This unaltered story [1] was originally published on OpenDemocracy.org.
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The truth is most Afghans don’t head west to Europe
By: []
Date: 2021-08
The fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban has triggered global concerns about a new wave of refugees, with shocking scenes of desperate people trying to escape from Kabul airport reinforcing the idea of a migration crisis.
The moral panic over migration generates a politics of crisis, which in turn legitimizes the intensification of ‘exceptional’ measures aimed at securing Europe’s borders. The militarized response by Western states to the human misery unfolding at Kabul airport should be understood in this broader context of crisis and policing. This state of exception has generated a perverse, orientalist representation of the country, centred around the idea that only the US military and its NATO allies stand between Afghan civilians and Taliban barbarity.
This crisis-based reading of mobility through emergency is based on a historically inaccurate understanding of migration patterns in the region, which predates war and Western military intervention – or the ‘return’ of Taliban to power. A different political imagination is needed in this moment of ‘emergency’, one that offers the possibility of thinking about migration beyond the limits of humanitarian crisis. Although the present reality is grim enough, it is important to remember that Afghans migrate for reasons other than war or Taliban repression. The Taliban say that the war has ended and, as the security situation hopefully stabilizes, it is possible that Afghans will resume the regional patterns of migration that have long been key to life and livelihoods in rural households throughout Afghanistan.
My research shows that, until recently, many Afghans, especially young men, did not necessarily head to Europe to become refugees. Many of the young men I worked with in Afghanistan and Turkey in 2017 and 2018 had other, more mundane motivations for migration. These young Turkmen-speaking men from northern Afghanistan embarked on dangerous journeys through Pakistan and Iran to reach Turkey. There, they found jobs in the country’s construction and service industries, or as cooks, waiters, and cleaners. A few worked in a garment factory, and the clothes they made were exported to markets in the Middle East and Europe.
These men had strong social ties to their communities back home in Afghanistan, meaning hardly any were interested in migrating to Europe. Instead, they worked illegally in Turkey, under exploitative conditions and in constant fear of deportation. They aspired to masculine ideals – wanting to be the breadwinner, to provide for their families, and to achieve the social status and prestige that comes with marriage. An arranged marriage, in which the bride is chosen by the groom’s parents, is still considered the most prestigious route to matrimony and household formation in Afghanistan.
And so they sent remittances home to support their families and saved some money on the side towards a bride price. The marriage market has changed, and Afghan rural household resources, based on land and agriculture, are no longer sufficient – cash is instead required to pay a hefty bride price. Large, expensive weddings have also increasingly become the norm. After five to six years, the men would return to their villages to get married and start families. This circulatory mode of itinerant existence – working in Turkey and providing for families back home in Afghanistan – has come under intense pressure due to the pandemic, closed borders in the region, and armed conflict in Afghanistan.
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