Becoming refugees

Our stepping from Afghanistan across the border into Pakistan at the Khyber Pass in 1985 was significant on several levels. Firstly, it was the moment we became refugees. The long and continuous chain of my ancestors’ connection to the soil of Afghanistan was, for the first time, broken. The implications of this would manifest throughout all our lives. Secondly, we were crossing a historically controversial line – the Durand Line – drawn in 1893 as part of the Great Game. It was a line that for most of its history had been considered illegitimate by Afghanistan. When Pakistan was formed in 1947, the line had become the source of inherited border disputes and conflict between the two nations. The line was a symbol of the ongoing unrest created for smaller nations, forced to be recast in the image of imperial power. And yet, in a sign of the dualistic and often contradictory nature of the struggle of displaced people, it was by crossing this very line that my family sought safety.