Guest opinion: Afghan scholars in U.S. face an uncertain future

There is a conversation going on. It involves scores of young scholars across the length and breadth of America, ensconced in universities where they pursue graduate studies.

The conversation is wide-ranging: Student life, American political theater, this sometimes puzzling but also fascinating country they find themselves in, but most of all they share news of their home — Afghanistan — the families and friends who remain there, the dire situation on the ground, but most assuredly its future, for it is their future, too.

They are all Fulbright scholars, rigorously chosen — the best and the brightest, as the phrase goes. They are the latest group of scholars of some 950 who have received scholarships since America overthrew the Taliban in 2001. Many, subsequently, became leaders in Afghanistan. With the program suspended and 140 hopeful applicants awaiting word, there are hopes — and deep frustrations — that this will not be the last group.

Three of these scholars — who I will call A, H and S to protect their identities — spoke about the hopes they still carry for themselves and for their country. Two are at large state universities and one at a smaller, private school. They study international relations, public policy, and economics. All worked for the Americans, or international organizations, or the government of Asraf Ghani, making them and their families vulnerable.

In the wake of the takeover, the Taliban had kill lists of those who had worked for the Americans. It is estimated there are tens of thousands remaining in Afghanistan who worked for the Americans and hold either Green Cards or Special Immigrant Visas. Many are in hiding. The Taliban does not control the foot soldiers on the ground, so street “justice” can be arbitrary and cruel. “They are just stealing to get money,” noted H.

All are in their mid-and late 20s. All are married and their wives and families remain in Afghanistan because the Fulbright rules about accompanying dependents did not change until after they had departed. They communicate with them almost daily over secure messaging apps. One has two daughters, one of which was born after he departed, so he has seen her only on a screen. He well understands that his daughters have a bleak future under Taliban rule.

All are working furiously to get the paperwork together to try to get them out, but the new daughter and one of the wives does not have a current passport and the Taliban's incompetence and arbitrariness makes that problematic, as does an American bureaucracy that continues to move at a glacial pace. A bill — the Afghanistan Adjustment Act — that would help the more than 70,000 Afghan refugees in the U.S. and is supported by the Biden Administration, languishes in Congress.

While they harbor some bitterness about the American withdrawal, all three recognized the corruption of the Afghan government, as well as its tribalism, made it unsustainable. Two flew out on the morning of August 15, the day the Taliban walked into Kabul and shut the airport down. At that moment, Fulbright officials were scrambling to locate and help some two dozen scholars who had not yet gotten out. All eventually did.

“I was warned to come to the airport very early that morning,” said H. “I encountered two friends who did not know that each would be there that morning and when they saw each other they burst into tears. That's when I really felt that something bad was happening.”

When the collapse came, none were surprised and yet all were still shocked. “To see the Taliban posing in the office of the president was unbelievable,” said S.

Now the question — and perhaps the most important subject of conversation among all these scholars — hangs heavily: “Now what?”

In a way they are privileged. They have their grants. Fulbright will not enforce the visa requirement that they return to their country. Their universities have been welcoming. S's former American supervisor invited him to spend Christmas at their home in New York and relatives and friends welcomed the others. After master's degrees, Ph.D.'s are an option. But this would be a bitter choice.

“I am kind of lost between the path that takes me to a more stable future in the U.S. and going back to Afghanistan and serving my people,” said A, who dreams of a future in government. “If things improve, I am going back.”

All three expressed similar sentiments.

S was eight when the Americans came in the wake of 9/11. His grandfather received aid money to start a school in his rural village and “that put me on the path to be the first in my family to go to university.

All my life was tied to the American presence and I wanted to learn more about the country that had changed my life.”

That led him to Fulbright.

Hundreds of other Afghan students and faculty from the American University of Afghanistan — which USAID supported with more than $100 million — are scattered to the American universities in Bishkek, Baghdad, and a temporary campus in Qatar. A fortunate few made it to the U.S. American universities would do well to help more find a U.S. campus. The International Institute for Education, the main contractor for Fulbright in America, is collecting donations to help Afghan students, academics and artists.

Although Ukraine has shoved Afghanistan from the news cycle, the humanitarian crisis continues. The chaotic American departure continues to hang around the neck of the Biden administration, even though it did manage to evacuate more than 120,000 individuals and even though the U.S. remains the largest provider of aid. Figuring out how to aid the Afghan people without supporting the Taliban continues to be the conundrum.

President Biden's decision to split the $7 billion in Afghan Central Bank assets held here between humanitarian aid and a fund for the redress of claims by 9/11 families might not stand court challenges. In recent days, the Biden administration pulled back some sanctions to try to help the country's banking system begin to function again.

Still, people are starving, something that never happened before. One Taliban official recently said it was not their regime's task to help feed the Afghan people — it was God's job. It is that kind of callous ignorance, cloaked in false piety, that causes so many of the scholars to despair for their country.

All three hope the U.S. can use the leverage it does have — recognition and the money — to push the Taliban regime to moderate and allow access to aid groups.

“The Taliban are doomed to fail,” said S. “I do not know how long it will take, but they will fail.”

“I cannot live in a country that is led by people who do not value what I think, do not care what I think,” said H. “The situation cannot go on forever,” said A. “Things will change. What happens next is something that the Afghan diaspora really has to think about.”

This is what makes the ongoing conversation among these young scholars so important. They are not impressed with some of the ideas they hear from politicians who tend to deal with the former leaders.

“There needs to be new blood in the system,” A added.

“The thing that I want the American people to know are the personal stories of the Afghan people,” said S. “You don't see that much. Hearing those narratives would build a human connection. The Afghan people deserve to have their stories told. The American people deserve to hear them.”

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86.