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The Current Transcript for August 9, 2016

Host: Connie Walker

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

US nuclear arsenal is capable of destroying each of your countries 14 times over. Fifteen in the case of North Korea just to be sure. And all—

[Sound: Beeping noises]

At the push of a button.

[Sound: Explosion]

CONNIE WALKER: That may be a fictional US president from the movie G.I. Joe, but there are real-life fears that the real-life Republican candidate Donald Trump could be too eager when it comes to launching nukes. First up today, we'll hear from someone who's had his finger on the button and ask whether the Republican nominee has the temperament needed to be trusted with the nuclear codes. And then…

SOUNDCLIP

I mean, I don't know how I'm alive to be speaking to you because I could have been one of those people to be drowned in the sea.

CW: As Gulwali Passarlay watches news reports of migrants drowned on their journey to a new life, he counts his blessings because he could very easily have been one of them. He left behind his life and his mother in Afghanistan to set out on a remarkable quest, as he shares his story in half an hour from now. I'm Connie Walker and this is the summer edition of The Current.

The Donald and The Bomb: Can Trump be trusted with nukes?

Guests: John Noonan, Kennette Benedict, Thomas Karako

SOUNDCLIP

Somebody criticized me the other day because they asked me what I’d do and I said I'm going to bomb the s--- out of them.

[crowd cheering]

It’s true. I don’t care. I don’t care. They’ve got to be stopped.

CW: That is, of course, the Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. He was laying out his anti-ISIS strategy at a campaign event last fall. And it's that loose cannon style that's been a hit with so many American voters. But it's also giving rise to some serious misgivings about the Donald and the bomb.

SOUNDCLIP

So just ask yourself: do you really think Donald Trump has the temperament to be commander-in-chief? He loses his cool at the slightest provocation. Imagine him in the Oval Office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a treat is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.

[crowd cheering]

CW: That's the Democratic challenger Hillary Clinton at her party's convention last month. And fears of Mr. Trump's finger on the proverbial button were given new life last week after this report from MSNBC Joe Scarborough.

SOUNDCLIP

Several months ago, a foreign policy expert on the international level went to advise Donald Trump. And three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons. Three times he asked—at one point—if we have them, why can't we use them?

CW: The Trump campaign has since denied those claims, but talk about whether Donald Trump can be trusted with the nuclear codes refuses to go away. Yesterday, 50 of the country's top Republican security officials signed a letter warning a Trump administration would put national security at risk. John Noonan is one person adding to the chorus of concern. He was a US Air Force launch officer within the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System. Since then, he has been national security adviser to the Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush presidential campaigns. And we've reached John Noonan in Washington, DC. Hello.

JOHN NOONAN: Thank you for having me.

CW: Thanks for joining us. So John, you recently took to Twitter to air your concerns about Donald Trump and the nuclear question. What are your biggest worries?

JOHN NOONAN: Temperament. Hands down. Being commander-in-chief is still being and serving as the most powerful person on the planet and with that comes responsibility. Nuclear weapons, of course, are the most visible display of American power. They still are and have been since the end of World War II. And we, American voters, expect our presidential candidates to be able to pass what we call commander-in-chief test. Do they have the temperament? Do they have the judgment? Do they have the good sense to lead the country safely? Keep those weapons in their silos where they belong and do what it takes to maintain a nuclear deterrent with other major nuclear powers? With Donald Trump, I question whether or not we have those assurances.

CW: I mean Donald Trump is certainly known for his bluster. Do you think people could be just putting too much stock in his remarks?

JOHN NOONAN: It's a fair question. But consider the fact that the clip that was played on Morning Joe that kind of set all this discussion off last week was an anonymous source talking to Joe Scarborough. So you do—and the Trump campaign denies it like you said. So you have to take this with a grain of salt. However, he has referred to using nuclear weapons in Europe. His spokesman did ask on Fox News back in December, if we have a nuclear triad or what's the point of having a nuclear triad if we can't use it? So there is the narrative that’s been building here for a couple of months that suggests that they would be willing to turn their backs on several decades worth of successful and intelligent nuclear policy. And frankly as someone who is close to these weapons for so many years, I find it appalling.

CW: Tell us more about your role when you worked as a launch officer.

