Murdoch Stephens (left), Tariq Habibyar, Hannah Salmon, and Ben Knight in lockdown in Whanganui (Photo: Supplied)

BooksApril 5, 2025

What happened to my friend Dr Tariq Habibyar

Guest writer

Murdoch Stephens (left), Tariq Habibyar, Hannah Salmon, and Ben Knight in lockdown in Whanganui (Photo: Supplied)

Murdoch Stephens introduces us to one of the people whose stories feature in his new book, Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies.

On Thursday my book on Aotearoa’s response to emergency refugee crises was released. I was lucky enough to have the book recount nine community members’ stories of advocacy and escape. In this article I want to share a story of one friend who wasn’t there for the launch because he no longer lives in Aotearoa.

I first met Tariq in 2017 near the tail end of the campaign I started to double New Zealand’s refugee quota. He was visiting Wellington from Canterbury, and considering a permanent move after finishing his PhD in Education. I had been living in a lively house in Roseneath – musician, artist and theatre maker flatmates coming and going – which led to Tariq subletting a room with us for his initial two months in Wellington.

Tariq fit right in. He had lived an incredible life in Afghanistan, committed to the education of girls and young women, and moved through the world with a curiosity that attracted him to our group. For a guy who had been close to death on many occasions, he somehow held on to an open-minded energy as well as his faith. He was always looking for ways to support those who needed help in Afghanistan: such as his social enterprise that imported saffron from Afghanistan and created jobs for women.

Photo of two people popping very fizzy bottles of beer in celebration. — Tariq Habibyar and Murdoch Stephens at the house in Roseneath, home to a lot of the double the quota celebrations. Still from the day when they got to their first fundraising goal in 24 hours. (Source: Double The Quota campaign)

Our relationship was neither one way nor charitable. A year later, Tariq came to our group’s rescue. When our lease was ended after more than a decade of rolling over, my flatmates were desperate to find a new home. Tariq was there to point out that the flat above his was becoming available. Our group met the landlord, and with Tariq’s charm and assurances, were signed up with a few weeks to spare. For about a year, our loose group lived in the flat above Tariq, getting to know him, his wife and daughter.

March 2020 rolled around and both Tariq and I found ourselves with nowhere to live. His wife and daughter had been visiting family in Turkey and he had been pushed out of his home so the landlord’s daughter could move in. Covid meant that I gave up my lecturing contract in Beirut a few weeks after I had given up my room in the flat that inspired my novel, Rat King Landlord.

Some of our original group had just moved to Whanganui and had a few spare rooms. This was the third time we had come together. With a fruit-and-veggie-heavy backyard, at the peak of harvest season, the four of us lived well as Covid cases surged, then petered out.

A photo of three people having a picnic by the Whanganui River. — Tariq Habibyar and friends and the Whanganui River. (Photo: Supplied)

In the background Tariq had been working a range of university and government jobs. At one point I counted the number of people who were dependent on him: 17. Yes, many of these people had some other small incomes, and many were subsisting on the cost of living in Afghanistan not Auckland, but Tariq’s commitment to supporting others must be recognised.

Of course, we all know what happened next: the return of the Taliban across a ramshackle few weeks. I’ll leave it to Tariq to explain what happened, in his own words, from his contribution to Visas Now!

Afghanistan by Dr Tariq Habibyar

It was mid-July 2021 when I learned through social media that the Taliban had surrounded Herat, my birthplace. It was shocking news: with thousands of armed forces defending the city, how could this happen? We later learned that, as with all other parts of Afghanistan, the country was handed over to the Taliban. They didn’t take it by force.

What captured my attention at the time was a famous elderly man from Herat, whose men had previously tortured my family, had taken up arms to fight back against the Taliban. Despite what this man’s men had done to my family, I was filled with admiration for him and I prayed for his victory, from my home in Palmerston North.

