A Song Beyond the Border

‘Wherever they draw a border, you build a bridge’
(Najib Barwar, Tajik poet)

I was born in the Darwaz region, where Afghanistan meets Pakistan, China, and Tajikistan. My village, Mah-e Now, is situated on the bank of the Amu Darya, surrounded by towering mountains on both sides. Opposite our village lies Tajikistan; the only separation between the two countries is the river.

When I was a teenager and grazed livestock along the banks of the Amu, I saw Tajik women and girls working in their gardens across the water. The river was perhaps less than 200 meters wide, yet our voices barely reached the other side. Although we shared the same language, culture, and identity, contact between us was virtually nonexistent. The Soviets guarded the border and allowed no crossings.
Yet we children continued to sing local folk songs. When one of us sang a verse aloud, the Tajik girls responded with the next line. Or when they sang the first line, we followed with the second. For example, this poem:

You came, O faithful beloved, I remain devoted,
Bouquet of flowers, playful tyrant of my heart.

Or this verse:
Playful Armenian beauty, show a moment’s patience,
Become Muslim, or make me Christian.

After the collapse of the local kings of Darwaz’s rule in 1876, and the escalation of the colonial rivalry between Russia and Great Britain, the border line was ultimately fixed along the Amu river in 1895, dividing the historic land of Darwaz into two parts: one within present-day Afghanistan, and one within Tajikistan.

This border was not drawn on the basis of a cultural rupture, but a geopolitical one. Nevertheless, despite this sudden separation, the 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 together, even though it has become difficult.

So, what impact does this political border have on the ties between the people on both sides of the Amu? The region is like an apple cut into two halves. a division that still shapes life on both sides today. The river is a witness to our connectedness. Through songs and oral literature, we transcend the political border and live in a self-evident shared world. Although everything seems constrained and erased by politics and borders, literature resists mutual alienation. Literature denies and mocks borders and narrow-mindedness. When life becomes entangled in political webs, literature builds bridges between people and ensures that cultural bonds are not destroyed.

But reality is not always so poetic.

During the time when the border was under Soviet control, my father crossed into Tajik territory on a winter day. He had been invited by a friend to what I recall was a wedding. Not long afterward, we received word that Soviet soldiers had arrested and imprisoned him. My mother, on whom the artificial border had never made any impression, struck her head and face while crying out, ‘Why have they arrested him?’ Days passed without news. After thirteen days, Afghan border authorities succeeded in securing his release from a Soviet prison. My father, who was addicted to naswar, a local form of smokeless tobacco placed inside the lower lip — suffered greatly during those thirteen days. For a long time afterward, he continued to curse the Russians.

Despite strict restrictions, crossings still took place. Sometimes love stories emerged, and even marriages occurred. Russian soldiers occasionally fired their weapons, and there were casualties. As people tried to cross the Amu River in small boats, the shooting continued. About twenty villagers from our community were killed as a result of Russian gunfire.

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

At the same time as the Russians withdrew, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), with international support, built a friendship bridge in 2004 in the Qal’a-e Khum-Nusay area. Eventually, after several bridges were constructed across the river, traffic increased, and trade contacts multiplied. For the Afghan side, where roads, electricity, and basic facilities were still lacking, this felt like the opening of a door. There was a weekly joint market on the bridge where people from both sides of the border met and exchanged goods.

Alongside trade, cultural interaction also increased. During Nowruz, the largest celebration in Central Asia and in Persian-speaking countries, people from both sides participated. Tajik artists and singers came to perform and, through their music, humour, and dance, created a sense of unity, as if the split apple was becoming whole again.

Yet one solid wall remains: script. Under Soviet rule, the Persian script in Tajikistan was replaced by the Cyrillic alphabet. Although the people on either side 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, one hundred and thirty years after the border was agreed upon by the British and the Russians in 1895, this border still defines the region. We see that one side of the river developed under a socialist and secular Soviet system, which influenced language and social structures, while the other side became entangled in recurring wars and shifting movements between extremist and occasionally secular groups.

The Amu Darya, once a source of poetic inspiration, has become, with the formalization of the border, a frightening reality that complicates daily life on both sides. And yet, when the sun sets and the light slowly softens, the border fades for a moment in the twilight. In that half-darkness, people cross the river, driven by necessity, love, or family ties. What is strictly guarded by day loses something of its hardness at night.

Perhaps history has taught us that no separation is ever absolute or eternal — for the same sun that sinks behind the mountains kisses the fields on both sides of the Amu. Will this border disappear one day?