JOHN NOONAN: Sure. It's a tough duty. You are working 28, 29 days a month. It's intensive in its training and it's—as we call them evaluations—the Air Force constantly tests you to make sure that your proficient and knowledgeable in the weapon system, as the American people would certainly expect of anyone trusted with that responsibility. But it is an awesome, awesome duty and it is an awesome responsibility. You sit for long stretches of your life, 100 feet under the ground, in places like Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, Montana, and fortunately it is a boring job. It's a boring job that could be punctuated with a couple of seconds of excitement and that type of excitement that I don't think anybody—any sane person—would seek or desire.

CW: How did having that responsibility, that awesome responsibility, I mean, impact you as a person in that job?

JOHN NOONAN: I think that it gave me a greater appreciation for—strange as it might sound—for nuclear weapons and the reason that we have them. I come from a military family. I’ve buried three friends at Arlington Cemetery, which in the United States is our big national cemetery for military members. I know the cost of war. But the fact is, if you study global statistics that have tracked casualties over war over centuries, it plummeted after the United States used the bombs to end World War II. I appreciate the fact that even though it is an ugly, ugly thing, the ability to wreak such destruction, fundamentally I came away with a great appreciation for the fact that it does do a very good job of keeping major powers in check and keep them from doing something stupid.

CW: You’re talking about nuclear deterrence.

JOHN NOONAN: Correct. Yeah.

CW: So how do you think people in that job today might be feeling knowing Trump—if he wins the election in November—could be the one giving that order?

JOHN NOONAN: Well, I'm still friends with many people who work in the nuclear field and there's real concern out there. I think the big concern for the current crew force—and I could be wrong—but I think there is some concern that they don't have that assurance or they don't know if they were to receive an order, is this because the United States or Canada or one of our allies where we extend the nuclear umbrella—the protection of the nuclear umbrella too—is that because we're under attack or is it because Donald Trump is showing off?

CW: I'd like to bring a couple of other people into this conversation. Kennette Benedict is a senior adviser to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. She's in Chittenden, Vermont. And Thomas Karako is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He's in our studio in Washington, DC. Hello.

THOMAS KARAKO: Good morning.

KENNETTE BENEDICT: Good morning.

CW: So Thomas Karako, what do you make of John Noonan's concerns and argument?

THOMAS KARAKO: You know, I don't think I really disagree with much of what John has said in terms of the fitness question, matters of temperament, matters of character applied, not merely to any one particular capability—nuclear capability—but they really apply to the commander-in-chief test more broadly in governance, more broadly. So having, I think, agreed with much of that, I would only add sort of the caution or I think kind of just the note of caution that you know, our institutions are powerful things and the offices in our institutions are very durable and larger than any man or woman that occupy them. They too are awesome forces. And I think that for Republican government to function, one does have to have a certain degree of faith in the person in the office, a certain degree of faith in the office themselves to kind of cabin and temper the potential that any human being has to make a rash decision.

CW: So you don't share the same kind of concern but we've also never heard this kind of rhetoric on a campaign trail before. I mean, how concerning is, just the fact that we're having these kinds of conversations during an election campaign?

THOMAS KARAKO: Actually, I think actually, I do agree that the rhetoric of the evidence of a kind of lack of temperament is a problem. Speaking personally here, I think that is a big concern. My concern, my emphasis here is really with the so what question. The so what of how do we think about what we ought to do with our nuclear forces. You know the capabilities that we have, the command and control procedures for them, I would be very reluctant to somehow say that the prospect or the evidence of rhetoric on the campaign trail—as bad as and concerning as that is—means we've got to hand this over to a committee or perhaps, you know, get rid of these capabilities or change our policy or posture in some ways. These things that have evolved, these things have been deliberated over many decades and they are extremely important to the United States, as John was saying, and also to our allies.

CW: Kennette, I'd like to ask you. Your organization is responsible for setting the so-called Doomsday Clock. How serious is the global nuclear threat right now in your view?

KENNETTE BENEDICT: It's quite serious. And it's been serious for many decades but it’s been more serious recently. A year and a half ago, we set the clock to three minutes to midnight, which is the closest that it's been since Ronald Reagan took office in the early 1980s and talked about the Soviet Union as the evil empire and seemed to be threatening in its rhetoric, in a way that we hadn't seen for years. I think the question for many in the nuclear disarmament field is: does it make sense for one person essentially, the president and consulting with the secretary of defense, to have such extraordinary power? These are weapons of genocide, as Dwight Eisenhower called them. The effects of even one nuclear bomb is really something that's very difficult to imagine. It's many times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb and the question is: do the American people want to have a system in which one individual can perpetrate genocide in its name? And I think the issue with Donald Trump which makes this so very concerning, is that well yes, there are institutions in place, there won't be time—or there hasn't been the provision for even a declaration of war—so that there isn't the possibility for the Congress for instance, to act, to weigh in, to make its voice heard. And I think that's what's concerning in general about nuclear weapons. The nuclear war plans have been developed largely in secret. It is a national security secret and it means that very few people have been involved in putting together the plans and thinking about the consequences not only for the people who will be affected by it but for the standing of the United States and the world.

