The Afghan American Artists’ and Writers’ Association and the Afghan Diaspora for Equality and Progress are proud to present “Beyond Refuge: Migrants Resist Detention”, a virtual panel discussion featuring activists, lawyers, and human rights advocates. Join us this Friday July 24, 2020 at 7pm EST/4pm PST.
This panel discussion is focused on developing a better understanding of how migrants are politically conscious people who are resisting the violence of the states in which they are seeking protection. It aims to move beyond the narrative that migrants are simply passive victims of humanitarian aid. We have a dynamic set of panelists on board, including Afghan organizers who have worked with refugees in Greece and have had personal experience with this issue. We look forward to an informative and thoughtful discussion!
We, the Afghan American Artists’ and Writers’ Association (AAAWA), affirm that Black lives matter. This statement is not only a declaration of solidarity. It is also a commitment to sustained allyship with Black communities and an invitation to other members of the Afghan diaspora to commit to doing the same. We recognize that the struggles of our fellow Afghan Americans and other marginalized groups are intimately connected with those of Black people living in the United States. The continuing impacts of colorism, militarization here and abroad, economic and cultural oppression, and the intersection of white supremacy and American imperialism, have brought us to a critical point. We must play a more active role in creating a world that is just, equitable, and affirming for Black communities.
As members of the Afghan American Artists’ and Writers’ Association, we have been wrestling with a number of questions since the extraordinary uprising in response to the recent murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, David McAtee, and the countless other victims of systemic racism in the U.S. How can the Afghan diaspora, particularly in the United States, actively support the Black Lives Matter movement in its mission for freedom and justice? How can we take responsibility for our complicity in the anti-Blackness and white supremacy that manifest within our Afghan American communities and families? Additionally, as relatively new immigrants from a Muslim-majority country in the age of the War on Terror, what are the connections between white supremacy’s oppression of our own communities and Black communities? As marginalized peoples who often share neighborhoods, scarce resources, and are subject to policing regimes, how can we defy polarization and build solidarity movements with each other?
Our commitment to engaging with these questions is motivated by a number of reasons. First, we oppose the system of white supremacy and racism that enable and actively encourage the systematic killing of Black people at the hands of the police and white nationalists. This system also facilitates the murder and oppression of Black people through state-sanctioned policies such as segregation, redlining, the school-to-prison pipeline, environmental racism, and the ongoing traumas of trans-Atlantic chattel slavery.
Second, we feel compelled to convey to the Afghan American community the importance of standing with Black communities in their struggle for justice. As members of a diaspora, we have experienced racialized, gendered, and ethnicized forms of marginalization, but we recognize that our experiences are not the same as those of Black communities. In fact, our social and economic livelihoods in the U.S. have benefited from the ongoing disenfranchisement and criminalization of Black people, and the racial hierarchies on which these processes rest. These hierarchies have been instituted to divide communities of color. It is undeniable that many of us, as Afghan Americans, have participated in reinforcing them. Afghan Americans have participated in practices of colorism, gentrification, ‘white flight,’ allying with policing apparatuses post-9/11, and anti-Blackness. AAAWA commits to using our platform to raise awareness among Afghan American communities about these issues and the history of the country that we now call home. This commitment entails unlearning hegemonic ideals of whiteness. Uncovering this history means doing the intellectual labor of understanding the fundamentally racist, settler-colonial foundations that formed the U.S., and the economic, social, and political systems that sustain the status quo domestically and globally.
Third, we believe that Black liberation is bound with the collective liberation of Afghans and other communities of color. We recognize the Black activists and leaders who have paved the way for other communities to fight for equality for hundreds of years. It was the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 60s that paved the way for legislation that improved the rights and livelihoods of immigrant communities in the U.S. Some folks in our communities have asked, “How can you protest the death of Black people and not Afghan people?” We can do both. By saying “Black lives matter,” we are not saying that only Black lives matter or that Black lives are more important than all other lives, including Afghan lives. In fact, we are saying that if Black lives–their preservation and their flourishing–do not matter to the government and institutions of the United States (as clearly they have not), then how can all lives matter to them? If the occupation and militarization of Afghanistan is an extension of the domestic regime that polices Black bodies in the United States, then the Afghan American diaspora has a role to play in the liberation of Black communities here.
We vow to adhere to the above statement through a range of projects we are organizing, as listed under “Long-Term Goals & Actions.” We also ask our fellow Afghan Americans to take specific actions now. We recognize that we will need to continue to develop and question this action plan as we continue to educate ourselves about movements for Black liberation.
