I realised that he had no idea who we were, and reminded him of the letter I had sent the previous week, outlining what had happened to Mir in Afghanistan and the case for his political asylum. Aaron looked uncertain at first, but then it came back to him. He fished in a pile of papers and emerged with my letter with a speed that suggested there was at least some reason in the madness of his desk.
– I remember of course, he nodded, rereading the letter. It’s quite a story. Quite a story.
Hamid the former tour guide had been correct in his assertion that Exceptional Leave to Remain was virtually automatic for Afghans. In fact it was so automatic that a significant number of asylum seekers from other countries had taken to destroying their identity papers and claiming Afghan nationality. There was a particular problem with applicants from Iran and Pakistan, Aaron explained. Twenty years of war had driven some three million people across Afghanistan’s borders into these neighbouring countries, where many had settled and intermingled. Pashtu is the majority language of Afghanistan and is widely spoken in north-west Pakistan. Dari is the secondary language, and is a dialect of Persian. It was therefore a simple matter for Pakistanis and Iranians to dress up as Afghans and hoodwink unwary immigration officers at Britain’s ports. Disentangling the true asylum seeker from the false was one of the greatest challenges the system faced. Some Afghan refugees claimed that fully a quarter of their purported number in Britain, possibly tens of thousands of people, were fakes.
Aaron couldn’t see any problem in Mir’s case, which he said was open and shut. Sponsorship from two credible Western journalists was unusual, and would almost certainly be decisive in countering any challenge from the Home Office. In short, he would be delighted to take us on. He thought we should apply for ILR, Indefinite Leave to Remain, right away. He wanted more detail, and began to ask questions. When, precisely, had Mir become aware that his life was in danger? As a Pashtun, how dangerous had life been in the Northern Alliance town of Mazar before the arrival of the Taliban? Mir’s father was a Sharia judge: did he also play a role in the political life of Mazar, and what was his relationship with the Hazara Shi’ite community? None of this was easy to answer, and Mir responded hesitantly. I tried to help him along, but Aaron swiftly raised his hand.
– No, no, no. I appreciate your intentions, Mr Fergusson, I really do, but this is official testimony and I’d like to hear it from Mirwais himself, if you don’t mind.
Mir began again. Aaron scribbled notes on the back of my letter, but I could see he was having trouble concentrating. The phone rang again and he took the call. Then he was forced to break off to deal with a query from an assistant.
Mir spoke badly. Mazari politics were labyrinthine, difficult enough to explain even for a native English-speaker, and he went into much more detail than necessary. It was all taking far too long. Aaron furrowed his brow but the effort was clearly too much, and little by little his expression glazed over.
– All right, he sighed eventually, putting down his pen. I’ve heard enough. It won’t matter in the end anyway. They’ll definitely grant ILR.
I stole a look at his notes. Mir had been speaking for fifteen minutes, yet Aaron had barely covered half a page.
Aaron explained what would happen next. He would write to the Home Office and the Home Office would issue a case number. They could demand a hearing, but it was more likely in his opinion that they would simply upgrade Mir to full refugee status by return of post. The Home Office was supposed to adjudicate within three months, but the backlog of cases had grown so huge that it was unable to cope – which was why the Home Secretary was in the process of trying to reform the system with a new Immigration and Asylum Act.
– I predict disaster, said Aaron, with the undisguised relish of the vindicated critic. But he added that it was a good time to claim asylum. The backlog was a political embarrassment, and the government was desperate to get the numbers down for appearance’s sake. Due process was going by the board.
Mir sat mute throughout this discussion. Back out in the street, it soon became clear that he had understood little of it, but he didn’t seem to care. Britain, he said simply, was a good country. If Allah willed it then the system would work fine. Nevertheless, I could see that there was something on his mind.
– This man, he said by and by. Do you think he is a good man?
– I think he’s excellent.
– But where is he from?
– You mean his name?
– Jewish? said Mir. I thought so.
There was a pause.
– Is that a problem?
– The Jews are everywhere, he said, shaking his head.
I had come across Muslim anti-Semitism often enough in the past, but it was disconcerting to find such fear and prejudice in Mir.
– In London everyone is everywhere, I said lightly.
– You don’t think that he might not want to help me because I am a Muslim?
– Of course not! You shouldn’t think of him as Jewish. Think of him as your lawyer.
Mir looked thoughtful and did not reply. We walked on past the shops and restaurants of Upper Street towards the tube station.
– You know I am Ghilzai, he said eventually, naming one of the two main branches of the Pashtun nation. Some people say the Ghilzai are Children of Israel – one of the lost tribes. This is why the Tajiks sometimes call the Talibs ‘Bloody Jews’.
– Well, if you’re Jewish you can’t have a problem with Aaron Stein, can you?
– Personally I do not believe this Ghilzai tradition. It is werry stupid – maybe even Zionist propaganda.
– So what’s your point?
– Only that the Jews are werry clever people, he said.
I did my best to fulfil my side of the bargain with Mir. The initial euphoria of getting him in subsided soon enough. I was uninitiated in British immigration procedures, and the grinding inefficiency of the Home Office machinery was shocking. I began belatedly to read into the subject, snipping out relevant newspaper articles and buttonholing certain lawyers and political types I knew on the drinks and dinner-party circuit. I soon concluded that the Home Office wasn’t being deliberately callous: it was simply overwhelmed. It was obvious too that the situation was getting worse. Asylum seekers were turning up in Britain in ever-increasing numbers – twenty-two thousand in 1993, thirty-two thousand in 1997, and (as it later turned out) forty-six thousand in 1998. No wonder the officials couldn’t cope. Mir was part of a 42 per cent rise in asylum seekers over the previous year alone. In some cases they had been waiting literally years for a final decision. Such people lived in fear of a knock on the door, or perhaps just a formulaic letter that would launch them back to whatever disaster area they had come from. While the civil servants deliberated, these people were forced to live in a terrible limbo, an immigrant half-world whose inhabitants were in constant dread of the future and who had almost no status in the present. It seemed a cruel sort of sanctuary to offer people who had fled for their lives, and it was certainly no foundation for a young man trying to start a new life in the West. I resolved to do one more thing for Mir to make his limbo period as short as possible. I spoke to an uncle, a former Foreign Office Minister.
– Go and see his MP, he advised. It’s amazing what a letter on House of Commons writing paper will do to speed things up. It’s one of the few areas of government where the MP system actually works.
This wasn’t quite the offer of direct intervention I had hoped for. Mir was disappointed too, because where he came from nepotism was not so much the oil in the engine as the motor that drove the entire machine. But it was still a sensible suggestion,