Just yesterday I was in my mother’s bookstore, bought Theresa Enzensberger’s new book, which, well, somehow sounds like it describes a world in which the FDP won.
My mother, standing behind me, touching the hairs on the back of my neck with a motherly gesture, a gesture of great love that used to emphasize the cuteness of one’s child, but now means that my mother misses me. So my mother strokes her 41-year-old son’s hair and demands that day. Mothers are good at that, they demand.
But she doesn’t ask when she’s finally going to be a grandmother, she doesn’t want to know if I’m saving for later or if I should call my beloved brother more often. No, she says, in a low voice: “Can’t you write something happy, the world has become so sad.” And I smile and say yes.
The world has become really shitty, I myself have tried to explain why everything feels the way it feels in the last few weeks here, at this point. The only solution that seemed to me to be the controlled attempt to consume the substance “MDMA”, slightly overdosed and highly unreasonable.
And yes. I’m trying to write a cheerful column, wanting to tell the story of Amir, whom I met in Afghanistan in May, a young man born in 2000. Tall, beautiful eyes, an enviably thick beard and a light voice that sounds like it would Wind rushing through reeds. When Amir described his Afghanistan, they were images of poetic density, of Persian exaggeration. This dusty land where the grapes are delicious, where women have no rights, where Amir is forgotten. Because he speaks English, because he studied, because he secretly wants to have a schnapps, because he flirted with a woman in Dubai, because he is who I am: free.
A person like me, in a world that no one understands anymore. Only Amir lives in a country that no longer wants him. Because he is western, because he no longer wants to join the ancient, outdated cultures of this country. He doesn’t want to live like he used to. Like many of his peers, around the world. Some stick to the streets because they no longer want to be like their parents, some to works of art, others found radical wings, others despair, and a large part resigned. Because everything wasn’t better in the past, and only someone who hasn’t experienced “in the past” can understand that. So people like Amir, who only know Afghanistan and Kabul as a western-oriented country. They don’t know the rule of the Taliban as it used to be. And the young people here: they don’t know a world where everything is good. That’s why they don’t believe the old guys anymore.
Like everywhere else in the world, the old have decided what is good for the young. And that is the longing for a time that will never come again. That could never be repeated in human history: this ominous past. The radical forces, whether in Islam, with the speed limit or with gas surcharges will fail. I am sure.
Amir writes: “Bring me to Germany, I can’t stand it here any longer.” And I understand him, he who runs an illegal school for girls and boys in his free time and wants men to learn not to question women . He who says: “One educated Afghan woman means: Five educated Afghan men.”
Amir can’t take it anymore and I want to get him. I’m still free, he’s not. “No problem,” I say. And Amir is very happy in Kabul.
I would hire him in my production company, I would train him as a sound engineer, he would learn German, he could drink schnapps, flirt, read books, listen to techno, he could live the life of a 22-year-old like we all do from the know internet.
Florian, a friend and colleague, offers that Amir could live with him, my parents would definitely cook for Amir and he would say thank you with stories from his country, he would laugh and we would cry together, this time with joy and not like in May, with sadness, in Afghanistan. i take care There is this employment contract, there is the will. That has to work.
And on the other hand, there are the authorities of the Federal Republic, who shrug their shoulders and say: It’s not that easy. In Pakistan he would have to wait with his application. But around 30,000 people would be waiting for a permit.
“How long does that take?” I want to know.
“Well, two years already,” says the authority. “Can’t he just come from Dubai?” I ask. “No.”
Four letters, worth less than a stamp in a passport, but still crucial.
“Amir,” I write. And he, excited, waiting, I know that, like a longing love, he opens his “WhatsApp”, although there is no new message. “It’s not working yet,” I say. And Amir is never disappointed, never sad, never angry, never impatient.
“No problem, my friend,” he says.
And what is the funny thing about this column? Thats is quite easy. We will not give up.
We keep trying. I will bring Amir to Germany. And I help him with that and support the protest of this young generation. Every protest by this young generation makes me happy. They cannot do it alone, those who will try with all means to prevent the earlier. Amir and his millions of companions.
Some are stuck on the A100, others simply leave their elders behind in Afghanistan. I hope for Amir and all the other young people. I hope for her anger.
Thilo Mischke’s report “Afghanistan in the grip of the Taliban” airs on August 29 at 8:15 p.m. on ProSieben.