On both sides of the border bank, the same song sounds

The place where I was born is on the banks of a river surrounded on both sides by high mountains. This area, not far from the Pamir, is a meeting point of countries, where Pakistan, China and Tajikistan border Afghanistan. Our village faced Tajikistan. Only one river, which we called Amu. (The Amu or Panj River owes its name to the fact that it arises from five small rivers, which separate the two countries).

The area resembled an apple cut in two; one land divided into pieces by the border demarcation of the British and the tsarist Russians in the 19th century, breaking up a people. When I was a teenager, taking the cattle (cows, donkeys, horses, sheep) to the pastures along the Amu, I would see the Tajik women and girls across the river working in their gardens. The river was perhaps barely two hundred metres wide, and the voices from across were audible. But although we shared the same language, culture and historical background, there was almost no contact. Until 2005, the Russians guarded Tajikistan's border; there was no contact between the people on either bank.

Despite the Russians forbidding that too, we children occasionally sang local folk songs. If we sang a verse out loud, the Tajik girls across the street would sing the second verse. When they sang the first line, we followed with the second. Like this poem:

You have come, my faithful friend.
O flower, playful and a bit fickle.
Or this verse:
Playful son of Armenia, please be gentle.
Either become a Muslim or let me be a Christian.

The river witnessed that our memories and souls were connected. With our songs and oral literature, we crossed the political border, where we lived like children in a shared world. As if everything was contained and erased by politics, except the green roots of literature, which continued to resist separation and alienation. Literature denies and despises borders and narrow-mindedness.

Like an apple in two halves

After the fall of the local kings of Darwaz in 1876 and the escalation of colonial rivalry between Russia and Britain, the border line was finally established along the Amu River in 1895. This divided the historic country of Darwaz into two parts: one within present-day Afghanistan and one within Tajikistan.

This border was drawn not on the basis of a cultural split, but geopolitics. Yet despite this sudden separation, people on both sides of the Amu still share the same origins, language and a common historical, literary and ritual memory. They share the music of Mūrigi and the stories of the kings of Darwaz. They even try to celebrate Nowruz (Perzich New Year) together, though that has become difficult.

So how does this political border affect the ties between people on both sides of the Amu? The region is like an apple cut into two halves. A division that continues to shape life on both sides. The river is witness to our connection. Through songs and oral literature, we transcend the political boundary and live in a naturally shared world.

While everything seems to be limited and erased by politics and borders, literature resists mutual alienation. Literature denies and mocks borders and narrow-mindedness. When life becomes entangled in political nets, literature builds bridges between people and ensures that cultural ties are not destroyed.

Crossing

But reality is not always so poetic.

During the time when the border was under Soviet control, my father crossed into Tajik territory one winter day. He had been invited by a friend to what I think was a wedding. Not long after, we received word that Soviet soldiers had arrested and detained him. My mother, on whom the artificial border had never impressed, slapped her head and face crying as she cried, ‘Why did they arrest him?’

Days passed with no news. After 13 days, Afghan border authorities managed to arrange his release from a Soviet prison. My father, who was addicted to naswar - a local form of smokeless tobacco placed under the lower lip - suffered immensely in those thirteen days. For a long time afterwards, he continued to curse the Russians.

Despite severe restrictions, crossings still took place. Sometimes love stories arose, and even marriages. Russian soldiers occasionally opened fire, causing casualties. As people tried to cross the Amu River in small boats, shots were fired. About 20 villagers from our community were killed by Russian gunfire.

After 2005, when Russian troops withdrew and border control was handed over to the Tajik authorities, the situation changed somewhat. After Tajikistan gained independence in 1991, the border regions were ravaged by hunger and famine. What I remember most from those years is extreme poverty. My father traded dried fruit, flour and wheat for crockery, oil lamps, diesel, sulphur, soap and beds. It was a traditional barter, conducted out of sight of the border soldiers.

Friendship Bridge

Simultaneously with the departure of the Russians, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), with international support, built a friendship bridge in the Qal'a-e Khum-Nusay area in 2004. Eventually, several bridges were built across the river, increasing traffic and trade contacts. For the Afghan side, where roads, electricity and basic services were still lacking, this felt like opening a door. There was a weekly joint market on the bridge where people from both sides met and exchanged goods.

Besides trade, cultural exchange also increased. During Nowruz, the biggest festival in Central Asia and Persian-speaking countries, people from both sides participated. Tajik artists and singers came to perform and created a sense of unity with their music, humour and dance, as if the split apple became whole again.

Different notebooks

Yet one solid wall remains: writing. Under Soviet rule, the Persian script was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet in Tajikistan. Although people on both sides of the river share the same language and culture and both groups speak Persian, they use different scripts and cannot read or understand each other's texts without translation.

Now, a hundred and thirty years after the British and the Russians agreed on the border in 1895, that border still defines the region. We see that one side of the river developed under a Soviet socialist and secular system, which influenced language and social structures, while the other side became entangled in recurrent wars and alternating movements between extremist and sometimes secular groups.

The Amu Darya, once a source of poetic inspiration, has been transformed by the formalisation of the border into a terrifying reality that complicates daily life on both sides. And yet, as the sun sets and the light slowly softens, the border briefly fades, into twilight. In that semi-darkness, people cross the river, driven by necessity, love or family ties. What is strictly guarded during the day loses something of its hardness at night.
Perhaps history has taught us that no separation is ever absolute or eternal, as the same sun that sinks behind the mountains kisses the fields on both sides of the Amu.

Will this border ever disappear?

This article previously appeared in English at The Facto.