Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story

Yesterday a friend asked what I was reading. I just finished 'Come Back to Afghanistan: My Journey from California to Kabul' written by Said Hyder Akbar, a 20-year old college student in California. Like many others, Akbar's story is a migrating one - from Afghanistan to Pakistan, India, and then the USA. When the Taliban were ousted in 2001, Akbar's father, a long time friend of President Hamid Karzai decided to go back to Afghanistan. Akbar started coming with him on his school and college breaks, and got back in touch with his country that he had left a long time ago. It's a homecoming of sorts. The book is brilliant. Written with the assistance of journalist Susan Brunton, Akbar takes us into corners and niches that few books on Afghanistan do. It is deeply personal and highly political without the usual history, geography or other details. Born in Afghanistan and raised in the US, Akbar is able to straddle both countries and regions. He neither despairs nor scoffs at anyone or anytime. His writing is passionate, gentle and unassuming. Akbar's goal in Afghanistan is to be with his father and get to know his country. He travels with, among other things, a tape recorder, and makes programmes for National Pubic Radio in California. He interviews the person in the highest office - President Karzai - as well as his driver, Sartor. He listens to everyone and judges none. During the two years he goes back and forth, Akbar's brother and mother visit Afghanistan. His father is appointed as the Governor of the province of Kunar, a remote and troubled area, where the family collects and lives together. Through sickness and health Akbar goes through the journeys he charts for himself. His writing is sensitive and engaging. It never strays or lags. It is clear that he loves Afghanistan, is sensing what his relationship with his old land is, and how it will develop. He is conscious of the contradictions within himself. When I think about why I liked the book so much, and the experience of reading the book, I feel it its so akin to my time in Afghanistan. Without being able to speak the language (Dari an Pashto), I communicated with those I could, in Urdu, Hindi and English. I reached out to the humanity in them, and they in turn, reached out to mine. In the final analysis the book is about being reconciled to where we come from. No matter where we are, our multiple identities always call us to the land we were born, and we yearn to return. That has been my experience too. The book also describes the Afghan situation - the challenges to the Afghan people, the leaders, the donor community and Americans stationed in Afghanistan and back home. It presents everyone's reality. Akbar's strength is his ability to see what is happening, from many perspectives, and present it in a dispassionate way. In a growing body of literature on Afghanistan, Akbar's will enjoy a place of pride. It's young, passionate, and terribly easy to read.

The most striking thing about this book isn't the age of the author, or even his unique perspective, returning to Afghanistan after September 11, having been raised in California. The most striking thing about this book is that, by the time you have finished reading it, you will care very deeply about what has happened, and IS happening, in Afghanistan. At times very touching and sad, and at other times very funny, this is a very moving, emotionally-charged and honest book.

Comback to Afghanistan, by Hydar Akbar is unique because it is an account of a typical American high school kid who has spent the last 3 summers in Afghanistan to help out his father who is a friend of the President of Afghanistan and this book spans the summers he was 17, 18, 19 respectively. The kid came here around age 2 and has been totally Northern CA "Americanized" over in East Bay in Concord area (SFO Bay Area) and had never been to Afghanistan before because he was born after his family had gotten out, and was born in Pakistan. Before his first trip over, he was given a mike and lots of tapes to be a teen reporter for a Teen news service. He got better and better equipment including video with each coming summer. The first summer was spent in Kabul because his father was the acting media/press spokesperson for the President or acting President of Afghanistan. By the time he returned the next summer, his Dad was now the Governor of Kunar on the Pakistan Border and by a military base that has been a military base for centuries. The Americans are just the most recent occupants and this is where the Al Quaida go back and forth over the border up in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan too. This kid is fluent in Dari, and Pashtu and American English with all the slang and he is a little younger than a lot of the recruits. He begins acting as an interperter and goes out with the Military to villages and so on. He is also present at some interrogations because he is better and faster and in a big sense more trusted than the hired interpreters who do not know American English as well as this kid. I learned more from this book than all the other books about Afghanistan put together. I can not stress enough how important this book is for anyone who is interested in what's been going on in Afghanistan since the US arrived after the bombings in October 2001. My own personal opinion is that this kid is actually older than he is and might not even know it. He is totally computer/internet/ebay shopping savvy and before he ever went to Afghanistan he got hold of all the books he could to learn the past history of it and wanted to know all the politics through the years and with this grasp of the past and all the tribal and cultural differences, he arrived for the first time in his parents' country with an astute knowledge of the past, more so than most kids who had never been out of the USA would have been. His goal is to graduate from UC Berkeley with a degree in Business, then get his MBA and depending on the situation in Afghanistan, go back over and work in that government like his Dad is doing. (His Dad ran Radio Kabul before the Soviet Invasion and after until it was totally shut down,etc.) In the Afghanistan culture, dates like date of birth, weeks, months, years, do not mean anything and it comes out at one point in the book that his father routinely had this habit of just making up arbitrary dates when filling out

Wow, this book was magnificent. It reveals Afghanistan in a way that I've never seen before (and I've read about extensively this country), giving the readers great insight into the past and present situation of the country. What I most enjoyed about this book was how, because of the unique and compelling viewpoint from which this story is told, it manages to be an informative and entertaining read at the same time. Akbar writes with incredible details that help make this often stereotyped land come alive, and his background as an American teenager can make some of his anecdotes surprisingly funny. One of the more memorable parts of the book for me was when Hyder, arriving home having just survived an ambush with American Special Forces, decides to tell his father about what happened and gets reprimanded by his father for cutting off a meeting he was in - it was too trivial an issue, his father thought. His adventures inside the country make this an exciting read, but what was more appealing for me was how he seems to keep his objectivity throughout his extended stays in Afghanistan. Whether he is talking to Americans or villagers or the President, Akbar doesn't seem to have an agenda and it really comes through in this book. I definitely recommend this book especially for people who want to obtain a better understanding of Afghanistan, its people, and the current US involvement in the country.

Often when we read a book or see a movie at the same time we run our own life's experiences against the story. In this book the US pre and post 9-11 history is inextricably interlaced with Afghanistan's. They get a 9-11 over and over again. In getting a look how Afghanistan is we also get a bigger look at our current world. The book is deeply inspiring and sad too. It should be required reading for all high school students. A study question should be where are the woman. Another question should be is why so many of us do not follow our dreams like Hyder does. Hyder, in finding himself also shows us so much between the lines about Afghanistan and this country's greatness and warts. He is modest about his real contributions leaving that for the dust jacket.