Hazaras in Kabul. I knew Massoud was technically a warlord but Americans tend to hold him in such high regard and I hadn’t yet come across any documentation of his abuses. Since my teacher is Hazara, I asked her about him. She said that despite the fact that his soldiers admittedly killed and raped Hazaras in the early 90’s, that he is still her “favorite warlord.”

This phrase really stuck with me and solidified just how different our two worlds are. I am just beginning to wrap my head around how deeply Afghan tribalism comes to impact both daily life and its geopolitics. That the Pashtun Taliban are bolstered by their fellow non-Taliban Pashtuns; that the Tajiks leading the anti-Taliban resistance efforts are “OK” with Hazaras for part of the year, until the anniversary of the Hazara massacre rolls around and they dislike each other again, albeit temporarily.

I will never fully understand the ins and outs of life in Afghanistan. Hearing firsthand accounts from my teacher is my tiny peek behind the garden wall: just one girl’s experience growing up in the “graveyard of empires” relayed with a mixture of optimism, anger, sadness, and humor.