Maverick Legacy
Afghan family of 26 UNO graduates find and create community through the power of education.

by Greg Kozol

After completing his doctoral degree in the United States, Moqim Rahmanzai, Ed.D. faced a haunting reality upon returning to his homeland of Afghanistan.

“I was interrogated multiple times and put in jail. I realized that my family and I were no longer safe in our own country and had to escape Afghanistan like millions of other Afghans.” Dr. Rahmanzai said. “With my immediate family at the time, my wife and I and six children, we traveled through mountain passes, rode on donkeys, on horses, and came to Pakistan. That was 1982.”

The harrowing part of the journey was over, but he had to wait for approval to get back to the United States. It finally came when Thomas Gouttierre, director of UNO’s Center for Afghanistan Studies at the time, sponsored Dr. Rahmanzai and his family.

He arrived on campus in June of 1983. Forty years later, Dr. Rahmanzai is retired but his family continues to impact the university community.

“We were eager and excited to attend and come to UNO,” said Farida Majid, one of Dr. Rahmanzai’s three daughters. “We’ve kind of recruited a lot of other family members to come to UNO, too.”

In all, 26 extended family members have graduated from UNO since Dr. Rahmanzai first arrived on campus. That includes five of his children. Many went on to get advanced degrees and some took full-time positions at the university.

Majid, with bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UNO, works as director of undergraduate advising in the College of Information Science & Technology. “I loved it, being a student at UNO,” she said.

Dr. Rahmanzai’s oldest granddaughter, Nazaneen Rahmanzai, currently works as an academic advisor in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences. She said it seemed natural that she would attend UNO.

“I would always go to take-your-daughter-to-work day with my aunts because they have professional positions that allowed me to come. I was able to see what they do and explore the college,” she said. “Just being on the campus at a young age and hearing about all the opportunities, I knew I was going to go to UNO.”

Family members became immersed in the mission of UNO’s Center for Afghanistan Studies. Dr. Rahmanzai played a key role in raising awareness of Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. He started as a research associate at the center and became deputy team leader for UNO Cross Border Education Activities for Afghanistan.

“We were very active because of the Russian presence in Afghanistan,” he said. “We were able to let the world know what was going on.”

It wasn’t just desk work. A 1992 State Department report entitled “Significant Incidents of Political Violence Against Americans” reveals that Dr. Rahmanzai was shot while doing aid work in Peshawar, Pakistan on Aug. 13, 1991. He was struck in the arm and hand when a pickup truck blocked his vehicle and a gunman opened fire with an AK-47.

“Rahmanzai is well-known in the Afghan community in Peshawar,” the State Department said in its report.

Today, his family continues that legacy of support for Afghanistan through UNO. Soraya Rahmanzai, another of Dr. Rahmanzai’s daughters, has undergraduate and master’s degrees from UNO and now works as academic and project coordinator with the Center for Afghanistan Studies.

“I was an insurance agent for three years and decided that I wanted to do something that would help the community and Afghans,” she said. “The center is a great place to be. You learn a lot; you deal with people from a variety of cultures.”

Majid believes the family’s impact at UNO extends to the wider Afghan community. “That connection keeps growing and growing,” she said. “Not just within the family but also outside of our family and the Afghan refugees that are settling in Omaha.”

While Afghanistan is core to their identity, family members do not exist in a bubble during their time on campus. For many, the college experience featured scholarship programs, organizations and activities that any graduate or current student would recognize.

“Many of us at UNO that were part of different organizations including the Afghan Student Association, health clubs, mentorships, research projects, sororities and intermural sports to name a few.” Nazaneen said. “Our involvement impacted the UNO community, Omaha community and the Afghan community.”

Dr. Rahmanzai was already an accomplished scholar when he arrived on UNO’s campus. He grew up in Afghanistan, was selected for a Fulbright scholarship and was studying for his doctorate in education prior to the Soviet invasion in 1979.

In four decades, he has witnessed his children and grandchildren achieve a level of academic and professional success that would be impossible under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, especially for women. This family story serves as a poignant reminder of the power of education and a source of tremendous pride.

“I am very happy for them all,” Dr. Rahmanzai said. “Our first criteria was, ‘you have an opportunity. You are in the U.S. The doors are already open. Study and try to get as high an education as possible.’”

For proof of how high this family has climbed, he could recall the scene at UNO’s Baxter Arena on Jan. 13, 2016.

There, as Barack Obama addressed a packed house, three members of Dr. Rahmanzai’s own family stood behind the president. A path that started with a hasty journey across mountain passes ended on a stage with the first sitting U.S. president to visit UNO.

“When Obama was on campus, I saw three of my grandchildren in the picture behind him when he was speaking,” he said. “I thought, ‘wow, not bad.’”

 

UNO’s Center for Afghanistan Studies

When Afghanistan is in the news, Sher Jan Ahmadzai’s phone starts ringing.

His phone rang constantly in 2021 after the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the return of the Taliban marked the latest chapter in Afghanistan’s often tragic history.

“We were contacted or have been contacted by different national media outlets for comments and analysis,” said Ahmadzai, director of UNO’s Center for Afghanistan Studies. “We have been busy on that front. The number has decreased, but I remember having three or four interviews every day in 2021 and the beginning of 2022.”

In 1972, UNO established the Center for Afghanistan Studies at a time when many Americans might have struggled to find the country on a map. Events since then – the Soviet invasion, the rise of the Taliban, 9/11 and two decades of U.S. military involvement followed by an abrupt exit – elevated Afghanistan in the national conversation. Ahmadzai, who became the center’s director in 2016, helps provide insight into his homeland’s history, culture and political situation.

But the Center for Afghanistan Studies is more than that. Ahmadzai said the center has served as a vital source of training and education for teachers and technocrats on the ground in Afghanistan and for those who came to study at UNO. The center helped provide training to more than 8,000 teachers in 20 years.

“Afghans should not be looked at through the lens of terrorism or extremist ideologies but as fellow human beings who strive for a life that any American would like to have,” said Ahmadzai, who was born in Afghanistan and has a bachelor’s degree in international studies and master’s in public administration/public policy from UNO.

After the Taliban’s return to Kabul, UNO-affiliated projects and offices were shut down. It’s a deeply discouraging development, but the Center for Afghanistan Studies will continue in its mission to help the Afghan people whenever possible and serve as a hub of information on the country’s history and culture.

“Afghanistan has had its share of miseries and happy moments,” Ahmadzai said. “We stood with Afghan students and educators in the last 50 years and hope to continue doing that.”