CW: Well, you just heard Thomas Karako talk about having faith in the bigger institutions that are also playing a role. I mean, does that—do you have any faith that there is support in institutions around somebody like the commander-in-chief when it comes to these decisions?

KENNETTE BENEDICT: There is the military but I think the larger question has to do with how nuclear weapons are viewed by the public and whether they want to see these weapons used in their name in a way that will bring about destruction of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, then the public really has not been involved. It was interesting to note that Ted Lieu, a congressional representative from California, has said that he's interested in putting a resolution on the floor of the Congress in the fall, which will ask the commander-in-chief consult with Congress before using nuclear weapons, which suggests that they haven't been consulted in the past which is absolutely the case. Discussion about Donald Trump has raised the larger question of how much power do we want an individual—even if duly elected—do you want an individual to have over this really extraordinarily destructive power.

CW: I mean, John, you're certainly the expert, but walk us through what would happen if a president gave a command to launch a nuclear strike. Certainly these are decisions that would be made very quickly.

JOHN NOONAN: Well, that's right. It would be made very quickly. We could release in a matter of seconds, really. But there's a good reason for that and that is there are other major nuclear powers with the ability to reach the United States and pre-emptively neutralize our nuclear arsenal. That necessitates that level of readiness. I have to disagree with some of the prior comments here. These are not weapons of genocide. I was not willing to be an arm of some kind of genocidal action and I'm sure my friends who are out there on alert right now would also vehemently disagree with that term. I think that's hyperbolic and I do think that genocide is, by definition, designed to wipe out a specific ethnic group. That's not the way these weapons work. That’s not the way we target them. And I would also point out: we are at a fraction of the nuclear posture that we were during the Cold War. The best way to keep Donald Trump away from this level of power is to make sure he's not voted into office and that’s something as a Republican, made painstakingly clear. I do think the American people will make the right decision in November. And if you do have somebody like Donald Trump in the presidency, the onus is going to fall on the military, who, while sworn to follow orders, are sworn to follow lawful orders. And I do take some comfort in the fact—with as concerned as I am about the prospect of this person assuming the mantle of commander-in-chief—I do take some comfort in the fact that our military is professional. It understands the difference between a lawful order and an unlawful order and there is a check on that. I do think that Donald Trump introduces or would introduce a great deal of instability to this. I think that the onus there is on the American people to make sure that he doesn't assume power. But if he does, there is that lingering danger of other nuclear powers who may be tempted to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike, however unlikely that may be in this day and age, should we reduce our posture to the point where we're farming this out, farming the decision out to a committee or placing additional checks that would somehow slow down response time. I know it sounds counterintuitive. I've written about it at length. But if you're looking at which is the lesser of evils out here, it's empowering the military to make sure that they understand the responsibility they have in dealing with and advising a person like Donald Trump.

CW: So Thomas, I just wanted to ask you. So Trump is being criticized for asking why the US shouldn't use nuclear weapons. Do you think it's a fair question to ask?

THOMAS KARAKO: You know it's a fair question to ask in a kind of academic or theoretical sense. Our adversaries ought to know or ought to wonder under what circumstances the United States might retaliate in some substantial way. Some folks have advocated a sort of positive affirmation that the United States would never use these first. As for instance, NATO as an alliance planned to do, should the Soviet Union invade with a conventional force during the Cold War. The policy of strategic ambiguity is where the United States has been for a long time. I think that it makes a lot of sense to retain. I think it's unfortunate that therefore that the question is being kind of sensationalized. So I would just say that I think it's important to communicate to our allies, to our partners around the world, a sense of confidence here, a sense of stability. Not panic, but one of sobriety here about these things, in terms of John's comments about the institutions and the military. But also, I think the political institutions.

CW: Kennette, one last question: what do you think the adversaries of the US, whether it's Russia or North Korea, might be thinking as they watch this conversation play out?