LONG-TERM GOALS & ACTIONS
Undertake a rigorous examination of the intersections between Black communities and Afghan American communities in the U.S. This includes: educating our communities about the history of African Americans in the U.S.; the history of immigrant communities particularly within the context of the Civil Rights Movement; the existence, manifestations, and impact of anti-Black racism in Afghan American communities; and drawing connections between the domestic police apparatus and U.S. militarization abroad (including of Afghanistan).
Create conversation guides and facilitate workshops on unlearning colorism, white supremacy, and anti-Blackness in the Afghan diaspora.
Develop and/or help distribute multilingual (English, Dari, Pashto, Uzbek) informational and educational resources.
Organize a monthly decolonial reading series that will address issues of colorism, racism, settler colonialism, and imperialism.
Lead public dialogues about how the increase in surveillance and entrapment of Muslim communities in the U.S. post-9/11 is part of a long history of violence toward communities of color.
Support national advocacy campaigns within our local communities.
Concretely support campaigns that call for the abolition of the police and the redistribution of money to sustain initiatives that provide and improve housing, food security, medical care, mental health services, and education.
Foster durable and mutually nourishing relationships between AAAWA and other groups.
Collaborate with other social justice groups within and outside Afghan communities, including Black-led organizations, to advance social justice for marginalized communities globally.
Sign petitions such as this one from Reclaim the Block that call for defunding and abolishing the police, and redistributing money to services that help sustain communities, such as reliable housing, food security, schools, mental health support, and medical care.
Write emails and make calls to our local council members, representatives, and senators at the state and federal level that directly address the above.
DONATE TO:
Bail Funds. Click here to find out why this ensures that poor people can fight for their freedom outside of the violent system of jail.
Thank you to the many other groups that have provided resources on ways to support this movement, including the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University.
On Sunday, February 9, 2020, AAAWA will participate in an event in collaboration with the Soul Force Project. Below are the details from their event page:
Sunday, February 9, 2020 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM Church of the Epiphany (map) 2808 Altura Street Los Angeles, CA 90031
This monthly series features live world music and inspiring social change speakers, on the 1st Sunday of every month at the historic Church of the Epiphany in Lincoln Heights.
Themed around fluid cultural borders to promote peace and historical precedents for non-violence, this event will take place in the beautiful sanctuary of Church of the Ephiphany in a historic 107-year-old setting:
Live santoor and improvisation by Iranian-American musician and composer Sahba Sizdahkhani inspired by both 1960s free jazz and Persian traditional music channeling fire-energy and longing for connectivity
A poetic presentation by independent scholar Safoora Arbab of Pashtun poet Ghani Khan’s writing centering on exploring how nonviolence was embodied by the Khudai Khidmatgar movement led by his father, Abdul Ghaffar Khan in the northwest frontier of colonial British India
Contemporary fiction by Malahat Zhobin and the work of Afghani poet Qahar Asi translated from Dari by Farhad Azad in partnership with the Afghan-American Artists and Writers Association (AAAWA)
General Admission: $10-20 sliding scale
The Sounds of Soul Force Sundays features diverse global music and social change speakers on the first Sunday of the month. Presented in partnership with community partner Lincoln Heights Youth Arts Center and event partner the Afghan-American Artists and Writers Association (AAAWA). Guest produced and programmed by Maryam Hosseinzadeh for Soul Force Project.
On Sunday, January 12th 4-6 pm, AAAWA will have a free film screening and panel discussion at the Glendale Central Library as part of the closing reception for the exhibit “Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later.” We will be showing Fazila Amiri’s short documentary, “Unknown Artist” and Mariam Ghani’s feature documentary, “What We Left Unfinished.” Come a little early to check out the associated exhibit, which marks Afghanistan’s centennial, bringing together artists and writers to reflect on how the aspirations of Afghanistan and its diaspora were interrupted, transformed, and reborn since independence.
Sunday, January 12th 4-6 pm Glendale Central Library 222 East Harvard Street Glendale, CA 91205
In “Unknown Artist” (8 min) Fazila Amiri explores how writing and singing serve as reprieve for a 17-year-old child bride, reeling from a toxic, abusive marriage. Here, she tells her story at the only women’s radio station in the city of Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Mariam Ghani’s“What We Left Unfinished” (70 min) tells the story of how the dreams of shifting political regimes merged with the stories told onscreen through five unfinished feature films from the Communist era in Afghanistan, the relationships between art and politics in times of war, censorship and repression, and how the unfinished projects of the past haunt the present.
