14 minute read
After fleeing their native
After years of work on equity and reform in their native Afghanistan, Chapman alumni legal scholars are forced to flee with their lives on the line. What comes next is a story of support in rebuilding hope as an antidote to despair.
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BY DENNIS ARP
Photos by Adam Hemingway
At the BOUNDARIES of BREAKTHROUGH
Fahima
AMINI (LLM ’16)
Senior judicial training specialist, assisting the Afghan Supreme Court. She also aided the Afghan Women Judges Association. Quotable: “Before, all the day I would think about Afghanistan, and I would cry. But now I have a plan. I’m getting knowledge and new experiences. That gives me hope and strength that in the future, I will transfer this knowledge and experience to the people of Afghanistan. There are ways that I can still be helpful. My goal is to find those ways.”
Fahima Amini (LLM ’16) heard the front door open and knew immediately something was wrong. Why would her husband, a physician, be home from the hospital in the middle of the day? Then she saw his face and realized their worst fears were now real. “The Taliban are in Kabul,” her husband confirmed. “President Ghani just left the country and the government is in Taliban hands.” In an instant, Amini’s years of work on government and court reforms in Afghanistan slipped like sand through her fingers. Visions of a post-war future full of new opportunities for Afghan women melted in the August heat. Amini had no time to reflect on any of it. She scrambled to reach U.S. and U.N. contacts and devise a plan to get herself, her husband and their year-old twin sons out of the country. It wasn’t just about the loss of their work, their possessions, their home. Amini’s life was in danger. She had been working to build Afghan institutions, champion gender development, advocate for women judges, even reform the Afghan Supreme Court. “But when the Taliban arrived I couldn’t even help myself to have a life,” she said.
DREAMS OF REFORM RECEDE INTO DARKNESS
Amini is one of nine Afghan legal scholars who earned graduate degrees at Chapman’s Fowler School of Law through a decade-long program called the Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan, headed by California State Sen. Tom Umberg. Five of the alumni scholars, including Amini, are now back at Chapman, providing students with insights about their journeys as they also begin new lives in the United States. Thanks to a generous gift from an anonymous donor, Amini, Munira Akhunzada (LLM ’13), Sahar Masoom (LLM ’15), Navid Mujaddedi (LLM ’17) and Salma Stanakzai (LLM ’11) all have formal appointments as visiting scholars at Chapman. Each scholar has a story with echoes The journey of Chapman alumna visiting scholar Fahima of Amini’s, starting with an abrupt and Amini (LLM '16) now features opportunities to share her story traumatic end to dreams for a better with Chapman students, including in a course on religion and Afghanistan. international conflict (top photo). About 10 months ago, Amini Their stories are full of chaos but also carried her son, Tamim, as she and her family navigated resilience: marshal resources, leverage the chaos outside the Kabul airport in an effort to escape the dangers of the Taliban takeover. Photo courtesy of Fahima Amini
Navid MUJADDEDI (LLM ’17)
National program officer, U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. Most recently, he worked as a staff member at the Afghan consulate in Los Angeles, where he continued to perform his duties even after the Taliban takeover – after he stopped being paid because the government he had served didn’t exist any more. Quotable: “After the collapse, we would still get calls for appointments because people needed help – a document, a birth certificate to prove they were the son or daughter of a parent they were trying to get out of Afghanistan. Often they would call and burst into tears. It was so hard to see things melting down.”
contacts, gather family and find a path to a new life in a new country. For three of the scholars, all women, it was even more dire. Fill a backpack, get to the airport, try to get on a flight. To anywhere. As soon as humanly possible. Meanwhile, as the bedlam of the U.S. pullout and Afghan regime change turned the scholars into refugees, members of the Chapman community tracked the news from afar with special concern.
Professor Ron Steiner had been instrumental in bringing the nine Afghan legal scholars to Chapman for graduate study during the 2010s, and he had kept in touch as they applied their lessons in burgeoning careers. He reached out via text and received updates on their plight. He knew that two were on their way to starting over in Canada, while another was with her family in Texas. A fourth was planning to go to England to study public administration at Oxford. Steiner also knew that five were particularly vulnerable to retaliation by the Taliban, given their associations with U.N. or U.S. agencies and their work for reforms such as gender equity. When Steiner asked the five if they needed help getting out and starting over, they all were grateful for the support. Steiner and others in the Chapman Family applied their own resources, first by providing counsel and a sympathetic ear in real time.
Salma Stanakzai (LLM '11) and Navid Mujaddedi (LLM '17) (top photo) speak with students and others after a panel discussion in Kennedy Hall. In the bottom photo, Fahima Amini (LLM '16) and Munira Akhuzada (LLM '13) prepare for a presentation to students in the class of Andrea Molle (center).
