Imagine that you live in Afghanistan. Your ancestors have lived there for hundreds of years, but you are a minority. In fact, you are a minority two times over, because the religion you practice is different from the one most people practice, and the way you look is different from the way most people look.

In the 1890’s, Emir Abdur Rahman comes along. He is a king who reserves special scorn for your people, and in order to control territory and to scare troublesome groups into obedience, he makes an example out of yours. Your people are easy to target — the different-believers, the different-lookers.

Many of you escape, but millions of you don’t. So many of your people are killed that you believe fewer than half survived. Even statues that look like you are attacked.

For the next century, those of you who survive are relegated to the bottom rungs of society. The king has made it difficult for your people to gain admission to university and places a ceiling on the rank you can achieve in the military. Later, a group that calls itself The Students, or the Taliban, will take over the country and declare it every Afghan’s duty to kill your people.

Imagine, though, that you are one of the lucky ones, and you escape before the king or The Students can get you. You go to a country next door.

Country #2

Iran is a country where, mercifully, everyone is the same religion as you — Shia. You think you will be welcomed there. There, you are still an ethnic minority, but you are no longer a religious one.

Then there is a revolution, and then a war, and then the ending of a war. People emerge from the tumult and remember that their economy is not very good. There are sanctions. And your people, the different-lookers, are the target of most of the rage. There are not enough jobs for everyone, so why should your people get to take them?

You are not the only immigrants, but you are immigrants people can see are immigrants just by looking. In your country of refuge, you are now an enemy of the people.

You must leave again.

Country #3

Some of you go to Iraq. There, Shias are not in power, but at least there are many of them. Plus, there are important Shia sites in Iraq, so while you feel physically alien, you can make-believe you are spiritually home. Iraq has a powerful and fearsome dictator, but no matter; you are safe.

Until you are no longer safe. The dictator embarks on a foolish war and becomes an enemy of peace, a cancer in the region. Iraq is a pariah state and its dictator a paranoid man who fears that those who aren’t like him will soon betray him. He hates Iran, and knows your people were there. And even though you were driven from Iran, you are spying for them, the dictator thinks.

You must leave again.

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