Attendees look at photo series of Afghanistan by Rafi Samizay.
On November 16th, 2019, Gazelle Samizay and Helena Zeweri launched “Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later” at the Glendale Central Library’s Reflect Space Gallery in Glendale, CA. Featuring performances by Wazina Zondon and Yusuf Misdaq, “Fragmented Futures” brought a diverse array of attendees from the LA area and beyond. The exhibit, which runs until January 12, 2020, is designed to shift the conversation on Afghanistan and its diaspora, to focus on people’s everyday lived experience of extraordinary historical events. We at AAAWA hope that as the exhibit continues for the next 2 months, attendees get to see that we as Afghans and Afghan Americans are so much more than one dimensional characters in spectacular narratives of empire and war that have been perpetuated for much too long. This exhibit shows how Afghans live in their full humanity–experiencing joy, trauma, family, displacement, belonging, individuality, and community.
Attendees looking at the zine for “Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later.”Art and photo installations at Glendale Library’s Reflect Space Gallery. From left: Muheb Esmat’s “08.25.17,” Laimah Osman and Sahar Muradi’s “Asalaamalikum” Print Series; Below, Laimah Osman’s “War on Terror” Booklet; Hangama Amiri’s “The Veil,” and Elyas Alavi’s film, “Mother of Time.”Wazina Zondon does a live reading of “Father Tongue.”Pieces from Shamsia Hassani’s series: “Dreaming Graffiti”, and “Birds of No Nation.”From Left: Hangama Amiri’s “The Veil”; Behind, Hangama Amiri’s “The Garden of Happiness”; Yusuf Misdaq’s “Dust of Time”; Reza Hazare’s “The Garden of Lethargy.”“Fragmented Futures” zine displayed outside the Reflect Space Gallery.Aman Mojadiddi’s “The Letter” installation.
“Now hear this. You are mountain people. You are not permitted to speak your mountain language in this place. It is not permitted. It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital. Your language is dead. Your language no longer exists. Any questions?” -Harold Pinter, Mountain Language
With 2019 marking the Centenary of Afghanistan’s Independence, we the Afghan American Artists’ and Writers’ Association, voice our support and solidarity with two groups currently being suppressed by the Government of China, the Hong Kong Protestors and the ethnic Uyghurs of Western China. As writers, we are students of history; as Afghan Americans, we are also the children of a generation deeply affected by imperialism at the hands of Communist Russia. From the 1979 Soviet invasion, to the US’s ongoing militarization of everyday life, our families have been collateral damage in wars led by imperial superpowers. As Americans, we will not remain silent. We recognize native populations who yearn for their land, for their independence, and we understand the necessity for many of them to struggle against the external forces who are attempting to impose an alien way of life and new laws. We are also very familiar with superpowers’ attempts to eradicate cultural traditions (including most notably language and religion, but also the freedom to assemble and voice dissent).
Ironically, the tone that is instinctively taken by the oppressor in such cases of oppression (be it the Chinese government of today, Soviet Russia in the 80’s, the Israeli government towards the Palestinian people, or even the U.S. government’s dispossession of Indigenous peoples) is one of defensiveness, as though the superpowers are themselves the oppressed. In the reproaches made by CCTV (Chinese State Television) in the recent “controversy” involving Darryl Money of the NBA’s Houston Rockets, the entire world has seen the naked face of insecure and paranoid forms of governmental nationalism (i.e.,“We oppose Silver’s claim to support Morey’s right of free expression. We believe that any speech that challenges national sovereignty and social stability is not within the scope of freedom of speech,”). We stress governmental, because we know and respect the people of China, who unlike their government, understand very well that in reality, people are often entangled in complex ways with the states that govern them.
Unlike the protestors in Hong Kong, the Uyghur people of Western China do not even possess enough freedom to be able to protest. They are quite frankly being overrun by Beijing’s repressive policies. The only voices of dissent come from those citizens who have escaped (including many of our own friends and colleagues here in the USA who have confirmed many of the horror stories that are now being told about detention camps and cultural whitewashing, and essentially, brainwashing). The world is beginning to take notice, and we applaud the US government for blacklisting 8 Chinese tech companies that were abusing facial-recognition technology to spy on Uyghur people and continue this obscene cultural genocide.