KENNETTE BENEDICT: Perhaps North Korea might even welcome it in a strange way because they have thoughts for a long time that the United States was the arch enemy and one that they would like to actually make a peace treaty with. But these kinds of remarks don't really help that very much. I think though, the troubling part about Donald Trump's offhand remarks, if we can call them that, is that he appears would be willing to use them as an offensive weapon in the Middle East. And in a place, in a region where there are really no nuclear weapons except for Israel's, it really goes against the longstanding policy of the United States to think that you would use nuclear weapons in a situation like the Middle East, where nuclear weapons really are not a threat to us. And the question of, as taxpayers, we pay for these weapons. How do we want them used? And I think that's the question the Bulletin’s been asking for some 70 years. What information can the general public get access to and what role can we play in the deployment and use of nuclear weapons?

CW: We'll have to leave it there. Thank you all for joining me this morning.

MANY VOICES: Thank you.

CW: John Noonan is a former US Air Force launch officer within the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile System who has since acted as a national security adviser to the Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush presidential campaigns. Kennette Benedict is a senior adviser to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Thomas Karako is a senior fellow with the International Security Program and Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to this summer edition of The Current.

ENCORE: A 12-year-old refugee’s harrowing escape from Afghanistan

Guests: Gulwali Passarlay

CW: Hello, I'm Connie Walker and you're listening to the summer edition of The Current. It's a crisis that's filled news reports for the past few years: refugees and migrants from troubled places around the world making the perilous journey to European shores. Thousands of them not surviving the voyage. It's a journey that Gulwali Passarlay understands first hand. He was just 12 years old when he left Afghanistan, making his way with the help of smugglers to a Greek island. He traveled alone, surviving months of brutal conditions and eventually found passage to Britain. Now, Gulwali Passarlay is telling his story in a memoir called The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee’s Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World. Anna Maria Tremonti spoke with Gulwali Passarlay in January. Here's that conversation.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: Hello.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Hello. Thank you for having me.

AMT: Well, I'm really pleased to be able to talk to you. You made the journey to Greece by sea, what was it, nine years ago now, huh?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: I mean, I don't know how I'm alive to be speaking to you because I could have been one of those people to be drowned in the sea because I remember literally the boat sinking in the middle of the Mediterranean after 48 hours on it, which—the boat was literally very small, designed for about 20 people or so, but there were over 120 of us in it. And for the three days or so, we had no water, no access to food or anything basic. So it's heartbreaking. Here I was, in this big waves. It was really scary and also the fact that I thought well, you know, I will die. So if I die, it’s kind of, we all die one day, but my mother, my family will not know where I—whether I am dead or alive, they will not see my body. I will not have a grave. I will be somewhere in the Mediterranean, deep down. And that was my biggest concern in my head and I thought—I was praying, I was saying if I die, I hope I don't die here. I don't want to die right now, in this place that I was in.

AMT: Yeah, you were just a boy too. What are your earliest memories of being a boy in Afghanistan?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: The earliest memory I talked about in the book as well, is that I used to be a shepherd with my grandparents in the mountains in eastern Afghanistan. And I didn't really have a childhood as such, because I spent very little time with my own parents. My father was a doctor, busy with patients and always would be you know, night and day, would be busy with treating people. Spending time with my grandparents taught me so much wisdom and I learned so much about life, about history, about my family history and learned things about manners, respect, just the basic things that we take for granted in the West. So I had a great three, four years in the mountains in the company of my amazingly inspirational grandparents. I very much loved the lifestyle that we had and the [unintelligible] that I had with the ships and very peaceful, very tranquil life.

AMT: And so you all came back to the larger family compound and about this time, you were living life under the Taliban. What was that like?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: My understanding of when I was there, life was quite good because under the Taliban, it was very peaceful. There was much stability in security and according to my parents, my uncles and my family, that before the Taliban came, during the Civil War, over three million Afghans lost their lives. There were literally lawlessness everywhere, no government, no state, everything disappeared. And the Taliban came, as a student of Islamic studies, from madrasahs and from schools, they brought hope and I think people in the beginning welcomed them because we had enough of wars. And the thing is, I think in the west there are—I'm not saying the Taliban is great, neither am I saying, I'm saying they have done some terrible things and I have explained that in the book—but also there is misconceptions. There is this assumption in the West that, you know, they were completely bad in their world. It's a very narrow understanding of the situation and realities on the ground.