Munira AKHUNZADA (LLM ’13)
National political affairs officer, U.N. Assistance Mission. Also was a candidate for the Afghan Parliament in 2018. Notable: As a Chapman grad student, she was chosen by her peers to speak during Commencement. A photo of her giving that speech became one of her campaign posters. Like other visiting scholars, Akhunzada endured wearying months as a refugee on a U.S. military base, waiting for the chance to travel to Chapman. At one point, to lift her spirits, Chapman Professor Ron Steiner sent Akhunzada a photo of the name plate next to her Chapman office door, showing her what was waiting for her. When she finally reached that door, she looked through its small window and saw that Steiner had hung a poster from her run for Parliament.
The texts kept flying, sometimes at 3 in the morning, as hours turned into days and options into setbacks. Then, little by little, despair gave way to steps forward. “Each one was on a different path, but one by one, there was a stroke of luck or a piece of ingenuity – they knew someone who knew someone – and they all made it out,” Steiner recalled. “We weren’t able to help much with that part, but we’ve been able to help in other ways since.”
The depth of Chapman Family support is how this story flips from a tale of lost hope to one of fresh starts. Administrators and alumni, faculty and staff, students, parents and other community leaders – all have rallied with actions that are easing the scholars’ transition to new lives and careers.
For Chapman President Daniele C. Struppa, it was an emphatic “yes” when the idea was presented to create the visiting scholar positions for the Afghan alumni. “These are our people,” he said. “This is what it means to be part of the Chapman Family.” Wilkinson College Dean Jennifer Keene and her staff prepared offices for the scholars and also helped develop classroom and research roles for them. “These extraordinary individuals have engaged extensively with our students, faculty and staff, sharing their expertise and experiences to offer a different perspective on American involvement in Afghanistan,” Keene said. “Their stories remind us that U.S. foreign policy and military intervention sometimes have unintended consequences. We are incredibly grateful to our anonymous donor and Dr. Ron Steiner, who mobilized immediately to create these visiting scholar positions.”
As a visiting scholar at Chapman (top photo), Munira Akhunzada (LLM '13) speaks with students about her reform efforts in Afghanistan that included campaigning for a seat in Parliament (bottom photo). Photo courtesy of Munira Akhunzada
Sahar
MASOOM (LLM ’15)
External relations and advocacy specialist for the International Development Law Organization in Afghanistan. Notable: Her 6-year-old daughter, Bareen, was born during Masoom’s Fowler Law graduate studies. Her daughter’s U.S. passport was instrumental in getting Masoom and her family onto a military transport plane and out of Afghanistan during the tumult of regime change. The other day, Masoom asked Bareen if she would like to go back to Afghanistan. “Why would I go back?” she said. “I was born here.”
What’s more, Steiner and others at Chapman secured housing, furniture, clothing, food and other essentials. Fowler Law Professor Michael Bazyler and student Lana Rayan also helped get the scholars settled. That’s just for starters. Of the dozens of ways Chapman Family members responded, a few examples stand out.
Cherie Johnston ’06 (MBA ’16) was a classmate of Amini when both were grad students at Chapman. “She’s brilliant,” Johnston said of Amini. “If ever there was a role model for women of the world, Fahima is it.”
The two kept in touch, including via text during the confusion of the Taliban takeover. Johnston reached out to Congress members, senators and military contacts trying to help Amini secure safe passage. After Amini made it to Qatar, then to a refugee camp in at Fort Lee in Virginia, and finally to California, it was Johnston who met her and her family at LAX to drive them to their new home in Orange County. “To see her face and give her that first big hug – it has all been life-changing for me,” Johnston said. Johnston’s impact continues. As CEO of Military Children’s Charity Inc., she knows all about rallying communities to meet needs. Among other things, she and her organization made sure the children in the visiting scholars’ extended families received gifts during the holidays. “One of the biggest lessons through all of this is that you can lose everything and move to the other side of the world, and the Taliban can take everything from you, but they can’t steal your hope,” Johnston said. “To see where [the Afghan scholars] started in August and now see them able to smile today is a phenomenal feeling.”
