By Eisha Sarkar
Posted on Pax Populi on 25 February, 2016
The ability to be the most hopeful in
the most abysmal circumstances is a character of the human spirit.
Since the beginning of my engagement with Pax Populi I have been very
surprised at Muhammad Qasem Jami's optimism. Here is a man, who has
grown up in a country ravaged by four decades of war and under the
severe oppression of the Taliban, now working hard to feed and
educate his ten siblings, talking about the beauty and poetry of
Afghanistan!
Despite a high-pressure job and many
volunteer engagements through the week, Jami has the time to outline
his vision for the future of Afghanistan. “It's getting better
slowly. One day, it will be very good.” I asked him if his friends
and students share the same vision. “Well, unfortunately, and you
can't blame them for feeling that way, the youth in Afghanistan feel
very demotivated. They start something but when it does not work out
they just give up. They've seen their parents do that again and again
and again. I keep telling them that you have to keep trying: trying
for a good job, trying to earn more money, trying to educate more
people and trying to get peace.”
With all this talk of future I asked
him what he thought of taqdeer, the Urdu word which means
destiny. “In Farsi, taqdeer means fate, sarnawisht
means destiny,” he pointed out. Since my knowledge of Urdu is
limited to just the colloquial, I chose to go with my human
Farsi-Dari dictionary. “I believe in taqdeer because
of which you and I have met but a man can make his own destiny,”
Jami said. So what destiny did he want to make? “Because of the war
and human rights issues, people here are not proud to call themselves
Afghan. When I was in Bangalore in India and I told people that I am
from Afghanistan, they asked me where my turban was. I told them I
don't wear a turban. They were surprised. This perception intimidated
some of my fellow Afghan exchange students. We were a very proud
race. I want Afghanistan to become a country we all are very proud
of. I want it to have the best leaders and the best education system
in the world.”
1 comment:
Truth and justice can create fate and destiny…
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