Thread by @AFG_Resistance

#Facebook - Not many people use Twitter in Afghanistan. Afghans are mainly on Facebook. For 5 year's or so I run a Facebook page under the name "Tales of the Battlefields". I mainly posted pictures of different province's, told stories of our encounters with Taliban.

https://twitter.com/Nikhil68836295/status/1452404596320595970

I had 100 friends or so. They were loyal friends, but unfortunately I never met them in person. We mainly talked about the social issues we were facing in Afghanistan and ways to resolve this never ending war. I posted pictures of our beautiful country but, never my own.

You see my friends, #Taliban will follow you to your door step if they knew who you are. Unlike the corrupt officials who drove around in bullet proof cars accompanied by bodyguards, we were on our own on the streets of Kabul when off duty.

When in Kabul, special units were paranoid when walking around the streets. Always looking over your shoulder. I always carried with me my government issued handgun. In our village up north is where I found true freedom. I felt safe and happy. No one knew me there or what I did.

Last year I closed my Facebook account after a post I made that went viral. I wrote about martyr's week. It's a long week commemorating all our fallen heroes who have sacrificed their life's in defending our nation. Every nation has a day dedicated to remembering their fallen.

It's the most sacred day in any nation's calendar. Our Marty's week begun around 8th or 9th of September. This is the day that the great man #AhmadShahMasaoud was assassinated. In my post I suggested that we should have a neutral day dedicated to remembering our fallen men.

It should not be associated with any man no matter how great he was. It should not be associated with any ethnicity or language. We should dig up one of our unknown heroes who died fighting the British or the Russians and choose a random date to commemorate all our Marty's.

The #British have buried one of their unknown heroes and no one knows who he was and how he looked. A British officer once told me this. This is to ensure that this sacred day is not associated with any group of people. This is a day for the whole country to cry together.

I posted this post after a conversation I had with a brother who served alongside me in my unit. He never showed any particular interest on Marty's week. Yet he was a soldier of #Afghanistan and we were fighting under the same tricolour. He didn't survive the war sadly.

This brother didn't feel represented in this commemoration. Although the #MartyrsWeek was meant to represent all of us, the week was heavily associated with the Assassination of Massoud. I admire Massoud, I am sure if he was alive today, he would agree with me.

A few years back, I returned to Kabul after a few months in Helmand. It happened to be the Marty's week. I witnessed a spectacle that disgusted me. Every year a group of men drove all the way from #Panjshir to Kabul to commemorate Massoud.

These men were just outlaw criminals. They were not remembering our heroes, but terrorising Kabul inhabitants. The drove around the streets of Kabul and shot in the air and no government official came out to do anything about it. They tarnished the great man's image.

After watching this spectacle by these wild men, I suggested that we should move the date. It should be a day that is neutral and represents all Afghanistan. A day that heals our wounds. A day where we all can come together on the streets to remember and to learn lessons.

For me there was always two Afghanistan's. The streets of Kabul where Afghans were fighting whether to give #KabulUniversity a Pashto name or a Persian name and the Army Afghanistan where I felt the most comfortable and at home. In the army we looked for solutions not conflict.

I closed my Facebook account after the abuse I got for posting on this topic. All I was asking for was for a date where we all came out together in a dignified manner as Afghans. This September when #Taliban took over Kabul, there was no commemoration at all.

Remembering our fallen should be a day that doesn't change with the change of a government. It should be an eternal date for our fallen. Our problems in #Afghanistan is more than just the Taliban. We are children with no grown up in the room. We no longer have honourable elders.