Despite the lies told to the people of Afghanistan that the Taliban had changed, many of us knew they had not. Sadly, we were proven right. As an educator and someone who has spent most of my life in the pursuit of learning and teaching, the most grievous act and violation of human rights by the Taliban was the closure of schools and universities for the female members of Afghan society. We knew the Taliban would do exactly that.

By mid-August, city after city and province after province were handed over to the Taliban. Like thousands of families who had worked with the international community inside Afghanistan, my family was forced to flee. Those Afghans who had family members outside Afghanistan were considered lucky because their family members could get them out.

I was desperately trying to help my family. I reached out and sought help from the office of the prime minister to any MP I knew in New Zealand. Almost all of them sent me either a URL or other generic information that was of little or no use during that emergency. Little did I know that the country I am a citizen of, the country I love and take pride in, did not have a policy of “a friend in need is a friend indeed,” at least not towards Afghans or more specifically towards my people.

I soon realised that I should give up on the New Zealand government to help my family. I raised funds through generous Kiwi friends and started talking to my friends around the world who had connections in other countries. Within weeks, we helped my family and several others to escape Afghanistan.

Long story, short: most of these families ended up in North America. As soon as they arrived, they started contributing to the economy and cultural richness of Canada and the USA. A couple of families ended up in Europe.

A photo of former mayor of Wellington Andy Foster with an Afghan family receiving citizenship. — Tariq and his family are presented with their citizenship certificate by then Mayor of Wellington, Andy Foster. (Photo: Supplied)

I am in Canada now and when people ask me where I am from and I say, New Zealand, their response is almost always “wow”.

“Wow” is indeed what New Zealand deserves. It’s one of the most beautiful countries on the planet and it is blessed with indigenous people and many other wonderful people who call this country home. However, as far as immigration policies towards certain nationalities are concerned, it’s not there yet, to say the least.

When all my attempts to save my loved ones and bring them to my home country New Zealand failed, I was deeply disappointed with Immigration New Zealand and the political decision makers. I was deeply disappointed by the policies that made me feel like my loved ones and I didn’t matter. But I believe that Aotearoa has the potential to become an exemplary country not only for its beauty but also for the fair treatment of all, irrespective of their background, race, nationality, and religion.

‘Help keep The Spinoff funny, smart, tall and handsome – become a member today.’

Gabi Lardies
— Staff writer

I caught up with Tariq about two weeks after the last flights had left Kabul airport.

We had a coffee in the sun in Hataitai. I was a little worried about seeing him because I knew he had gone through so much and there is something terrible about being with a friend who feels they have no options left. He was doing better than I had expected, but I also knew that his acceptance was caused by exhaustion not by serenity.

As he writes above, he is no longer in New Zealand: he was able to find the safety for his family across North America that he could not find in Aotearoa. I want to repeat something he wrote, “the policies that made me feel like my loved ones and I didn’t matter.” Tariq is being polite, as he always is. But these are not passing feelings based on bog-standard alienation caused by bureaucracy. These words represent a gut-wrenching realisation of not belonging. As a policy setting it chafes; as something that happens to a close friend it is infuriating.

I wrote Visas Now! to be a resource for communities who are wracked with worry and primed by hope but don’t know where to turn. I’ve been on at least a dozen calls where I let people know what has worked and what hasn’t, the pathways that could be open to them and the people who will decide if they can bring family here.

While New Zealand eventually welcomed around 1,500 non-resident Afghan people, few were the family members of the 6,000-strong Afghan community who were already here.

I know that every crisis situation is going to be different and Cabinet needs flexibility in considering each one. I also know that we’ve only had three intakes of the current eight UN refugee agency emergencies. There has to be some middle ground where those with families in those other five are able to quickly bring their families to safety. I hope this book is the start of the conversation on just how we can do that.

Visas Now! Aotearoa’s response to global refugee emergencies by Murdoch Stephens ($30, Left of the Equator Press) is available to purchase at Unity Books.