AMT: Tell me, what was your family's relationship with the Taliban? Your uncle, your uncle Lala was very involved with the Taliban, was he not?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Sure. That's what caused problems. So my uncle, my younger uncle was a commander in the Taliban and he had a very important position in eastern Afghanistan during their time. And I think my father, I have explained in the book, was not happy with his involvement but been living in a place like Afghanistan, you have to have ties to the government, to the government of the day or to the powerful people. You cannot be just in-between. You cannot be neutral. In most cases, if you are neutral, that is a very negative thing because then you don't have a backup, you don't have a supporter. So my uncle’s involvement with the Taliban actually made life very much easy for us in the community, in the society, in the region that we were living in because people will not be—dare to touch us, touch my family, touch my relatives because they knew my uncle was an important figure. But at the same time when the Taliban government collapsed, it caused problems. Even though my uncle—my understanding is and I still believe that—is that he was not responsible for any crimes. He had not committed any crime himself because you know he's my uncle. I mean that's my belief and that's my view. But he was part of a regime that a lot of people had problem with. And then when the government collapsed, people were seeking revenge and people were—the US forces were looking for him as well. And then he had to escape and then he put the whole family in dispute, into trouble, into an uncertain future.

AMT: What happened to your father and grandfather in that period of time then?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Yeah, this incident where my family or my father, my loved ones, being killed by the US forces and the Afghan militias is an incident that very much—well it of course saddens me. This was the position that my family, my mother find herself in that, her sons—we were seeked by the Taliban to go and join them to take revenge, but not only take revenge for our loved ones but also to fight against the invaders and occupiers. I was actually willing to go and join and take revenge. It's a very central point to the Pashtunwali. But to my mother and my grandma, understanding of Islam and understanding of the situation were that violence and terror is not the answer. We need to reconcile ourselves. We need to move on. And she just didn’t want to have more death in the family. That’s why she sent us away. If we had joined the Taliban, we would have been killed. If we had supported the government, the Taliban certainly told us that if you guys don't do what we tell you to do—we have been nice to you because of your family relationship that we have and the respect that we have for your family—then we will have to use all means necessary to get rid of you if you are a problem to us and if you don't cooperate.

AMT: So your mother wanted you and your brother to leave.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Mhm. Yep.

AMT: What did she tell you?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: I think… Even though at the [unintelligible]—again, I emphasize the point that even though at the [unintelligible] age of 12 in 2006, I felt shame. I felt dishonoured that this idea of leaving home, leaving my mother, leaving my family behind for my own safety because it was a very shameful thing to do. It was a very dishonest and unmanly thing to do because I needed to be there, I needed to protect them even though at the cost of my own life. But this was the kind of the time that I didn’t refuse my mother and my grandma and my other relatives’ decision to send us away and then she say well, don't come back. It doesn’t matter how worse it gets. Don't come back and also continue to stay together, stick to each other and go to safety and go to a secure place. But I didn't know where that secure place meant. I had Europe but then I didn't know where I was going, where I was heading and I was—

AMT: Well, you were a little boy. You were 12 years old and you had never really been to any of these places. This must have been frightening for you.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: It was, but I usually say to people that I was not any 12 years old, I was an Afghan 12 years old so this is very different. I was very brave but actually, it was sad that I was leaving my mom, my family. I had no idea what was happening and where I was going and then as soon as we started the journey over in Peshawar, in Pakistan, my brother was separated and I was like okay. I cried. I got really upset but then I thought okay, I'll see him again and then I never see him after—I actually met him after 15, 14, 15 months. In the UK.

AMT: Tell me about the people your mother hired to smuggle you from Afghanistan to Europe.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Well, the human traffickers, the smugglers, the agents, I describe it as a really sophisticated, very well-organized structured network, somehow even more efficient and productive than some governments. So these people that we were handed over to, I didn’t knew. I didn’t knew who they were and how they operated. But then along the journey, I found out who those people were. They had networks. They had like agents in different countries, in different regions, had representatives. So we were—the people of [unintelligible], for example, this was the guy, presumably in Kabul, probably that's not even his actual name. And he was the main guy who my family had paid. And then he was responsible for us to take us to Europe.