We urge all who read this to learn as much as you can about these complex situations, to have conversations, with your family, with your friends, with those who may know more about the subject (including people from Hong Kong and North Western China) and to continue to speak out whenever you can. Finally, as Afghan Americans, let us simply state that as writers and thinkers in the US, we enjoy the privilege of being able to respectfully disagree, to peacefully protest, and to practice whichever religion or way of life we choose. We use this privilege to wholly reject the notion of seeing any one people, culture or language as a “threat” to be either subdued, dominated, or “re-educated.”
What would the dust of Afghanistan sound like if it were music? How is a burqa transformed into canvas through oil paint? What stories do a pair of shoes recount in the aftermath of displacement? These questions are explored in an unprecedented showcase of art, writing, film, and scholarship entitled, Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later, opening at ReflectSpace Gallery on November 16, 2019.
Co-sponsored by The Afghan American Artists
& Writers Association, Fragmented Futures will run from November 16,
2019 through January 12, 2020, and is co-curated by Gazelle
Samizay and Helena Zeweri of AAAWA and Ara & Anahid Oshagan.
The year 2019 marks the centennial of some of
the first attempts to engineer a “modern Afghan state” following the third
Anglo-Afghan War in 1919. Attempts by foreign powers to incorporate
Afghanistan into the economic and political life of the international community
had mixed results for the country and its people. Political upheaval was
accompanied by the development of progressive agendas around gender equality,
civic life, and the media. In the words of photographer Rafi Samizay, “The
result of so many invasions and foreign occupations is a culture made of a
patchwork of contradictory traits…Traces of the past remain in every citizen
and in the physical environment. It is precisely these residual paradoxes that
mirror the mixed historic legacy.” Using the centennial as a guiding theme, Fragmented
Futures seeks to address the ongoing consequences of foreign intervention,
which are key to understanding Afghanistan’s current struggles to be
self-sufficient.
The exhibit expands the conversation beyond depictions
of Afghanistan and its diaspora as either simply victims of imperial agendas or
completely independent of them. Rather, Fragmented Futures sheds light
on how people’s everyday aspirations were interrupted, transformed, and reborn
in both the diaspora and in an ever-changing Afghanistan. This is illustrated
in Yusuf Misdaq’s installation, as “ghostly voices of youth from the past echo
through in the form of spliced and affected spoken-word interviews.”
Several artists and writers have been invited to
contribute to a zine created especially for the exhibit, bringing together art,
short stories, essays, poetry, and scholarship. The zine serves as a unique
creative artifact illustrating the vibrant public life and community
building that takes place in the Afghan diaspora, while the exhibit as a whole
critically engages with the ongoing legacies of empire and war in the Afghan
community.
Artists and Writers
The artists in Fragmented
Futures exhibition: Elyas Alavi, Fazila Amiri, Hangama Amiri, Farhad Azad,
Sabrina Barekzai, Muheb Esmat, Shiraz Fazli, Zuhal Feraidon, Johanna-Maria
Fritz, Mariam Ghani, Shamsia Hassani, Reza Hazare, Jim Huylebroek, Yusuf
Misdaq, Aman Mojadidi, Sahar Muradi, Laimah Osman, Sara Rezaie, Gazelle
Samizay, Rafi Samizay, and Samea Shanori.
Writers and artists in Fragmented
Futures zine: Leeza Ahmady, Arash Azizzada, Mojib Ghaznawi, Mehdia Hassan, Brian Higbee, Seelai Karzai, Hanna Kherzai, Jamil Kochai, Omar Mizdaq, Deeva Momand, Neda Olomi, Mohammad Sabir Sabir, Susan Saleh, Malahat Zhobin, Sara Zhobin, and Wazina Zondon.
About AAAWA
The Afghan American Artists & Writers
Association is a North American-based Afghan women-led collective that aims to
give artists and writers in the Afghan diaspora a platform to feature their
work to a broad audience through community forums, exhibitions, creative
workshops, and public commentaries. AAAWA seeks to amplify work that critically
engages mainstream U.S. discourses around Afghanistan, where Afghan voices are
either routinely ignored or reduced to cultural tropes.
About ReflectSpace
ReflectSpace is an inclusive exhibition gallery
designed to explore and reflect on major human atrocities, genocides, civil
rights violations, and other social injusticies. Immersive in conception,
ReflectSpace is a hybrid space that is both experiential and informative,
employing art, technology, and interactive media to reflect on the past and
present of Glendale’s communal fabric and interrogate current-day global human
rights issues.
