0:01

Hello, it's me.

0:20

We

0:22

are recording what we

0:24

saw a few months ago about

0:26

the journey from Afghanistan to

0:29

the UK. I'm Dana Balouts

0:32

and this is Kerning Cultures. A

0:39

few months ago we aired a four-part series

0:41

about Aizen, an Afghan teenager

0:43

who travelled on his own from Kabul and

0:45

through a labyrinth of smuggler networks ended

0:48

up all the way in Europe.

0:55

Aizen left Afghanistan in 2019. His

0:58

long journey took him through Pakistan, Iran,

1:01

Turkey, Bulgaria.

1:03

We crossed, we go inside a house and

1:06

there was another smuggler which was

1:08

so skinny.

1:09

Harsh winters and freezing mountains.

1:12

He was dying.

1:15

Next through Serbia.

1:17

When they were like old ladies they always

1:19

come and say, they talk to me in Russian.

1:22

Then three months in detention in Czechia. We

1:25

spend the night somewhere. Then on to France.

1:27

I can't actually remember. Eventually

1:30

he hid inside a Range Rover being transported

1:32

on the back of a lorry. So the car travelled

1:35

a lot. And crossed the channel from France

1:37

into the UK in April of 2021. Go

1:41

go go and we were so bored. Like where

1:43

is this car going?

1:48

He had originally planned for this journey to take three

1:50

months. But by the time he arrived,

1:52

he'd been travelling for more than two years.

1:55

Like when you come out of the station you see the

1:57

people, yeah it looks like Afghanistan. I was like

1:59

hell no. gonna stay in here. If

2:02

you haven't heard this series I would highly recommend

2:04

you go back and listen to it all first.

2:09

When we left you at the end of the last episode, Aizen

2:12

was still in limbo waiting to find

2:14

out if he would be able to stay in the UK long

2:16

term. And now,

2:19

now we have an update for you. Producer

2:22

Al Shaibani takes it from here.

2:31

Aizen is not much of a podcast guy.

2:34

In fact, when we first sat down with a microphone

2:36

last year, he didn't know what

2:38

a podcast was. He knew it was

2:40

something like radio. So every time

2:42

we started recording he joked

2:44

that it's for Radio Hackney. Hackney

2:47

is where I live in East London and

2:49

where we did all the recordings. A

3:03

couple of days after he arrived in the UK,

3:05

Aizen applied for asylum.

3:07

Something anybody who gets here through

3:10

unofficial routes and wants to stay

3:12

as a refugee must do within a few

3:14

days.

3:15

Once that's submitted, there is a waiting period

3:18

while the British government assesses your application

3:20

and decides whether or not you can stay. It

3:23

can take months. So while

3:25

Aizen waited, the government placed him

3:28

in a care home in southeast London. That

3:30

was actually really convenient. He could

3:32

have been placed anywhere in the country. But

3:35

since we were both in London, we were

3:37

able to hang out and spend more time together.

3:40

I'd only met Aizen a few months earlier at

3:43

the refugee sites in Calais in the north

3:45

of France. I was there working as

3:47

a volunteer, but we grew clothes

3:49

very quickly and he became like a brother

3:51

to me. end

3:57

of this chord

4:01

I mean, I think this is a bit late to add

4:03

the chillies but... What is it? We call it Halloween?

4:06

We started to hang out more and more. I

4:09

took him to the cinema for the first time in his life, where

4:12

we watched a Marvel action film. He

4:14

didn't like it and said it was too loud.

4:17

Then asked to go again the next day.

4:20

We went to the pool where he learned how to swim,

4:23

and now he's a better swimmer than me. A

4:26

couple of months later, I ended up registering

4:28

with the local council as his support.

4:31

Which means he can stay at my flat when he wants

4:33

to. I can help him figure out bureaucratic

4:35

stuff, and

4:37

just be someone he can talk to when there's no one else.