Keep going!

Three book covers on a dark blue background.

Three new homegrown books on this week’s bestseller chart.

BooksApril 4, 2025

The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending April 4

The Spinoff Review of Books

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Three new homegrown books on this week’s bestseller chart.

The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington.

AUCKLAND

1 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30)

More of that good Hunger Games stuff: this time, a prequel starring young Haymitch.

2 Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan UK, $40)

“Sarah Wynn-Williams begins to get a sense that she isn’t in for a normal life when, at 13, she is munched by a shark.” So begins Julie Hill’s review of Careless People that you can read the rest of right here on The Spinoff.

3 The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House, $32)

The good people of Good Reads have typically mixed responses to this blockbuster of the self-help genre. Like this from Dr Linda Tucker: “The introduction is sufficient to grasp the concept. It’s not that compelling. Useful, yes. Worth a book? No.”

4 The Vegetarian by Han Kang (Portobello Books, $28)

Way back in 2015 Daniel Hahn wrote a review of this novel – the first of Kang’s to be translated into English – in The Guardian. Here’s a segment:

“The Vegetarian is a story in three acts: the first shows us Yeong-hye’s decision and her family’s reaction; the second focuses on her brother-in-law, an unsuccessful artist who becomes obsessed with her body; the third on In-hye, the manager of a cosmetics store, trying to find her own way of dealing with the fallout from the family collapse. Across the three parts, we are pressed up against a society’s most inflexible structures – expectations of behaviour, the workings of institutions – and we watch them fail one by one. The novel repeatedly shows the frictions between huge passion and chilling detachment, between desires that are fed and those that are denied. With such violence in these characters’ internal worlds, and such a maddening external impassiveness, those inner passions are bound to break out somehow, and it won’t be pretty.”

5 See How They Fall by Rachel Paris (Moa Press, $38)

A new crime novel from former lawyer Rachel Paris is about rot at the core of a dynastically wealthy family. Books editor Claire Mabey had a good chat to Paris about where the book came from, how she developed her characters, and why she set the story in Sydney.

6 Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (Picador, $38)

Another poet turned novelist! Akbar is a phenomenal and generous writer and Martyr! was one of the most celebrated and talked about books from America last year. Here’s the opening of the review in The New Yorker:

“A novel with the title ‘Martyr!’ arrives on the scene preloaded and explosive. The word is fraught, even more so now than when the book’s author, the Iranian American poet Kaveh Akbar, chose it. There’s humor in the exclamation mark, but there’s something else, too. It signals that Akbar is fascinated with words in action, words that someone has reached for in a state of excitation, like joy or deep grief. The shouter of “Martyr!” bears something within him which he is determined to force the word to express. But the title’s punctuation ironizes or undercuts this intention, as if to suggest that language signifies in ways that are impossible to control. In Martyr! Akbar plays this struggle — the struggle to make words mean what you want them to mean — for laughs, but he’s also deadly serious.”

7 Becoming Supernatural by Joe Dispenza (Penguin, $37)

Just going to let the publisher’s blurb speak for this one:

“Becoming Supernatural marries some of the most profound scientific information with ancient spiritual wisdom to show how people like you and me can experience a more mystical life.

Readers will learn that we are, quite literally supernatural by nature if given the proper knowledge and instruction, and when we learn how to apply that information through various healing meditations, we should experience a greater expression of our creative abilities.

We have the capacity to tune in to frequencies beyond our material world and receive more orderly coherent streams of consciousness and energy; that we can intentionally change our brain chemistry to initiate profoundly mystical transcendental experiences; and how, if we do this enough times, we can develop the skill of creating a more efficient, balanced, healthy body, a more unlimited mind, and greater access to the quantum field and the realms of spiritual truth.”

8 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26)

Last year’s starry Booker Prize winner.