About Library Arts &
Culture
Glendale’s Library, Arts & Culture
Department began in 1907 and includes six neighborhood libraries as well as the
Brand Library & Art Center, housed in the historic 1904 mansion of Glendale
pioneer Leslie C. Brand, and the Central Library, a 93,000 square foot center
for studying, learning and gathering. For more information call Library, Arts
& Culture at 818-548-2030 or see the website www.GlendaleLAC.org.
###
Exhibition Dates Nov 16, 2019 –
Jan 12, 2020
Address 222 E. Harvard Street, Glendale, CA 91205
Opening Reception
Saturday,
November 16, 2019 5-7 pm (featuring live musical performance and reading)
Closing,
film & Panel Discussion Sunday,
January 12, 2020, 4-6 pm (featuring Mariam Ghani’s What We Left Unfinished
and Fazila Amiri’s “Unknown Artist”)
Helena Zeweri and Gazelle Samizay lead workshop on “Creative Outlets for Expression” at AAC 2019
In June 2019, Gazelle Samizay and Helena Zeweri led a workshop on creative outlets for expression at the Afghan American Conference at UC-Irvine. The workshop aimed to facilitate a space where participants could think out loud with each other about how to channel their strengths as artists, activists, writers, academics, or advocates to bring the Afghan diaspora into public spaces in innovative ways. It is often challenging for Afghan Americans to bring their whole intersectional identities into either professional or creative spaces. They are oftentimes told to channel their strengths toward professional and educational mobility in place of more creative projects through which they can express themselves politically and culturally. In this session, we discussed how to demarginalize non-normative forms of personhood within public creative expression. Participants thought about how creative work can feed into public engagement and social justice in relation to the Afghan diaspora and beyond.
Participants writing about their own creative ambitions at the “Creative Outlets for Expression” workshop
Gazelle Samizay and Helena Zeweri facilitating workshop at AAC 2018
In March 2018, Gazelle Samizay and Helena Zeweri led a workshop at the Afghan American Conference in New York called, “How Culture Matters: Tools for Social Justice through Self-Empowerment.” Participants discussed alternative frameworks within which to (re) activate the notion of ‘culture’ in the struggle for collective care and equality. We began from the premise that there is a shared quality to growing up Afghan in America, shaped by a common set of political, social, and historical conditions. At the same time, how this shared experience manifests in the pasts and presents of different individuals is distinct according to race, class, gender, and other categories of difference. Shared learnings from ancestors past and kin of the present, have made an impact on different individuals in different ways. However, because of the demand (from our communities, our families, and the state) to fit our identities within scripts of Afghanness, we have not been able to properly filter which teachings enable us to participate in struggles for equality and justice, and which need to be discarded because they are antithetical to these struggles.
While avoiding the pitfalls of community insularity, cultural essentialism, and identity politics, we discussed how different cultural norms and forms have both enabled and hindered our participation in broader political and social movements.
Participants discussed challenges around and opportunities for social justice work across marginalized communities.
We the Afghan American Artists and Writers’ Association wholeheartedly condemn both the hateful homophobia that motivated the tragic massacre at the gay night club Pulse in Orlando and the hateful rampant Islamophobia that politicians and the media are perpetuating nationwide. We mourn the loss of and express our deepest solidarity with the largely queer people of color who were the victims and their families. As a marginalized people ourselves, we fully support the rights of LGBTQ communities and other QPOC communities, who have been historically and continue to be subjected to rampant violence at the state and society level.
The implications of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that media pundits and politicians have seized upon are equally dangerous. In the current pre-election political climate, Muslims are already othered as fanatic militants and terrorists whose core beliefs are antithetical to Western democracy, progress, and human rights. The corporate media has effectively created a false binary and antagonism between Islam and the West, feeding racist Colonial stereotypes of Islam that have gained new currency since 9/11.
Muslims have been systematically misrepresented in the mainstream media as innately backwards, misogynist, homophobic, and therefore dangerous and a threat to the societies we live in. Such irresponsible speech continues to instigate a collective panic that will lead to further targeting of us in our homes, in our neighborhoods, and in airports. Some politicians have raised the level of hysteria by even suggesting that Muslim Americans be isolated in internment camps. Muslim have been subjected to increasing forms of scrutiny, surveillance, and violence.