4:45

Throughout all this, his status was still

4:47

undecided.

4:48

Which meant he couldn't work, he couldn't

4:50

put down roots.

4:52

It's a long period of time to

4:54

waste. If I ask you,

4:57

what did you do half a year ago? You

4:59

did a lot, probably travel, you work. But

5:02

what I did was... sleeping,

5:05

trying, that's it. Fighting

5:08

with yourself.

5:10

Aizen arrived at a time when the political

5:12

situation in the UK was increasingly

5:15

anti-refugee, anti-immigrant and

5:18

hostile.

5:18

Don't take us for granted! No!

5:22

We, no! They are not refugees!

5:26

They are illegal immigrants! Illegal

5:29

migration is a very, very important

5:31

problem and issue for our country, whether

5:33

it's the back of lorries or people crossing

5:36

the channel, in very, very dangerous

5:38

circumstances, being facilitated by

5:40

criminal gangs and people smugglers. I

5:42

am introducing the new borders bill, which

5:44

will... In recent years, the Conservative

5:46

government in the UK has started

5:49

using especially extreme and inflammatory

5:51

language around immigration. Asylum

5:54

seekers became a political football,

5:57

used by desperate politicians to... appeal

6:00

to the most intolerant, right-wing

6:03

elements of their party and support base. Many

6:06

of the ideas they put forward breach

6:08

international human rights conventions that

6:10

the UK are signed up to.

6:12

Like this one,

6:14

the previous Home Secretary Priti Patel

6:17

at one point started claiming

6:19

she would find a way to deport asylum

6:21

seekers to the first safe country they arrived

6:24

in before the UK.

6:25

People that are being smuggled, they should be

6:27

claiming asylum in a safe country,

6:29

the first safe country that they travel through. More

6:32

often than not, these are EU member stays, rather

6:34

than taking the risk of coming to the United

6:36

Kingdom.

6:37

In Eisen's case, that would have meant

6:39

he'd go back to Bulgaria, where he was

6:41

attacked and experienced the worst

6:43

racism.

6:45

Alternatively...

6:46

I would love to be having a front

6:49

page of the telegraph with a plane

6:52

taking off to Rwanda. That's my dream.

6:54

That's my dream. When will that happen? That's

6:58

Suwala Braverman, the current UK

7:00

Home Secretary.

7:01

In 2022, the UK government

7:03

launched a legally questionable and

7:06

to many inhumane plan, where

7:08

they would send refugees and asylum seekers

7:11

who have crossed the channel to Rwanda permanently.

7:18

Meanwhile, things back in Afghanistan

7:20

have only gotten worse.

7:22

Since Eisen left, the Taliban have taken

7:24

over the country.

7:25

In the next few months, many aspects of

7:28

life slid towards collapse, with

7:30

food shortages, power cuts and

7:32

with the approaching winter, a humanitarian crisis.

7:35

One of the most striking changes in Afghanistan

7:37

since the Taliban return to power has been the

7:39

reversal of the basic rights of women

7:41

and girls. Girls have been banned from

7:43

secondary school. The Afghan economy has collapsed

7:46

and the UN's described the situation as a catastrophe

7:49

with millions on the brink of starvation.

7:52

Rates of malnutrition among children

7:55

have gone up by nearly 50

7:55

percent. Thousands of

7:58

people desperately trying to to

8:00

find a way out, any way

8:03

out. The US force is struggling

8:05

to make... All of this has been weighing heavy

8:08

on Eisen's mind. His parents

8:10

and his brother and sisters still

8:12

live in Kabul.

8:13

He speaks to them regularly on the phone.

8:16

But it's very unlikely he'll see

8:18

them again for a very long time.

8:20

Henry, the volunteer coordinator

8:22

in Calais, brought it up when

8:25

I spoke to him. It's not as though

8:27

now he's in the UK. It's all rainbows

8:29

and sunshine and happiness. He still has

8:32

friends and family back in Afghanistan

8:34

who... I

8:36

don't know a lot about what their day-to-day life is

8:38

there. It's not something I never discussed with him, but

8:41

I'm sure that plays on his mind a lot.

