The Exile’s Return
1st Nov 2006
Hi All,
I am delighted to say that once again I find myself writing to you from a hot dusty tent in southern Afghanistan, with the whup-whup-whup of helicopters overhead and gunfire in the distance. However, as I am at the huge base that is Kandahar Air Field (KAF), they are more likely to be supply rather than attack helicopters, and I can only assume the gunfire is from a shooting-range, as no sirens are sounding and nobody’s running for cover.
Getting here has been a bloody mission, I can tell you, and I don’t just mean the 24 hour trip, with 8 hour stop-over, from London to Dubai to Kabul, followed 24 hours later by a turbo-prop finale to Kandahar. As all of you who received my missives from my last journey to this beautiful and fascinating country know, I didn’t want to leave, and as soon as I returned to London I started lobbying AFP to get me back out here. After 6 months of listening to me bitch and moan (during which, to their credit, they didn’t fire me) they finally agreed.
When I travelled out here six months ago some of you expressed concern that I was going to fly with Ariana Afghan Airlines, but I assured you that as they were flying from Frankfurt they would have to comply with very strict EU regulations, and so there was no need to worry. So imagine my reaction when I discovered a couple of weeks ago that this option was no longer open to me, as Ariana had been banned from flying within the EU, and I would instead have to fly to Dubai on a regular airline, and then transfer to, you guessed it, Ariana. Happily though, it all passed of ok, apart from a few hours delay. On the flight out I met a young Afghan guy who was on his way home for the first time in ten years. Yes, that’s right all you eagle-eyed readers, I met someone similar on my last trip here. And that is just my point, in two flights I met two returning exiles, and according to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) almost 5 million people have returned since the fall of the Taliban. Some voluntarily, coming from the West with degrees, masters, and PHDs, experience of big business, and hoping to rebuild their lives and contribute something to their home country, and many others less fortunate, refugees from the camps in Iran and Pakistan who have been repatriated through coercion or force. But now, with a population of around 25 million people, and unemployment hovering around 40%, there are long queues outside the Embassies in Kabul, as people again try to find a better life abroad.
Despite all this, the guy I met, lets call him Sol (I’ve decided that as all of my emails are now going up on my blog I will not name anyone unless they have agreed to it) was very excited. He had left Afghanistan with his family when he was 14, moved to Pakistan, and then went to the UK to study. He has just received his degree in Electrical Engineering, and gotten engaged. He told me that he had talked to his father about coming home to work, but his father discouraged him, for the time being anyway. His father said Kabul was too dangerous, with too many factions vying for every job and contract. Corruption is rife in Afghanistan, and power, allegiances, and money are all factors in gaining employment, his dad had said. So Sol has given himself a month to try out the marketplace, and then he will decide whether he stays or goes back to the UK.
It was strange arriving into Kabul Airport, and helping a native Afghan navigate the chaos that passes as Immigration Control. Like everything else here, contacts count, so men with sharp suits were greeted by men in uniforms and lots of stripes out on the tarmac, and they were whisked straight through. Then the airport police hugged and clasped hands with friends and family, and escorted then to the front of the queue. Afghan women sat down as their male travelling partners presented multiple passports, all of which were stamped without a second glance. We watched all of this from the back of a long queue, and then Sol saw his family on the other side. Mother, brothers, sisters, and more had come to greet him, but without any police family-friend on hand to help, all he could do was wave and smile. And eventually my poor friend, who had a British passport, but with Kabul as his birthplace, got to the counter. Confusion reigned, and the shouting began, but as it was all in Dari I can’t recount the details, but suffice to say he did finally get through. And then he was hugged by his mother as the rest of the family through glitter over him, and there were smiles lighting up the whole dark, dingy terminal. We shock hands briefly, but I didn’t want to intrude on this emotional reunion. And anyway, I’ll see him again; itseems that the more I decry the concept of fate, they more coincidence I encounter. Sol, an Afghan exile that I met in an airport in Dubai, on his way to Afghanistan, lives not more than half a mile away from me in London!
While we chatted on the plane, I told Sol about a poem by an Irishman, John Locke, written around 150 years ago, called “The Exiles Return.” It was a favourite of my Great-Grandfather and namesake, and he recited it as his party piece in the days when people relied on each other for entertainment, before televisions and the internet, or even blogs. It is a beautiful, stirring poem, and I defy you to read it and not feel a lump in your throat or a tear in your eye. And it is as relevant today as it was when it was written.
The Exile’s Return
(John Locke, 1847-1889)
Th’an’am an Dhia! but there it is -
The dawn on the hills of Ireland,
God’s angels lifting the night’s black veil
From the fair sweet face of my sireland
Oh! Ireland isn’t it grand you look,
Like a bride in her fresh adorning,
And with all the pent-up love of my heart
I bid you the top of the morning.
This one brief hour pays lavishly back,
For many a year of mourning,
I’d almost venture another flight,
There is so much joy in returning,
Watching out for the hallowed shore,
All other attraction scorning,
Oh: Ireland don’t you hear me shout,
I bid you the top of the morning.
Ho, Ho, upon Glen’s shelving strand,
The surges are wildly beating,
And Kerry is pushing her headlands out,
To give us a kindly greeting,
Now to the shore the sea birds fly,
On pinions that know no drooping,
Now out from the shore with welcome gaze,
A million of eaves come trooping.
Oh! Fairly, generous Irish land,
So Loyal, so fair, so loving,
No wonder the wandering Celt should think,
And dream of you in his roving,
The Alien shore may have gems and gold,
And sorrow may ne’er have gloomed it.
But the heart will sigh for its native shore,
Where the love-light first illumed it.
And doesn’t old Cobh look charming there,
Watching the wild waves motion,
Resting her back against the hill.
And the tips of her toes in the ocean,
I wonder I don’t hear the Shandon bells,
But maybe their chiming is over,
For it’s many a year since I began,
The life of a western rover.
For thirty years “A chuisle mochroi”,
Those hills I now feast my eyes on,
Ne’er met my vision save at night,
In memory’s dim horizon,
Even so, ’twas grand and fair they seemed,
In the landscape spread before me,
But dreams are dreams, and I would awake
To find American skies still o’er me.
And often in Texan plain,
When the day and the chase was over,
My heart would fly o’er the weary ways,
And around the coastline hover,
And my prayers would arise that some future date,
All danger, doubting and scorning,
I might help to win for my native land
The light of young liberty’s morning
Now fuller and turner the coastline shows
Was there ever a scene more splendid!
I feel the breath of the Munster breeze,
Oh! Thank God my exile is ended,
Old scenes, old songs, old friends again
There’s the vale, there’s the cot I was born in
Oh! Ireland from my heart of hearts
I bid you the “top o’ the morning”
So, that’s enough for now. I have to go and work on getting out into the field and close to the action, in order to have something to write for you guys. As I have mentioned, I have set up a blog (go to www.johndmchugh.com and follow the new link on the bottom of the screen). I know some of you would rather receive emails directly, but I also know that some of you had problems with work email and all my constant swearing. So if you want to be taken off the email list, just drop me a note. I won’t be offended, I promise. I will update as often as possible, but please be patient with me, as it gets real hard to find the time to write when I am outside the wire.
Speak to you all soon.
John D