AMT: And so you kept meeting up with other people who were supposed to help you but you really didn't know where you were going.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Yeah, that’s the thing. You know, I mean we were—there was so much uncertainty, not had an idea where we were going and those people—they were strangers. How do you trust them, whether not to trust them. You know, going from one country to another, going from one place to another, there would be somebody waiting for you, somebody facilitating the move and you just have to just follow orders and just hope for the best and have the faith that, you know, you will be safe. And of course, those human traffickers, smugglers or agents, whatever we want to call them, some of them were really nice. You know, they were very humane, they were very supportive, very few I should stress, were just basically doing it to support their family and they were facilitating the guides. The guy who helped me to cross, for example, from Iran to Turkey was a really nice guy. He offered me his horse to use as a guest. But there were other majority of them were very heartless. They saw me and fellow travelers and refugees as a commodity, as a property and they couldn't care less, other than to make money.

AMT: Hmm. How long were you traveling for?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: It took me over 12 months before I made it to the UK.

AMT: Tell me the countries you travelled through.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Sure. The journey started obviously in Pakistan and then went to Iran, Turkey, from Turkey to Bulgaria. I was fit into a train and then I had to jump out of the train and then people broke their hands and legs. I was arrested. I was luckily not hurt as much. They sent me back to Turkey in winter, in December 2006, and then I was arrested again later on in Istanbul, in prison for two weeks then sent to Iran over the border, which is very, very dangerous and scary. And then I had to run away when the police come back again, reverse, kind of going back. And then after spending about, I don't know, nine, 10 months or so in Istanbul and Turkey back and forth, I went through the Mediterranean to Greece and then I was arrested again, imprisoned for about 15 days and then from there, ran away and made it to Italy. And from Italy went to France, from France, from Calais went to Germany and Belgium. Twice, once. And then finally got to Britain in the back of a refrigerated lorry.

AMT: And of course, we have to remind our listeners, you're 12 years old. That whole odyssey, whatever, maybe then you’re 13, huh?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Yeah. [laughs]

AMT: But that whole odyssey, you’re just a little boy.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: I agree. Yeah.

AMT: So you were arrested so many times. How bad did it get?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: To be honest, I just thought it was normal. It didn’t get any bad, it was getting better actually, because when I was arrested in Turkey, the authorities treated me really inhumanely, really badly and you know, they actually took my hair out from my head and it was really hurtful. They put me in prison with adults and sent me back in a very, very, very risky crossing back to Iran. But even in Bulgaria, in a European country, I was treated really, really badly. Not only was I not treated as a child but I wasn’t even treated as a human being. I didn’t have any human rights. But actually in Italy, I was treated better. I was treated as a human and as a child, which was nice. But then by then I knew as it was in the UK, I had to continue. And then in France, I was humiliated every day. So in Calais, I spent a month—it felt like I have spent three months there. That's how bad things were.

AMT: What happened that you were humiliated every day in France?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: So in Calais, what would happen in France: they would arrest me every day, take me to the police station, question me and then release me. I would be walking back to the jungle, back to the camp or back to the place where we used to get the food from the United Nations or from charities, they would arrest me again. And I'm like I just came back from police station. They will just make fun of me. They will come in early morning, we will be sleepless after running up to lorries and trying to get into the UK and then we will be trying to sleep in our small tents in the jungle. They will come and wake us up in the morning and not let us sleep and sometimes they will put us behind bars for 24 hours, 18 hours, sometimes they will take me to a very long place and then I would walk back for like 15, 20 hours. And it just felt—I had enough of that place. It was so hard. And that’s why the month felt like three months.

AMT: You know, I was really struck in reading your story that when you're on the move, even if you don't know where you're going, you have to keep moving or try to. And you are so young but you're starting to, you’re trying to read people and you're trying to figure out who's going to hurt you and who might help you. And at one point you say to one of the men who you've been traveling with for a long time, we have to go back. And he says well, where might that be? Where are we going to go back to? Like you have no choice sometimes but to keep going forward with people who you don't even trust.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Exactly. And I think I have learned so much in this journey. It made me who I am today. And without becoming too emotional, I think those people who were with me on this journey, people like, you mentioned in the book, there was Baryalai, there was Hamid, Mehran and others. They were amazing. They literally were a big support to me. I think without their help, without their compassion and without their brotherhood, I probably wouldn't have made it this far because they were literally there. You know, I mean, every man was there for themselves and they were people who were selfless and who were very supportive, pushing me, even though I had to push myself because I didn't want people to look down on me. But yes, this idea of not knowing where you were going, what was happening. The agents, the traffickers would lie to us, would not tell us the truth. And then being arrested so many times and being in situations where you have no food for days and nights and been walking sometimes for literally 24 hours in mountains and sometimes being in like a basement for months, you know, it was, in a way—and sometimes being kidnapped by different agents, different rivalries. I lived in Afghanistan under constant fear, you know, of bombings and bombardments and rockets attacks and trying to hide in bunkers. But on this journey, I constantly live in fear of the unknown or what was going to come. You know, how worse it was going to get.