8:43

And the awful situation in Afghanistan

8:46

means thousands of people are continuing

8:48

to make the same journey Eisen did,

8:51

travelling through cruel smuggler networks

8:54

in the hopes of reaching safety, security

8:56

and stability.

9:04

Months went by.

9:06

Then, more than a year after claiming asylum,

9:09

Eisen was summoned to the home office.

9:12

That's the government department that deals

9:14

with asylum cases for an interview

9:16

to present his case.

9:18

As his support, I was able to attend

9:20

alongside a lawyer, a social worker,

9:22

a translator and a government

9:25

officer.

9:26

I recorded myself and Eisen heading

9:28

over.

9:29

OK, so it is July

9:33

19th, 2022. It

9:37

is the hottest day of the year. Good day,

9:39

but a bit hot, which

9:41

is fine, but

9:44

in the same time it's not. Yeah,

9:48

we'll see what will happen in our

9:50

way to home office. Yeah,

9:53

so hopefully it will be a good day. Feeling

9:56

good? Yeah, just a bit nervous.

9:59

I'll be okay.

10:03

It's something exciting. It's something

10:05

that I never imagined that I would

10:07

be one day in the UK. Which

10:10

is, yeah, like I never

10:12

thought about being in the UK. Like

10:15

four years ago, for example. Four

10:17

and a half years ago, I was in Afghanistan. And

10:21

I didn't even thought about

10:24

going to UK. Like, it's just something

10:26

we never know what will happen to us in life. It

10:29

just happened. Hopefully, it

10:32

will be good. It will be a great day. A

10:36

great interview.

10:36

And then we need to wait for the

10:38

decision. And then we get some Afghan

10:41

food. Afghan food, yeah. Yeah.

10:46

Okay. Alright. Let's get ready to

10:48

go into the tube.

10:51

So we got to the home office

10:53

in East Creden. A big

10:56

old building, maybe from the 60s, 70s. It's

10:59

really grey. And last

11:01

minute, they cited COVID

11:03

restrictions. Saying that I

11:05

couldn't be there

11:06

in the interview. So I'm

11:09

waiting outside. There

11:11

are a queue of people. All

11:16

going in, one after the other. And

11:19

I think I'm...

11:28

I think I'm just a bit nervous

11:31

in terms of the

11:33

outcome. But he's

11:37

been waiting for years for this and a lot of

11:39

people as well.

11:43

But I think he's super

11:46

strong and super wonderful. And

11:50

he... Yeah, I think

11:52

I'm just nervous. But I

11:54

have high hopes. I

11:58

have high hopes.

12:03

Two and a half hours later, Aizen

12:05

finally came back out.

12:07

So they were asking me questions, answer all

12:09

the questions, and

12:12

they were like, he's

12:14

a bit overacting, I don't think

12:16

he's Afghan. Yeah, like, some of

12:18

the things that what was the name

12:20

of your mosque? And I was like,

12:23

I can't even remember what I ate yesterday. It

12:26

was the capital of your country. Yeah,

12:30

these things.

12:33

Just in case you didn't catch that, in

12:35

the interview, they were asking him all kinds

12:38

of questions about Afghanistan,

12:40

trying to gauge whether or not his story

12:42

was true.

12:43

Things like, what does the red colour on

12:46

the flag of Afghanistan represent?

12:49

What does the design of Afghani money

12:51

look like? And the question

12:53

that pissed him off the most, do you have a

12:55

girlfriend? It was a long

12:57

interview. I have to tell

12:59

you all your story again. Yeah,

13:05

that's it. Ravi,

13:07

hack me. This

13:09

is

13:09

the last chapter, guys. How

13:12

are you feeling? I

13:15

don't know, mix of everything. Angry,

13:17

sad, tired,

13:20

hot. What's next? Don't

13:25

know. Just thinking. Wait,

13:28

wait, wait.

