By tariqriaz
Introduction by Naima:
Ahmad is an extraordinary human, a refugee, writer, and lover of film, music, and humanity. Born in Afghanistan and raised under discriminatory conditions in Iran, he now lives in France where he continues to rebuild his life. In this piece, he shares a deeply personal story in response to four questions that uncover not just survival, but transformation. His voice offers a rare and poetic window into the soul of displacement.
How have your beliefs and background shaped your path?
I was born in Afghanistan and raised in Iran, under conditions that stripped away dignity, opportunity, and identity. Afghan migrants like me were often forbidden to study many subjects, denied proper work, and in some areas, even refused basic things like bread. We were seen, but not accepted. I grew up in the tight grip of daily discrimination and structural racism, constantly reminded that I did not belong.
But even in that darkness, a spark lived inside me. I always felt as if a wild, untamed horse galloped within, a force pushing against the fences of fear and injustice. It was that wild horse that made me believe in something better. I dreamed, like many from my homeland, of a place where I could breathe freely, where my humanity would not be questioned.
That belief gave me courage. It pushed me to leave everything familiar behind, family, memories, even the scent of home, in search of a future that hadn’t yet been written.
What moment changed your life, and why?
The most life-changing moment wasn’t just a single event, it was a collapse. After four years in Sweden, where I had worked hard to integrate—I had learned the language through YouTube, joined a choir, played football in Division 4, and lived with a kind Swedish couple, I received my sixth and final rejection from the Migration Agency.
It meant leaving behind everything, including the woman I loved. Her memory remains like an open wound in my heart, one that still aches in quiet hours.
From there, I drifted to France, alone, invisible, and broken. I slept under a tent on the streets of Paris, without identity or certainty. I felt like I had fallen from the sky to the earth, like a character in a film that had turned tragic. My thoughts were a storm, rage, sorrow, hopelessness.
But the wild horse within me refused to stop running. I thought of those who had died on the smuggling routes, friends whose spirits still seem to watch over me. I told myself: They see me. I’m still here. I can still dance in the dark.
So I opened my device and began learning French, again, from YouTube. And I went on. I still go on.
What challenges do you face in today’s world?
Being a refugee means living with uncertainty carved into your every breath. Even after gaining asylum, the challenge is not over, it changes shape. You must build a life again from ashes, prove your worth to systems that rarely see your soul, and carry the weight of past traumas in silence.
The hardest challenge is remaining whole. Some mornings I wake without strength. But then I see my potted plants, whispering in their quiet green language that life, somehow, continues. I receive a message from my family: Thank you for being. I hear laughter at a joke I made. I walk by the Seine and imagine the passing strangers as pages in a story called “People.”
In the cafés, chairs still wait for me to sit. Streets still wait for my footsteps. Books long for my fingertips, and perhaps even lips burning with thirst still wait to be quenched by mine.
These tiny reminders, of life, of presence, are what keep me going.
How have your efforts touched others?
Maybe I’ve never been on a stage accepting an award. Maybe I haven’t changed the world in grand ways. But I am proud of something quieter, and in many ways more profound: I’ve found a home in people’s hearts.
Not because I impressed them, but because I was simply myself, with a smile and an open spirit. In Sweden, a family took me in like a son. In France, I’ve met friends who say, “We’ve never had a friend like him.” These words are my medals. Their love, my shelter.
When I was nothing, they reminded me I was someone. Now, I try to give that gift to others. I listen. I share. I offer warmth where there is cold. I try to be a quiet light, a place of rest, a soft voice for silent lips, a bridge over heavy water.
Closing Note: To every reader: you are part of this world’s story. You are the writer of your own life. Maybe, somewhere, a thirsty flower waits for you to water it. Maybe you are the light of hope that will make someone else bloom.
Written with love and hope, through darkness and dawn.
