Tale of Ahmed

By Henry Cockburn and Nelofer Pazira

• The story of refugees arriving in Britain is a constant theme of newspaper front pages.


• Prominent profile of author in major media highly likely


• Strong visual appeal of book richly illustrated with author’s own artwork

• Language: English
• Publisher: OR Books
• Release date: Apr 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781682194287

Henry Cockburn

Henry Cockburn was born in London and raised in Canterbury, where he attended King's School and received several awards for his artwork.  In 2002, during his first year studying art at Brighton University, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  He recently moved out of a rehabilitation center to begin living independently.

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© 2023 Henry Cockburn

Published by OR Books, New York and London

Visit our website: www.orbooks.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher, except brief passages for review purposes.

First printing 2023

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

British Library Cataloging in Publication Data: A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library.

Typeset by Lapiz Digital. Printed by BookMobile, USA, and CPI, UK.

paperback ISBN 978-1-68219-427-0 • ebook ISBN 978-1-68219-428-7

I’d like to dedicate this book to my parents, Jan and Patrick and my brother Alex.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

Henry Cockburn

INTRODUCTION

Nelofer Pazira-Fisk

ONE

The Treacherous Sword

TWO

Abdullah’s Funeral

THREE

The Star of the North

FOUR

Ahmed and Aisha

FIVE

Journey through Iran

SIX

Istanbul

SEVEN

Fugitives

EIGHT

The Cave

NINE

Reunited

TEN

Refugee Camp

ELEVEN

Tournament

TWELVE

Athens

THIRTEEN

Patras

FOURTEEN

Jewels

FIFTEEN

Through France

SIXTEEN

Qumandan’s Dupe

SEVENTEEN

Stranded in Calais

EIGHTEEN

England

Acknowledgements

Bibliography

PREFACE

HENRY COCKBURN

I live at one end of a long trail that stretches from Afghanistan to the southeast coast of England. Looking down from the White Cliffs of Dover near to my home in Canterbury, I think of small figures arriving in fragile little boats on the last lap of their 6,000-mile journey from Kabul and the Hindu Kush. Having met and talked with some of these refugees, I realise that these people who have been in flight for years from war and famine do not realize the heroic nature of their journey, because its never-ending risks have become second nature to them. Yet their experiences are both more dangerous and more interesting than anything I have read by best-selling travel writers.

I decided to write and illustrate the Tale of Ahmed, a young Afghan man whose fictional travels are not so different from those of millions of Afghan refugees. I decided to write his story as an epic poem because that seemed to me to be the best form for this heroic theme. I wanted to celebrate the intelligence and ingenuity of the survivors—and many do not survive—of this great trek.

Ahmed benefits from the solidarity of the oppressed and finds unexpected friends along the way, but for the most part is permanently exploitable as a source of money, or bullied and targeted as a pariah. As I was finishing the poem, the British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman, flew in a Chinook helicopter over the beaches on the south coast of Kent and claimed this was to inspect the ‘invasion’ force of cold, wet, frightened refugees down below.

But what I wanted to write about was not so much the Afghans’ suffering as their cunning and courage in making their journeys. I wondered how far I could enter into the minds of people on the run from country to country. My mother’s family are Jews who fled Spain and later Mexico, from where a single survivor escaped to Italy and settled, taking the name Montefiore from the town where they lived, from which a family member later came to England. This family experience was long ago, but much more recently I myself had an intense experience of being on the run, dodging the police, homeless and hungry, when I escaped from confinement in a mental hospital in my early twenties—I wrote about this in Henry’s Demons—and wandered through England. I recalled the scariness of it all, but also my sense of freedom and exhilaration and of every experience being more intensely felt. Afghans friends have told me that they understand the parallel—and that escapes, great and small, are at the heart of the human endeavour. 

INTRODUCTION

NELOFER PAZIRA-FISK

Henry Cockburn’s Tale of Ahmed speaks to the tears, lessons, and struggles of all displaced people who, in our narrow definition of the word, we call ‘refugees’.

Escaping intolerance and persecution, Ahmed crosses many borders in his endless journey, briefly calling ‘home’ wherever he has happened to arrive. In one sense, he is a pawn manipulated by smugglers and anybody in authority, but in another he is a brave and heroic traveler overcoming constant insecurity and danger. Cockburn captures the complexity of a refugee’s journey with great attention to detail and accuracy, avoiding stereotypes about asylum seekers as passive victims.

As an Afghan, I consider myself a refugee for life, though I have spent many years in the West.

My story begins with a flashback to the recent history of my country—Afghanistan—that is still in turmoil.

For three generations, Afghans have been forced to flee. I’m part of the first wave of Afghan refugees from the war with the Soviet Union in the 1980s. This was followed by a civil war which began after the Soviet withdrawal and led to the rise of the Taliban, who took control of most of the country by the late 1990s. This led to the displacement of the next generation of Afghans; and the chronic insecurity culminated in the disastrous US/NATO withdrawal in August 2021 when the Taliban returned to power. Another generation of Afghans is being forced to become refugees. Their country has had the unique ill-fortune to be invaded by both the Russians and the Americans, though both called their imperial occupations an ‘intervention’. Of course, other occupiers and interventionists have wrecked many countries, notably Iraq and Syria, forcing millions of people to flee, and opening the door to ISIS and perpetual civil war.