13:30

Like. And

13:33

since that interview, Aizen waited

13:36

anxiously for nine months,

13:38

and during that time we started recording the

13:40

series.

13:41

One of the reasons we kept the story

13:43

anonymous is that if the government

13:46

found out he was kept hostage and

13:48

worked for the smuggler,

13:50

they could use it against him.

13:51

And his asylum application could be

13:54

immediately rejected.

13:56

Since the interview, what happened?

14:00

They will give me the decision or

14:02

the result

14:04

in four to six

14:06

weeks Four to six weeks. Yeah

14:10

Which I thought is 46 weeks and

14:13

then what was it like waiting? Difficult

14:17

because you don't know what's gonna happen like you just wait

14:20

and see because they can

14:22

just

14:23

project your

14:26

As I as I love Was

14:28

he alone? I don't know asylum. Yeah, and Yeah,

14:32

they can just reject it. You're also emailing

14:34

the lawyer. Yeah, I email her a lot

14:37

At the beginning she told me that they will take

14:40

They say it 46 weeks, but

14:43

it can take around a year. So

14:45

just Sweet. Yeah,

14:49

sure. Like waiting is the only thing you can do One

14:53

thing that I was keeping in my mind Okay They

14:55

will give me or they will not give me if they give me

14:57

our plan to work do other things

14:59

go to uni And make other things happen. If

15:02

not this then they will send me

15:05

back to Afghanistan or Czech Republic to

15:07

Bulgaria

15:09

Did you get annoyed

15:11

by how long it was taking or did you yeah because

15:13

they He You

15:16

know me that how I am if you're

15:19

telling me this time so you have to do it by this

15:21

time Like if you meet me you want

15:23

to meet me at four o'clock. You have to be there by

15:25

four o'clock So when

15:27

they said four to six weeks, I was like, okay four to

15:29

six week you should not get

15:31

more than this, but it takes Ten

15:34

months and then

15:37

Almost two years since Eisen arrived

15:40

in the UK on Tuesday,

15:42

March 14th of 2023 Everything

15:45

changed. So because

15:47

I email her a few days and I

15:49

was like what's going on?

15:51

And then three minutes after that and I

15:54

received email from them And

15:56

you got you leave to remain

16:01

Indefinite leave to remain.

16:03

The piece of paper that means Aizen

16:05

can legally stay in the UK. His

16:08

case has been approved. His

16:10

asylum claim has been granted. I

16:13

was so happy. Like, as you know, it

16:15

was just something that I was waiting for for

16:17

a long time. And like

16:19

now I know what to do with my life. Like now I know

16:22

that, okay, now I can just stay, relax

16:25

and think about future. And that time when you don't

16:28

know what's going to happen to you, they can just reject

16:30

any time and send you back to your country. Do

16:32

you remember what you said when

16:34

you called me and told me the news? No.

16:38

You

16:38

said my face is hot. Yeah. I

16:40

was actually happy. Because

16:42

it was like surprising. I wasn't

16:44

expecting in that day. I

16:46

was happy.

16:48

Like, because I was like, okay, now

16:50

I know what to do with my life. But

16:53

now that I'm thinking, okay,

16:56

what now? Yeah, what

16:58

comes next? I'm planning to do a lot of things.

17:01

Like, a lot of things. You

17:03

know that I'm planning to make manga.

17:05

I have three stories, which

17:08

I'm working on. Okay.

17:10

Manga, that's the Japanese style

17:12

of comic books and graphic novels. I'm

17:16

planning to write a book. It's still in my mind,

17:18

which hopefully, hopefully I will finish.

17:20

Because I know I'm a bit lazy. Book

17:23

about what? The story. Okay.

