‘We have a real sense of abandonment’, say Afghan migrants

Adelaide restaurateur Durkhanai Ayubi is the epitome of everything the Taliban abhors: a vibrant and articulate university-educated businesswoman.

Durkhanai Ayubi with her father Zelmai Ayubi. Picture: Roy Van Der Vegt

Adelaide restaurateur Durkhanai Ayubi is the epitome of everything the Taliban abhors: a vibrant and articulate university-educated businesswoman who has turned her family restaurant, Parwana, into one of the great success ­stories of the city’s food scene.

Ms Ayubi was a one-year-old when her parents, Zelmai and Farida Ayubi, fled Afghanistan and migrated to Australia in 1987 at the height of the Cold War.

She and her three sisters have enjoyed the kind of opportunities that are again being denied to women in her birthplace as the Taliban takes control. Ms Ayubi completed an honours degree in science chemistry at Flinders University but then moved to Canberra to pursue a graduate role with the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

When her parents opened ­Afghan eatery Parwana in Torrensville in 2009, the draw of food, family and an eye for business saw her change course again.

She returned to Adelaide and became a co-owner and operator of the family restaurant and with her sisters started a second, more casual restaurant, Kutchi, in Adelaide’s East End, with both restaurants commanding a fanatical local following and rave reviews.

The normally effusive Ms Ayubi says she struggles to describe the pace with which things have collapsed in Afghanistan.

“The past few days have been a blur,” she says. “This is a moment of collective trauma for Afghans everywhere but my words as a member of the diaspora are inadequate to capture what the people in Afghanistan must be feeling as they see their lives evaporate within a matter of days.”

Like so many Afghan-Australians, she says the community feels Afghanistan has been badly let down by the US and Australia, both in terms of the mission itself and the lack of support for Afghan nationals who supported the effort against the Taliban.

“There is a real sense of abandonment and betrayal from the international community,” she says. “Everybody who has been in Afghanistan for the past 20 years has been talking about nation-building. To hear President (Joe) Biden say the US was never there for nation building has left Afghan people feeling betrayed.

“It wasn’t just about nation-building, it was also about protecting women’s rights and elimin­ating terrorism.”

Ms Ayubi says most members of Adelaide’s 6000-strong Afghan community are already hearing alarming stories of how quickly life is changing; while all Afghans will be affected by the Taliban, life for women and girls will change overnight though the imposition of sharia law.

“Afghan women fought so hard in any way they could for the past 20 years,” she says. “Now their dreams are crumbling.”

Parwana will have a fundraising dinner on September 6 to raise funds for emergency relief for Afghan civilians.