Cockburn’s Tale of Ahmed illustrates powerfully the heartbreak and distress of having to leave one’s country, the difficult decisions made in haste and under dire circumstances by a young man. But in doing so, Cockburn creates a mirror image of thousands of similar moments in the lives of those who are on the move, across the Middle East and Africa. The journey is famously perilous, but Cockburn’s writing takes us deeper into the world of Ahmed and his co-travelers, their suffering and resilience in the face of failures and hardship. In 2015 the picture of the body of Aylan Kurdi—a two-year-old Syrian Kurdish boy whose body was washed up on a Turkish beach after the fragile boat in which he was travelling to Greece capsized—became an iconic image of lost souls and hopeless dreams. Since then, the news agenda has shifted elsewhere, and with it solemn promises of safer routes for migrants have been forgotten. The cost of fleeing has become higher, and the journey is as dangerous as it ever was.

What has changed for those trying to escape is the attitude to migrants in the West, with the former British Prime Minister David Cameron denigrating them as ‘swarms’. Refugees arriving on European shores from the Middle East and Africa are treated like criminals, while the real criminals—the foreign invaders of their countries and the home-grown dictators whose corruption and violence have forced the migrants to flee—get scarcely a mention. At best, the flight of refugees is treated as an apolitical tragedy for which nobody is responsible.

The degree of hostility or friendship with which refugees are regarded in the West depends on political convenience. When my family arrived in the West in 1990, we were well received. Rather like Ukrainians today, we were fighting the Russian Red Menace, defending so-called Western democratic values with our lives. Compare how we were treated then to what happened twenty-five years later to my cousins—three young Afghan men now in their early twenties. In 2015, they fled to Turkey, survived the boat journey to Greece, walked along with other displaced people across multiple European borders, always depending on strangers who gave them water and food. Bruised and battered, they finally made it to Germany.

They had grown up after the first great departure of millions of Afghans, beginning life as malnourished babies in Rawalpindi in Pakistan, while in Kabul the Taliban were torturing people. They returned as kids to the ‘new’ Afghanistan, created under the ‘protection’ of America and NATO after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. But they found no peace, no future and now—as ‘refugees’ for the second time in their young lives—they are part of the latest generation of Afghans who live in perpetual anguish. After reaching Germany, they no longer faced the dangers of the road, but they fear deportation, or some other degradation, and this continues to dominate their lives.

Also in 2015, an archaeologist was excavating artifacts from centuries of human activity close to the Bosporus in Turkey. Suddenly, he heard a sound. He looked down from the hill where he had been digging to unearth ancient history and saw below him, on a narrow path, an unending column of people with desolate, tired faces and dragging feet who were moving in a strangely orderly fashion. He wondered if they might be prisoners. As the long line of people continued to move, it dawned on him that they were ‘the refugees’ whose images and stories he had previously only seen on television. There they were, the real ‘little people’, moving along the hillside path.

Like the archaeologist, we all have seen the images, but capturing one journey undertaken by one person, as Cockburn has done in Tale of Ahmed, reminds the reader of our common human desire to live in safety, to strive for freedom and to not give up when confronted by atrocity. The story of one ‘little’ person that is Ahmed in this powerfully written poem becomes the story of all of us. The failures of Western democracies in dealing with this crisis with urgency and seriousness contrasts with the compassion of individuals.

At a time when world events move at supersonic speed and attention spans are short, this poem makes a compelling and necessary read. It is more important than ever before to write about refugees caught in a terrible circle of hell, escaping wars only to be targeted by smugglers during their journeys, and governments when they reach their destination. Cockburn understands well how the disembodied images on our screens tell only a fraction of the story. And so he takes his reader on an epic journey, peeling away layers of events, historical and recent, so that we end up with a greater understanding and appreciation of the desperation, hopes and aspirations of refugees.

ONE

The Treacherous Sword

Ahmed had never met his mother.

It was said that she got sick when he was born,

A sickness from which she never recovered.

And so with no sisters or brothers –

He was brought up mostly by his father.

His father kept fifty sheep in the Afghan hills,

He owned a few acres of land –

And these fields he would till.

He made just enough to ward off the taxman,

Who would knock on the door –

Demanding Abdullah pay various bills.

And so they lived mostly on bread,

And occasionally mutton when a sheep was killed.

Ahmed’s grandmother also lived in the mud shack,

And she would tell stories by the fireside

While the fire sizzled and cracked.

Ahmed loved listening to these stories,

Undoubtedly it was his favourite thing –

To hear about tales of Sultans,

Mischievous djinns and untrustworthy kings.

Tales of the Prophet Mohammed too –

For they were a family of strict Muslims.

And in accordance with their faith

They believed that being hospitable

Was one of the key foundations of Islam.

