I AM Ameez, a seven-year-old Afghan. I have come to see this English movie. I don’t understand English but this is the first movie that I am watching in my life. I’ve been told that the movie has arrived from the ‘civilized world’, though I don’t exactly know what that means.
In the first scene, there are children studying in a school. This must be the school of the civilized world. The class has chairs, tables and a board to write. But the good thing about the class is that it is in a sheltered room. So there are covered classes in the civilized world.
Some children are playing football outside. I know what this game is and the children are good at playing this game, just like Fahim, uncle Kasim’s son. I used to play this game with Fahim, but he does not play with me anymore. I still remember the day when Fahim played the last game with me. I had set the goal between two rocks. As Fahim kicked the ball I tried to intercept him, but he dodged me completely. After scoring the goal, he ran to fetch the ball back but stepped on something that exploded and tore his left leg to pieces.
I was told that Fahim stepped on one of the thousands of landmines in my country that explode if someone steps on them. There must be no landmines in the civilized world that’s why these children are playing so fearlessly. But Fahim now has only one leg, so how can I play football with him when Fahim can’t even walk properly?
In the second scene, two of the children have returned to their home and are having lunch. I see a lot of things they are eating with their family. It must be fun to live in this civilized world where there’s so much to eat.
Ghamiz and Shamriz died of starvation during the last drought. They were taken to a doctor but the doctor said that he had no medicine to cure my weak brothers. One of my friends also died as he suffered from malaria, since there was no medication available to heal my sick friend.
I also lost a lot of weight and so did Ameeza my sister, but being the healthiest children in our family both Ameeza and I survived. I don’t think there are any droughts in the civilized world. Plus if anyone gets ill, there must be a lot of medicine to heal.
In the next scene I see two people entering the house of the children. They have guns and have grabbed both the children. The intruders are saying something that I don’t understand.
But maybe they are saying that they want money or they’ll runaway with both the children. I know what happened in my neighbourhood few days’ back. As our neighbour had no money with him, the intruders fled away with his daughter. But I see that it’s not that easy to flee with hostages in the civilized world.
I see people fighting in the movie. They are shooting at each other. One of them has taken out a knife and slits the throat of another. This is exactly how uncle Kasim died two months ago. But uncle Kasim quivered as his body was infused with petrol and then set on fire. I know what uncle Kasim’s death is known as, it’s known as Raqs-e-Bismil.
So they kill people in the civilized world just as people are killed here. But I don’t see any Raqs-e-Bismil in the civilized world.
A man is coming near to the body of the dead. He looks like a man that I have seen on the big vehicles that they call tanks. Yes he resembles a lot like the tank-men. Now he chains the killer with handcuffs. This makes him a good guy.
So there are these good guys in the civilized world that chain the killers. I hope one day uncle Kasim’s killers are also chained. But then, I don’t see any good guys that may chain the killers of uncle Kasim.
Someone next to the good guy is smoking. But why isn’t the man smoking shivering like Tamriz, my elder brother, who also used to smoke in the same way. Despite being told off and beaten by my father again and again, he did not quit smoking.
Tamriz used to fill his cigarette with opium. I know where this opium comes from; it comes from the same poppy plants I have seen being planted at many places now. Tamriz used to cry and shiver a lot before his death. But this man smoking is neither crying nor shivering. Maybe people do not cry or shiver while they smoke in the civilized world.
In another scene, I see many planes dropping some packets. This reminds me of the yellow packets that I was told had food in them. They were also dropped in the same way as these packets are being dropped in the civilized world.
When my sister Ameeza picked one yellow packet, it exploded just like the landmine that exploded when I was playing with Fahim. Ameeza’s right hand got mutilated and now she can only use her left hand. She was told that she should have read the label ‘bomb’ on the yellow packet.
But the label was presumably in English that neither Ameeza nor I understood. Probably everyone understands English in the civilized world and the packets don’t explode if you pick them up from the ground.
But these packets that are being dropped in this scene are small bombs. Yes, they are dropping the bombs on buildings and houses. Thus planes bomb houses even in the civilized world! But these bombs are way too small than the ones dropped on us. So they do not drop those big bombs in the civilized world.
In the village next to ours, some bombs even sucked the oxygen of the area, so the people couldn’t breathe for long and died. Maybe there is oxygen in the civilized world for everyone to breathe.
This is the last scene. I see a kid just like me crying next to the body of a person who died in the bombing. I don’t exactly know whose this kid is, but he must be missing his father’s love and care.
I cried in the same way when my father died three months back as similar planes bombed our house. I still cry when I think about him, how he loved me very much. My mother says that the bombing-planes came from the same civilized world!