AMT: So how did you finally get to England from France?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: I was keep trying to get into the back of lorries. And one day, a Kurdish agent—a trafficker, a smuggler—he came with bananas and he say who is going. That night, I actually cried. I am quite strong. I wanted not to cry and not to be emotional but I was really, really tired of running every night, walk three hours from each direction and it will be really cold. And then the [unintelligible] will take us down. And then he came with bananas and I was like well, I'm going. Everyone stay silent because we knew it was a refrigerator and we knew how dangerous—you just, you learn—

AMT: Oh, it’s a refrigerated truck.

[crosstalk]

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Yeah, and then—

AMT: Yeah, okay. Keep going.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: And I was like I’m going to give it a try. I don't want to stay here no more, it was cold, it was raining, it was muddy. And then because of me—and the guy was like shame on you all, this little kid is going and then six other people was persuaded. But I felt so bad. I thought if anything happens to me, okay, it happens to me but if those guys died because of me, that would be really sad. But anyway, we went in and thankfully, finally, after—this was my 100^th attempt—I made it to the UK. And again, fortunately, the driver did not put on the freezer. Otherwise, you would have been killed in the last leg of our journey. And then I was in Britain. I felt [inhales] a smell of freedom. I don't know how to describe it but I was pleased to be here finally, after so much hardship and so much hellish journey.

AMT: They thought you were a lot older, huh? They didn’t want to treat you as a child. The British.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Sure. Because on the journey, I had a problem of people looking down on me being a child and I didn't want them to. And then when I was trying to act like old, be mature, start shaving, even though I had no beard. And then here I was, going through so much trauma, and here I made it finally, and then no one at the age dispute, they did not believe I was 13. But also, they did not believe I was an Afghan, which was the biggest insult that you can tell any Afghan because we have huge patriotism and sense of nationalism and all sorts of problematic stuff. But after a few months, I came to the conclusion that life was not worth living, even though after I found my brother, which is a beautiful story in itself.

AMT: How did you find your brother? He found you.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Yeah he did. But because the social services, even though they were people who were trying to support me, help me, but they were unwilling to actually help find my brother. They could have. The immigration authorities could’ve found my brother very easily. I was giving him his date of birth, his name and everything. They were like well, there are 60 million people in Britain. We can't. And then one day, he found me. It was a pure coincidence. I would say it was part of the faith in fate that brought me to this land. But then after some time, I got so tired of life that I wanted to end my life. Even though after going through so much, the system here, although better than the rest of the world, still made me feel unwelcome, still made me feel as though it was my fault I was here. I was victimized. I was not believed. And I was somewhat, you know, when I would be interviewed by officials and I would cry about my family in the situation, they would be like oh, stop acting.

AMT: Looking back, did your mother do the right thing by sending you and your brother out of Afghanistan and saying whatever you do, do not come back?

GULWALI PASSARLAY: It's a tough question. Right now, my mother is unwell. And recently, my little sister passed away and me being here, it’s a huge sacrifice. I have not seen her for over nine, almost 10 years. Anything I would want to do right now is, I want to be with her. I want to be there to support her. I mean, it's hard, because on one hand, yes, you did the right thing to send us away from the violence, from the conflict and somewhat yes, I'm successful, I have achieved a great deal. On one hand, she saved my life and I talk about this in the book. But on the other hand, she lost me too because I'm a completely different person. I'm not the same person that I was 10 years ago. I wish that other children and other families and mothers wouldn't have to send their children to the unknown and to risk their lives for safety.

AMT: You know, you say that she lost you, you're a different person. But if you had stayed, she knew she would have lost you anyway.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: True, very true.

AMT: Gulwali Passarlay, it’s good to speak to you. Thank you.

GULWALI PASSARLAY: Pleasure for having me.

CW: That was Gulwali Passarlay speaking with Anna Maria Tremonti in January. His memoir is called The Lightless Sky: A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee’s Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World. I'm Connie Walker. Thank you for listening to the summer edition of The Current.

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August 9, 2016 full episode transcript

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