9 Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt (Bloomsbury, $25)

That beautiful novel about a woman who makes friends with a giant Pacific octopus and they solve the mystery of her missing son.

10 Nesting by Roisin O’Donnell (Simon & Schuster, $40)

The latest from the renaissance that is happening in Irish fiction. Here’s the blurb:

“On a bright spring afternoon in Dublin, Ciara Fay makes a split-second decision that will change her life. Grabbing an armful of clothes from the washing line, Ciara straps her two young daughters into her car and drives away. Head spinning, all she knows for certain is that home is no longer safe.

It was meant to be an escape. But with dwindling savings, no job, and her family across the sea, Ciara finds herself adrift, facing a broken housing system and the voice of her own demons. As summer passes and winter closes in, she must navigate raising her children in a hotel room, searching for a new home and dealing with her husband Ryan’s relentless campaign to get her to come back.

Because leaving is one thing, but staying away is another.”

‘He mea tautoko nā ngā mema atawhai. Supported by our generous members.’

Liam Rātana
— Ātea editor

WELLINGTON

1 Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, $30)

2 Vividwater by Jacqueline Owens (Four Elements Press, $35)

Karen McMillan reviewed this new local dystopia over on NZ Booklovers. Here’s a snippet:

“Vividwater is set in Wellington and it perfectly imagines a future world that is sort of functioning like the corporate, office-based world we know at this time. In this future world, society hasn’t yet collapsed and people are still keeping up appearances, going to their offices if they still have work. But this is now a society where water is not just a way to stay alive. For those who have plenty, it is a sign of wealth and status.”

3 Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (Pan UK, $40)

4 Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Jonathan Cape, $26)

5 Without Fear of Favour: A Life in Law by Sir Kenneth Keith (Te Herenga Waka University Press, $70)

A handsome new book for anyone interested in New Zealand’s judicial system. Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

“Sir Kenneth Keith draws on the entirety of his illustrious career as a lawyer, teacher, judge and judicial reformer.

Without Fear or Favour begins with fundamentals: who does what and how, the sources of law nationally and internationally, constitutional principles and values, and time and the law.

Keith then moves on to consider the growth (and retreat) of the law, with chapters on the roles of international law in our constitutional and legal system, te Tiriti o Waitangi, bringing law to bear on governments, and protecting human rights.

Part three considers the law of negligence and piracy, the actions of public authorities, the disclosure and protection of information, the writing and reading of law, and litigating and judging.

Finally, Keith turns to the future. What roles will the legal academy, the law and lawyers play as we face the major challenges ahead?”

6 The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins (Hay House, $32)

7 Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Fourth Estate, $38)

Adichie’s latest novel is being both celebrated and criticised in reviews so far. Alexandra Jacobs gives Dream Count a fulsome analysis in the NY Times. Here’s a chunk:

“Dream Count is innovative in its concentric form, more jotting than plotting, roaming flashbacks, nothing easily resolved. But there’s something faintly old-fashioned about its feminism, the better-off gals gathering to ‘swim in cocktails.’ Men tend to exist on a long sliding scale of badness — from good but boring, to desirable bounders, to sexist C.E.O.s and all the way to outright pillagers. Chia rejects a steady-seeming boyfriend, Chuka, though he’s great in bed, and longs for an emotionally absent, pretentious academic named Darnell, who talks about things like ‘the reification of the subjective neo-racial paradigm.'”

8 Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley (Sceptre, $28)

One of the blockbuster novels of 2024 and one that features in this year’s Auckland Writers Festival.

9 You Are Here by Whiti Hereaka & Peata Larkin (Massey University Press, $45)

A stunning collaboration between inventive writer Whiti Hereaka and visual artist Peata Larkin. Visit the publisher’s website for a peek.

10 Amma by Saraid de Silva (Hachette, $38)

Longlisted for the Women’s Prize (not shortlisted, but de Silva is a winner in our eyes) and the start of what promises to be a stellar writing career.