17:25

Like the journey from Afghanistan

17:28

thing, but in a different way. Yeah.

17:31

Or probably study journalism.

17:35

And football. Football

17:37

is the first option. I can't change

17:40

my mind about football. If

17:42

I can do football, I will give

17:44

up on everything else. Just football. It

17:46

can be better than this. If I can directly play football.

17:49

But yeah, I

17:51

can't. I'm too old for playing to be

17:53

a football. No, no, you still have a chance.

17:57

I think one of the kind of conditions.

18:00

of getting the asylum acceptances

18:02

that you cannot go back to Afghanistan.

18:05

Yeah, how do you feel about that? Obviously, I love

18:07

my country. It's just the place that I born, raised.

18:10

But I just don't

18:12

like Afghanistan. I want my

18:14

country to grow

18:17

and improve a lot in every way, but

18:20

I don't have a good

18:23

memory there, if that makes sense. It's just

18:26

not for me. Do you miss your family?

18:28

Do you want to see them? Yeah. I do

18:30

want to see them, but I don't think I want to see them in Afghanistan.

18:34

When I was there, they were like, I

18:37

don't remember telling them I love you.

18:40

Now that they're telling me I love you, it's like, I feel

18:42

like, okay. But

18:44

they're telling it to you now? Yeah, they say, now

18:46

we'll view the child that we love

18:49

more than others, and I'm like, oh,

18:51

okay. When I was there,

18:53

you never told me this.

18:56

A child needs love to see that, okay,

18:58

my parents care about me. If

19:01

they showed you this, do you think he would

19:03

have stayed? No, it's

19:06

not about staying. But

19:08

I'm saying in general. Yeah.

19:10

Okay, great. This

19:14

is the last recording. Yeah, I

19:16

stand up for today. See you guys tomorrow. It's

19:19

Raji Hackney talking about the Zalem. Okay,

19:23

let's go.

19:27

IZIN IZIN

19:35

is now living in London and going

19:37

to college where he's studying to prepare for

19:40

university.

19:41

I recently came across a bingo sheet

19:44

that his class was using as an icebreaker

19:46

between the students.

19:48

Even though the last five years have been

19:50

harrowing,

19:51

I couldn't help but smile when I saw his name

19:54

in almost all the boxes.

19:56

Find someone who was born

19:58

in another country.

19:59

Find someone who has traveled to Asia.

20:03

Find someone with blue eyes.

20:06

Find someone who speaks another language. Find

20:09

someone who has been to Europe.

20:13

Aizen is just one of 2.6 million

20:16

Afghans who have left their country looking

20:19

for a better life.

20:20

Many don't make it. Many

20:23

more don't get accepted by the countries

20:25

they seek asylum in. Many

20:27

of their stories go untold.

20:30

I think this is one of the things with Aizen's story. We

20:32

can tell Aizen's story because he

20:35

spoke amazing English and he

20:37

integrated very... He's a very social guy. He integrated

20:39

very closely with our organization

20:42

and all the other organizations. But there are just countless,

20:44

countless, hundreds, thousands

20:46

of other stories just

20:48

as harrowing as his or, you know,

20:51

on a similar level at least. But

20:53

with people who can't... Who

20:55

couldn't convey it to us at the time. Who couldn't build up those

20:57

relationships because of language barriers.

21:00

Because of

21:00

not having the confidence to do so.

21:02

There are so many untold stories there

21:05

and each of them is

21:08

sad and heartbreaking and harrowing in

21:10

its own way. So Aizen's story

21:13

sadly is just one of

21:15

countless that may never be told.

21:29

This episode was produced by Al-Shay Bani

21:31

and edited by me, Dana Balut and

21:33

Alex Atak. Sack checking by

21:36

Dina Sabri and sound design and mixing

21:37

by Paul Al-Rouf. Our team

21:40

also includes Nadine Shaqir, Zaina

21:42

Dewey-Dard and Finbar Anderson.