AFGHAN UNIVERSITY HORROR CAN’T STOP FUTURE LEADERS
American University staff and graduates remember the 13 killed in assault on Kabul campus in August
Early yesterday morning, a group of enthusiastic young students at the American University in Afghanistan donned their graduation robes and hats, ready to accept their hard-earned degrees.
The young Afghan students stood excitedly in neat rows, a young mother with her baby among them – but no one had forgotten the 13 who could not be among them.
The university in Kabul was the site of a Taliban massacre on August 24 last year that killed 13 students and staff members. Seven of the degrees yesterday were awarded posthumously.
University president Kenneth Holland told the 110 young men and women receiving their bachelor and master’s degrees of the special meaning their achievements carried.
“While today our hearts are still heavy with the loss of faculty members and students, we are heartened by the dedication and courage of our community and the parents of students and we know that our hard work and sacrifice will have monumental impact,” Mr Holland said.
The university has had a difficult year. A month before the attack, two of its foreign professors were kidnapped by the Taliban and remain in captivity today. In a video released last month, the Taliban offered to free them in exchange for fighters in Afghan prisons.
More recently, it lost Rahmatullah Nasiry, an instructor at the Professional Development Institute, and student Aziz Ahmad Navin, in the May 31 attack on Kabul’s diplomatic quarter. More than 150 people were killed when a lorry laden with explosives blew up.
Last year’s attack on the university’s premises forced the administration to shut down operations for nearly seven months. It reopened in March this year with little fanfare, but an unexpectedly large number of returning students who were eager to restart their courses.
“That is a clear message about what the Afghan people want – they want education and opportunities for their children to develop their human potential,” said Ahmad Shuja, director of development at the university.
“They reject terrorism that aims to put Afghanistan back. We have been there and it is not a good place to be, and only education for the next generation can take us out of it.”
Soraya, 24, a business management graduate, lost one of her close friends in last year’s terrorist attack.
“He had big ambitions for Afghanistan,” Soraya said of her friend, Jamshid Zafar. “I came back to continue what he had dreamt for Afghanistan.
“It felt great to be reaching this milestone and I had my friend on my mind the whole time today.
“Those martyred will always live as a symbol of strength in my heart.”
Education in Afghanistan, especially for women, is beset with social and economic hurdles. Few universities provide technical and vocational training and even fewer have courses to match international standards and industry demands.
The American university is considered prestigious with standardised courses taught by experienced international and national staff, but it has provoked disapproval from extremist groups in the country, who see its progressive platform as a threat.
More than 1,000 students, mostly Afghans, have graduated from the university’s undergraduate and master’s programmes since its establishment in 2006.
With renovations and improved security, the students and staff said yesterday that they were ready to move on with strengthened resilience.
“We witnessed students, including girls, who came back to campus after we reopened,” Mr Shuja said.
“We had students who recovered from their physical wounds, and those who are still recovering, show up on the first day of class when we reopened.
“We are witnessing this extraordinary commitment to education in the face of unspeakable violence.”
The class that restarted in March was one of the biggest in the university’s history, he said.
Soraya agreed: “The attack may have an impact on women’s education, but we cannot give up. We will use this tragedy to build our capacity and show our enemies that they cannot win.”
But although the physical scars have healed, those who survived remain traumatised. Many, especially women, were forced to drop out of school and several have needed counselling, which the university’s administration organised.
“There are still emotional scars and we are coming together as a community to heal,” Mr Shuja said.
“Events like today’s graduation reassure us that although our scars are deep, they don’t overwhelm us.”
We are witnessing this extraordinary commitment to education in the face of unspeakable violence