An Afghanistani Migrant’s Letter to His Daughter in Iran
The girls inside Afghanistan were born in a situation where time does not belong to them, and you, Sana, were born in a land where the place does not belong to you
By Mohammad Muradi and Translated by Asadullah Jafari “Pezhman”
My dear daughter, Sana Jan! My today’s daily notes are mostly dedicated to you. A month has passed since the end of your kindergarten period. During this time, your mother and I have been trying day and night to enroll you in a public primary school, but we have not succeeded yet. This morning, Monday, July 31, 2023, for the umpteenth time, your mother visited public schools, including Sara School and Shahid Safidi Girls’ Primary School, so that she might enroll you in the first grade, but her struggles and begging were of no use and avail. However, she called me and said she couldn’t bear it anymore; her patience was over. Then, she told me that you should do something for Sana’s enrollment in school.
My dear Sana! your mother’s distressed condition touched me. Without mediating with anyone, I started writing a letter to discuss the matter with the education administration of the fifth district of Mashhad City. I thought that the superintendent of schools of the fifth district was probably not in the loop. I wrote the letter and personally went to the Department of Education of the Fifth District of Mashhad in the Panjrah region. The education director of the fifth district is a person named Masjidi. He read my letter and said that I accept the “Text” of your letter.
My dear Sana! In the letter, I had written the description of your registration and enrollment story, that after a month of running and commuting, we still haven’t managed to register you in the school; While you and your mother were born in this land and all of us have legal residence. In this letter, I pleaded not only for you but also for all of your peers who have created a wall of discrimination between you and your lessons and exercises. This letter is attached to this diary of mine, and God willing, one day, when you grow up and literate, you will read it, and you will understand the difficulties we endured for you to enter school. In the letter, I have also mentioned the decree of the leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who ordered in 2015 that the children of Afghan immigrants should not be deprived of education in Iran and be enrolled in public schools.
After reading my letter, the director of education of the fifth district of Mashhad City said in a calm and respectful tone that “I have ordered the children of Afghan immigrants not to be enrolled in Iranian schools under my management because our educational space is not enough and Iranians have the right of priority.”
My dear Sana! You don’t know how much I collapsed in myself from this discriminatory remark, and the world became dark and gloomy for me. In fact, the pain of discrimination is bone-chilling, and until someone faces discrimination, they will not feel it.
Dear Sana! At that moment, the history of apartheid suddenly flashed through my mind like a movie, and I imagined you outside the classroom and school, where your peers are studying. However, you are a victim of discrimination and apartheid. Then the situation of Afghanistan girls came to my mind, and I felt with all my heart and soul the heartache of fathers waiting for the school gates to open.
Of course, my dear Sana, Afghanistan girls have been victims of gender apartheid since the sixth grade. However, you and others like you are victims of “Nationality Apartheid” from the very beginning and upon entering primary school.
We, the contemporary fathers of Afghanistan, are ashamed of you girls. The girls inside Afghanistan were born in a situation where time does not belong to them, and you, Sana, were born in a land where the place does not belong to you, and this is the shared pain that binds all the girls of Afghanistan together.
My dear daughter! After I left the director of education’s room, I sat momentarily on the courtyard chairs. I thought about the human suffering, how thousands of children in the medieval in all parts of the world were victims of apartheid and were deprived of education. At the same time, your mother called me and said, “Did you obtain the consent of the director of education to enroll Sana?” I said no!
The Islamic Utopia
She paused momentarily and said that you are still thinking about the “Islamic Utopia” and that you will not leave the Islamic Utopia so that your religion is not endangered?
I said that I still adhere to my religious beliefs, but my beliefs about the Islamic Utopia have been leaking for a long time. Then I said that now we have no way forward or back, and we said goodbye.
Yeah, my dear Sana! We are paying for the mistake of our fathers, who chose Iran as a destination for immigration, and our children became victims of the mistake we made to continue our presence and being in Iran.
My dear daughter! I will not give up on any effort to get you into school until I reach a complete dead end. God willing, one day, you will become literate. However, future generations will read this note that once upon a time in the Islamic Utopia, the only wish of a father was for his seven-year-old daughter to attend school, and the daughter’s wish was to achieve her most basic human rights.
My dear Sana! One day, you will understand that no power can confront science when the pen’s owner is the universe’s controller.
Translator’s Note: Mohammad Muradi is an Afghan immigrant living in Mashhad, Iran, who wrote this letter to his daughter after failing to enroll his seven-year-old daughter, Sana, in school. In this letter, Mr. Muradi has written about educational discrimination, apartheid regarding his daughter’s education, the children of immigrants living in Iran, and gender discrimination against Afghan girls inside Afghanistan.
Although racial, legal, judicial, nationality and educational discrimination is not a new thing against Afghan refugees in Iran, this is the issue that immigrants have been dealing with such hot but soft discrimination for years. The lack of access of Afghan immigrant children to education in Iran has provoked protests many times before as well. However, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Iran has stated that no refugee can be denied education due to lack of identity card, gender, race, etcetera. But these educational laws for Afghan refugees are still not implemented fairly.
Related Links:
https://bnn.network/world/afghanistan/voices-unheard-the-struggles-of-afghan-immigrants-in-iran/
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/the-story-of-the-afghans-deportation/
http://www.indiandefencereview.com/spotlights/a-heart-wrenching-episode/
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