Yalda Sarwar | Contributor
Featured image: York students gather to grieve for hundreds killed in Afghanistan. | Basma Elbahnasawy
Student-led group Afghans Against Extremism came together on January 30, just outside the Scott Religious Centre, to condemn the deadliest weekend of 2018 in cities across Afghanistan, especially those in the country’s capital, Kabul.
A hundred and forty-one people were killed, and another 300 were injured in two days alone.
The first explosion occured on January 20, when a group of armed men attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul; a destination considered by many to be safer than the rest of the city. The attack went on for 14 hours, and resulted in the deaths of more than 20 people, including locals and foreigners.
The second explosion happened on January 28, when an ambulance full of explosives detonated outside a hospital. The incident took nearly 100 lives, and injured even more.
However, these numbers may not be entirely accurate. Social media users in Kabul took their anger to the virtual world, blaming both the Afghan government and mainstream media for downgrading the number of lives taken by these attacks.
Emphasis was placed on not recognizing the lives lost not as numbers alone, but to see them as dreamers, single parents, children, or in some cases, the sole breadwinners of their large families.
Maihan Sarwary, a third-year Political Science student, expressed his pain: “I stand here today—we stand here today—because every life matters. If Afghanistan is bleeding, we are all bleeding,” he said.
Sarwary emphasized that the attack targeted ordinary Afghans, and that the nation has been torn apart by corrupt leaders, as well as the negative influence of Western policies, and influences from Iran and Pakistan.
Sarwary went on to convey his condolences and prayers to Afghans across the world, especially those who have lost loved ones in the last two Kabul attacks.
He also sent out a message to President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Exceutive of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Abdullah Abdullah, urging both leaders to take “serious measures” about the security and lives of regular Afghans.
Vigil attendees included community members and post-secondary students from York, and those across the province.
Amongst the attendees was Rawan Habib, president of the York Federation of Students, who said: “It’s always on us as people from the community to host vigils like this, and come together, but it’s exhausting. It’s not okay for people from the same communities to have to be the ones condemning these attacks.
“These conversations and spaces are when students can start to fight back, instead of feeling alone.” She called this vigil a platform in which students “can start to heal, mobilize, and organize against the fact that homes in countries like Afghanistan and Palestine are under constant attack,” she added.
Fourth-year Global Political Studies student and Afghans Against Extremism Vice President, Marwa Alakozay, was one of the many attendees who turned to poetry for her contribution to Tuesday night’s vigil. Alakozay recited a poem that spoke about the resilience of Afghans, despite the constant instabilities Afghanistan has continuously suffered from.
Yasna Walizada, a fourth-year Human Rights Studies student, took to the podium urging the Afghan community to act upon their responsibility of giving back in whatever way they can to their homeland.
Charitable contributions, writing to the Canadian government, and pledges to the United Nations were other suggestions Walizada put forward. She then told a personal story of a woman who expected her husband’s return that afternoon in Kabul, but will never see him again.
She added: “Upon hearing the news about the second attack, I didn’t feel anything, because we as Afghans, are numb to these attacks at this point.”
The vigil ended with a moment of silence through candle lights, and as the words of Walizada echoed from their words and faces: “One day we are going to wake up, and Afghanistan will be free from war.”
