An Aberdeen University law student has spoken out about completing his studies while his family was forced into hiding in Afghanistan.
Ahmad Ali Shariati had always dreamed of moving to the UK to study.
When he was awarded the Chevening scholarship, enabling him to leave his job at Ariana Afghan Airline and head for the Granite City, he jumped at the chance.
Little did he know that, throughout the course of his studies, his country’s government would fall and the Taliban would be resurrected, putting his family in serious danger.
Dream course
The Chevening scholarship enables “emerging leaders” from around the world to pursue one-year master’s degree in the UK.
Mr Shariati, already a qualified lawyer, chose to study international commercial law at his first-choice university in 2020.
“I had friends who had studied at Aberdeen and they told me how impressed they were with the university and its courses,” he said.
“When I learned it had a 500-year pedigree of teaching law and one of the best law libraries in the UK, I knew it was the place for me.”
Despite studying during the pandemic, Mr Shariati said he “was made very welcome”.
He had originally hoped to finish the one-year course and take his new skills back to Afghanistan to make a positive difference.
Feeling ‘powerless’
But not long after starting his dissertation, the government in Afghanistan collapsed and his line of work meant he couldn’t go back.
He said: “I felt powerless as I watched the awful scenes at airports unfold on the television.
“As a lawyer I had worked with different government agencies and institutions, and so I could not return. Fortunately, I was able to stay under the UK Government Afghan resettlement scheme but things were much more difficult for my family.”
Mr Shariati’s family was forced into hiding – his father had worked prosecuting terrorists, many of whom had now been released from prison.
His sisters were forced to stop their own university degrees as women were banned from education.
Unable to return home, Mr Shariati managed to complete his studies and was offered a temporary role as a research assistant funded by the university’s development trust.
Professor John Paterson, who supervised his dissertation and subsequent research project, said he was “an inspiration to us all”.
New life in the UK
Mr Shariati’s family was able to escape Afghanistan after two months in hiding and resettled in Europe.
He is currently studying a PhD at Sussex University and has discovered a desire to teach law.
Regardless of the ongoing turmoil, the lawyer is determined to return to his home country someday “to contribute to Afghan society and to help others”.
He said: “I now consider that I have two homes – Afghanistan and the UK. I will always love my home country. My sense of identity and all my happy childhood memories are there but I am grateful to the UK, and particularly Aberdeen, for making me so welcome.
“I hope I might one day teach law at Aberdeen to support students here in the same way I have been supported.”
Importance of education
Without being granted the Chevening scholarship, it is unclear what Mr Shariati’s fate would have been.
He said scholarships have the ability to “change lives” and hoped other Afghan scholars will be awarded them in the future.
“I want to contribute towards women’s rights, girls’ education and human rights and to do something to address the many types of discrimination,” he said.
“I am not a nationalist, I believe in the global world, but it will make me very happy to see the time Afghan people are able to live the lives they deserve.
“This is why scholarships are so important. Regimes change for good and for bad but for a peaceful world we need educated people everywhere.”
Conversation