Like many other Afghan refugees, Sahar Masoom (LLM '15) and her family found ways to adapt during their extended stay in a refugee facility at a U.S. military base. For the children, the transition was difficult but also an adventure. At Fort McCoy in Wisconsin, Ayan, Masoom's 3-year-old son, would salute just like the military personnel on the base whenever the U.S. national anthem was played. Photos courtesy of Sahar Masoom
Salma STANAKZAI (LLM ’11)
Legal advisor on immigration for the Consulate General of Afghanistan. In 2018, she was deputy consul general for the Afghan consulate in Los Angeles. Quotable: “It will take us a long time to understand what went wrong socially, militarily, culturally. I don’t think it can be easily explained as a U.S. failure. All the problems of Afghanistan and all the solutions of Afghanistan are in Afghanistan. I don’t see the collapse of a government. The government was never there – it was an illusion. It’s a matter of waking up to the reality that it was a collapse of civilization.”
For Faheem Tukhi ’05 (JD ’15), it’s second nature to give back to the Chapman community. “The connection is for life,” said Tukhi, a former member of the Chapman Alumni Association Board of Directors. “We look out for each other. The Chapman Family is real.”
Tukhi’s own family was forced to flee Afghanistan in 1983, during the SovietAfghan War. “Like these scholars, we came here with nothing,” said Tukhi, now assistant general counsel for West Coast University and American Career College. “We wish that 40 years ago we had an institution like Chapman to provide support and help get us back on our feet.”
So it was an easy decision to help with the visiting scholars’ transition. Tukhi’s mother, Zainab, even opened her home in Buena Park to Masoom and her young family while Chapman readied an apartment. Zainab had done the same when Masoom first arrived at Chapman as a student. In fact, it was Zainab who accompanied Masoom to the hospital when she delivered her daughter during her Chapman grad school experience. When mother and baby came home, Zainab provided the bassinette. “I think of [the scholars] like they’re my children, and their children call me Grandma,” Zainab said. “I like that.”
For the alumni legal scholars, support from the Chapman Family and beyond has been nothing short of transformational. Each scholar finally has some footing to start a new journey, including the pursuit of career goals such as resuming legal careers and landing faculty teaching positions. During the spring semester, several Afghan scholars sat in on a bar prep course taught by Salma Stanakzai (LLM '11) leads a Chapman adjunct professor of law Melodie Arian. discussion with students in the peace Meanwhile, Amini and Akhunzada shared insights studies class of Prexy Nesbitt.
as observers in a course on religion and international conflict taught by Andrea Molle, associate researcher in sociology and political science at Chapman. Masoom and Stanakzai were similar contributors to a peace studies course on global conflict taught by Prexy Nesbitt, Presidential Fellow in Peace Studies.
"Sharing my classroom and teaching with two experienced and insightful leaders like Salma and Sahar has meant the introduction of substantive and inspiring experience into the learning process,” Nesbitt said. “So often I watch the eyes of the students fill with awe and respect as they listen to Sahar or Salma comment on a subject. And my own eyes glisten, as well.” For all the scholars, many daily uncertainties remain. How to secure a green card? Where to find reliable day care? How does the Metrolink work? There’s so much new ground to navigate while still dealing with the trauma of loss and the concern for family and friends left behind in the rubble.
But each day more of the darkness gives way to light. “Teaching, research, a conference – all of these things are helping me navigate my way and understand my emotions,” Stanakzai said. “This is such an amazing opportunity for all of us. I didn’t have an income, I didn’t have a work permit, I didn’t have anything. Now I have a chance to make the best out of things, which I think is how we convey how grateful we are. If you’re doing your best, you’re not letting Chapman down. That’s how we repay the contributions toward our advancement.”
Inspired by the Stories of WOMEN CREATING CHANGE
BY EVA WONG ’23
On March 31, I attended “Fleeing Afghanistan: Our Voices,” a panel discussion featuring five visiting scholars from Afghanistan. I have had the privilege of also learning from two of those scholars – Salma Stanakzai (LLM ’11) and Sahar Masoom (LLM ’15) – in my class “Global Conflict Analysis and Resolution,” taught by Presidential Fellow Prexy Nesbitt.
The five visiting scholars shared their personal experiences, providing a perspective on Afghanistan we do not get in standard news media coverage. Their insight is unapologetically human.
Additionally, seeing the four women of color on the panel command a room was awe-inspiring. Historically, women are branded as “too emotional.” These women showed that being emotionally tied to a cause does not make them weak but more capable. When emotions, passion and the need for justice collide, the result is strong women creating change where it is needed most.
I came to Chapman to learn from people like Nesbitt, Stanakzai, Masoom and their colleagues. The service and impact these five visiting scholars bring to our campus is priceless.
Our duty as a university is to acknowledge that for us to continue to have scholars of this caliber, we must never stop working to make our community a more equitable place.
Eva Wong ’23 is a double major in theatre performance and peace studies.
