Childhood- An Emotional Turmoil?

I read this in a book called The Kite Runner: “There are lots of children in Afghanistan, but there is no childhood.” The author of the book is a man named Khaled Housseini, who is an Afghan who has taken political asylum in USA and is residing there for the past 25 years. He is not alone. There are many like him, who, at that time of political upheaval in the late 70’s, could afford to travel across continents to the new world. The rest who could not, were left behind. First they cursed the invading Russians and then the Taliban. The Taliban were first welcomed and thanked since they were thought to be saviors. It was only a matter of time before the innocent folk realized that the Taliban were not the face of Allah but the rebirth of the Satan himself.

Everyone today knows about the barbaric ways of the Taliban. Everyone condemns their ways and everyone prays for the emancipation of the Afghans. But what you feel for the tortured is different from what it feels to be tortured. And if you happen to be a child in this macabre heaven, the wounds do not have the power to heal. Innocence has a way of inflicting guilt upon itself. In a beautiful and serene place like Afghanistan, you imagine the kids to run about and do mischief in the lush green parks and fields but what you get in the real world is this innocence getting raped of their childhood. Rules and restrictions imposed by the so called “messengers of Allah” have restrained the free spirit and imagination of the children. These rules also apply to the adults but it becomes extremely difficult to make the naïve minds understand the implications and complications of the evil forces of Taliban. At the tender age of 8-10 years when you are physically, emotionally and sexually abused, nothing and not even God can make you see the good side of life. The sweet singing of birds has been replaced by the bombing of the shells; your mother’s lullaby has turned into sorrowful screams, you don’t have a father around to take care of you, you do not know what it is to play with other kids, you have lost the sense of speech due to fear and shock, you are shaking with trepidation when you walk in your neighborhood and you are even afraid to go off to sleep because of the nightmares that will haunt you throughout. Is this what Allah had wished for when He gave them the gift of life?

What I gather from the principles of the Taliban is that they are doing the job of spreading the message of Allah so that they could secure a place in heaven. But the one thing I do not understand is by destroying the very presence of Allah and heaven on earth, how can they be sure of a seat in a heaven elsewhere?

Same is the condition with all other war torn regions including Kashmir and Palestinian territories. The continent of Africa which is struck by poverty and civil war for decades, has a different tale but with the same moral of tortured childhood. If Kashmir, Palestine or Africa seems far fetched, then the scenes of 5-6 year olds begging (again in the name of God) at the traffic signals in cities like Mumbai would be examples closer to home. I feel that these kids also meet with the same fate as the children in Kashmir but sans the gun firing and the continuous bombing. They too loose their freedom.

God, I feel, is discriminating His children by giving some child all the world’s happiness and on the other hand He takes away the soul of a child from some place else. Why?

What people around do not understand is that by crushing the love, innocence and the imagination in the souls of today’s children we are not winning the present but defeating our tomorrow, the essence of mankind. From now on, I have decided to say a prayer for all these children. Inshallah, there will be peace someday.