No Justice, No Peace: Queer Afghans in Life and Death, from Home to Diasporas

Content warning: death, mourning, exile, war

Figure 1.

Qais completes wrapping Wazina within her kafan, burial shroud. Photo credit: Authors.

In May 2016, while I was attending my first LGBTQ+ Muslim Retreat in the United States, I was looking for familiar faces and those with similar backgrounds as mine: Afghan, Muslim, refugee, queer. I found them all except for the Afghan part. On the very first day of the conference after a long day of attending workshops, I rested my head on one of the new friend's lap as everyone was sitting in a healing circle, talking, sharing their stories and laughing. The languages spoken in this circle varied from English to Urdu, Arabic, Bengali, and Farsi. I was yearning for someone who would speak Dari or Pashto to me. This was the first time I had found myself in a circle of Muslims who also happened to be LGBTQ+. It felt like I had found my home. Yet, there was something missing, my native languages, Dari and Pashto. It was like I needed to hear a queer or trans person speak my tongue. I shared this desire with my new friend whose lap had become my resting nest for hours. He immediately said the name "Wazina." Do you know Wazina? He asked. No, I don't, I responded. I immediately jumped out of his lap, facing him asking him more about Wazina.

Wazina and I, both Afghan, Muslim, refugee and queer, met in person four years later in October 2020 after months of Zoom calls and talks. Our first in person meeting was not an ordinary one. We met during a pandemic. We met at my place in Philadelphia with our bags that carried our kafans, secret items we

Figure 2.

The contents of Wazina's suitcase for burial containing both practical items to aid in the process of body preparation and mourning traditions as well as sentimental items.

wanted to leave behind, souvenirs from our pasts and items that we wanted our loved ones to remember us with after we die.

This was in preparation for our artistic project and performance: Khuda Bowad Yarat/When I Am No Longer Here. In our past Zoom calls and continued conversations, we both nostalgically talked about Afghanistan, a place we both call home, our queer Afghan Muslim refugee experiences, our love lives and deaths. Will our families mourn us after we die if they find out who we were? Will our loved ones find out about our secret lives and lovers? Where will we be buried?

About our performance piece: Khuda Bowad Yarat/When I Am No Longer Here is a visual recreation and reconciliation with queer Muslim death and burial rights that asks if we can fully expose who we are before death. With the Khuda Bowad Yarat/When I Am No Longer Here performance, we hope to reclaim our rites of passage as queer Muslims and as well as find ways to heal in our lives.

We have dedicated this performance to those of us, queer, displaced, marginalized, third culture, hiding, surviving, striving, and deeply desiring the traditions and rituals that give us peace of heart, but knowing they aren't always guaranteed to us or reflect us in our true forms.

Based on this performance, in this conversation, we (Qais and Wazina) will discuss queer Muslim life, death, secrets, and the ways we find healings in our journeys of life. This was a conversation conducted over Zoom while Qais had returned to Kabul, Afghanistan, after a decade in exile and Wazina was in New York.

WHERE ARE YOU AT THE MOMENT, PHYSICALLY AND EMOTIONALLY?

Qais:

Physically and emotionally I am home, speaking from Kabul, Afghanistan, from my bedroom. As Sara Ahmed says, home is "where one usually lives."¹ One might say Kabul is not where I usually live. However, if you witness my dreams and peel imaginations, you will find out that this...