And so when travellers came and asked to stay,

They were welcomed on the farm.

And then one night, there was a knock on the door,

A rich man entered; a man Ahmed had never seen before.

The traveller came in from the rain.

He warmed himself by the fire’s flickering flames,

And as his horse was led to the village stables,

Tea and bread were served on a central table.

Ahmed’s grandmother came in, dressed in a burkha,

Explaining that was all they could offer –

That they were not rich, just simple sheep herders.

Abdullah, Ahmed’s father, came in through the door,

And he and the traveller conversed about the war –

Its destruction that left the country divided and poor.

Ahmed listened as they all sat squatted on the floor.

And although Ahmed had seen guns many times before

When he saw the man was armed, he did not feel calm.

He worried about his family – would they come to harm?

Maybe it was because this was a revolver,

And he made a guess that this man was a soldier,

As the rain came down and the storm thundered

What has brought him to our village? Ahmed wondered.

But he knew better than to ask questions.

He had grown up quick – under his father’s directions.

When you approach danger, act with discretion,

Because here, you don’t get a second chance to learn lessons.

Ahmed guessed this was a member of the Taliban –

Rumours had it their strength was renewing throughout the land.

First the war with Russia, then the American intervention,

Had all come hard on the ordinary people of the Afghan nation.

And as the storm howled outside the walls of the mud hut,

Ahmed noticed that the man was silently looking up.

His eyes were transfixed on the sword that hung above the fire.

He gestured towards it with his hands, before he enquired,

‘Where did simple people like you get such a blade?

I’ll make you a handsome offer, if you wish to trade?’

The sword glinted: the hilt was of gold and silver and embellished with jade.

Along the edge of the weapon – a name was engraved.

At the man’s words the shadows danced in the room – in a silent cascade.

Abdullah winced at the offer and sighed with dismay.

‘That was my wedding gift, it is too precious to sell, no deal can be made!’

Everyone looked at the magnificent sword.

‘Name your price – I can bargain with numbers that few can afford.

I can bid higher than the Americans or their puppet warlords,

And you will have a place in my heart – that much is assured.’

‘The Americans have no need for swords – they have all the guns.

As for the warlords—they have every blade,

That you could count under God’s sun.

‘And both are liars’, said the man with a scowl as he looked deep into the fire.

‘Years ago they both predicted victory before the year was done,

And many years have passed, and look how much blood has run!’

Abdullah sighed, ‘I’m sure that more blood will follow!

As the old saying goes, "What you do to your enemies today,

You will do to your friends tomorrow."’

As the man looked into the flames,

His deep-set eyes bore the marks of sorrow and pain.

‘Although your house is made of mud, and your roof is made of tin,

I can see by the way that you’ve welcomed me that you are good Muslims.

But you are wrong if you believe that neither side can win.

Sooner or later, inshallah, the real war begins.

And if I am meant to die, I pray to die in the glory of battle.

I have my steed, my knife and gun – they are to be found within my saddle.

But for such a blade – I have spent months years searching,

And I have never seen a blade more deserving,

It would leave my comrades cheering and my enemies cursing,

Yes, I believe this is the blade for which I have been yearning.’

Ahmed could tell his father was weighing up his options –

An opportunity to make big money did not come often.

He could read his father’s face – his eyes, both excited and solemn.

With this money he could settle his debts and send Ahmed to school.

His business would thrive, he would invest in a mule.

He could get his sheep skins to the big markets, where he would sell his wool.

With these thoughts he walked toward the sword and then took it off the wall,

As he took the sword down, he ran his finger over the sword and frowned.

‘This was a gift from my father-in-law, who is long dead and with us no more.

When he gave it to me my name was carved onto the blade of the sword.

But it serves no purpose gathering cobwebs, as it hangs above the door,

And the plight of our poverty cannot be ignored.’

Then Abdullah paused, ‘I would rather it goes to our nation’s cause.’

The man smiled and took out eight gold coins from his pocket.

‘Let God smile on you – that the wicked pay, and the just shall profit.’

And so Abdullah and the man spoke deep into the night,

Abdullah brought out some tobacco he had saved and lit a hookah pipe.

Although in the house it appeared there was cause for celebration,

Ahmed felt nothing but unease about the situation.

And so his father and the traveller talked the night away,

And the traveller left the next morning without delay.

He departed – mounted his horse, raised his sword to the sky,

His horse reared, and as he left, he chanted his war cry –

And Ahmed and Abdullah watched as he rode into the distance.

‘That man is to be feared!’ said Abdullah, scratching his beard.

‘A dangerous man, he fights for the resistance.’

Then he frowned, mulling over whether he had made the right decision.

‘It would have been unwise if I had denied him anything he needs.

Besides, I have no use for the weapon, and I have a family to feed.

Now I can settle my debts, and pay your school fees.’

So that day Abdullah paid off the money he owed,

He bought a mule, more sheep – and a set of new clothes.

He also bought a present for Ahmed – an old chess board,

The things he had desired but never before could afford.

He was beginning to