Afghan refugee reflects impact of immigration debate

With the public discourse around immigration becoming increasingly poisoned by political rhetoric, the UH spoke with a local man who knows firsthand how it feels to be forced to flee the land you love, leaving your friends, family and home behind.

Before the Taliban ‘hijacked’ Afghanistan in 2021 and reinstated their ruthless totalitarian regime, Mohommad Wais Besmal’s life in Kandahar was one he had no intention of giving up.

He had a job he enjoyed, friends and family he loved, and all the liberty, security and opportunity afforded by the most liberal constitution in the country’s history.

However, once the Jihadist fundamentalists captured control, Mohommad, who had worked with the British Council as an English language teacher, became a political target; an enemy of the emirate.

After going into hiding for a number of months, taking on an itinerant, clandestine life in an attempt to conceal his identity, Mohommad was arrested by a gang of fighters, beaten unconscious and hospitalised.

Fortunately, with the help of some medic-friends who worked in the facility where he was being detained, Mohommad and his family were able to escape.

Almost three years on since the world watched as people plummeted from planes onto the runway at Kabul airport, Mohommad, who along with his wife and three daughters now lives as a refugee in Omagh, spoke with the UH to help our readers better understand why people leave their homeland in search of sanctuary on foreign shores.

“As politicians in both the UK and Ireland prepare for upcoming elections, terms like illegal immigration, asylum seekers and refugees have become a sure fire way to seize headlines,” began Mohommad, when we sat down with him in his workplace, Kmobile, an electronics shop in the town.

“But these three things are very different from one another, but the media and politicians don’t seem to be concerned whether people understand the differences between them.

“They don’t seem to mind the confusion; as long as the phrases they use make it easy to imagine that the individuals being referred to are not real people, but some kind of illegal, inferior group of undesirables, they are happy to use them,” remarked Mohommad.

Recently, a High Court judge in Belfast ruled that asylum seekers cannot be legally deported from the North to Rwanda under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Rwanda Bill.

However, the Tory leader remains determined to maintain his tough-on-immigration image, claiming the first flights will leave for Africa this summer.

Meanwhile, the bickering match between the UK and the Republic continues over the question of whether or not illegal immigrants can be ‘sent back’ from Dublin to London.

With the truth around this subject obscured by so much oversimplifying, attention-grabbing and grandstanding, Mohommad said it can be difficult for people to navigate the interface between political optics and the desperate reality that many migrants face.

“The truth is that I never wanted to leave Afghanistan, until I had no other choice.

“It was not safe for me or my family to live there when then the Taliban took power. I was almost killed once; I was not going to give them a second chance at my life,” said Mohommad.

It is interesting to note that, though clearly less-lucky in his circumstances than virtually everybody in Ireland and the UK, Mohommad, by consequence of his work with the British Council, was much more fortunate than many of his fellow Afghans.

“Once my family and I had got away from the Taliban, we applied for refugee status through the Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme (ACRS), which was set up by the UK to help Afghans who had stood up for values such as democracy, women’s rights, education, freedom of speech and the rule of law. Many of my friends were killed, many more imprisoned.

“This is what we were fleeing. We were not chasing a dream of making it big in the West; we were running from an oppressive, trigger-happy, psychopathic regime.”

Asked to reflect on how the increasingly negative tone of the national and international conversation around immigration has impacted attitudes towards refugees and asylum seekers at the local level, Mohommad had good – but not unqualified – news.

“In Omagh, I have not seen any sign of people’s opinion of me or my family souring. People are still hospitable and helpful.

“However, if you went to bigger towns and cities, maybe you would be able to notice attitudes being infected by the rhetoric we have heard in recent months.”

Mohommad said that refugees do not represent a threat to society, and that the same can be said of most asylum seekers.

However, he also understands why a country has to have proof of a person’s background before they grant them sanctuary.

“The vast majority of people who wish to make a new life in Ireland and the UK are good, honest people, who are fleeing a society that is no longer safe for them.

“In saying that, there is a small minority of any population who will be dangerous and even malevolent.

“It is Ireland and the UK’s right to figure out who is who before allowing them in,” said Mohommad.

Oftentimes, the ‘immigration issue’ is one that is told with too little nuance.

Those on the right tend to fixate on the risks related to high volumes of immigration, such as the dilution of native cultural, additional pressure on public services, and the potential of opening the door to some genuinely malicious people.

On the left, however, there is a tendency to discount all these risks, as if to consider them at all is a kind of racism. Instead, many people with this perspective think a radically empathetic acceptance of all displaced people is the only morally conscionable approach.

Mohommad appreciates that any policy has to include aspects of both these perspectives.

“Immigration is one of the greatest phenomena of our time, and there are many difficult questions that have to be answered in order to land on the right approach.

“I believe all newcomers should take responsibility for improving the community that gives them a home.

“Equally, I think all communities should welcome newcomers, just like Omagh welcomed me.

“Diversity is a good thing, but it has to work two ways.

“Host countries have to be open and inclusive to new people, but migrants also have to be willing to take on the values on the country to which they move.

“This, I believe, is the best way for us to live in harmony.”