The Naked Don't Fear the Water: A Journey Through the Refugee Underground

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Some reporters can’t help telling you their latest tale of derring-do: “I was there. And it was hell!” I’d infrequently run into Aikins somewhere, but the Canadian journalist would never say much about what he had just done or where he was headed. Then my next issue of Harper’s would arrive, and I’d see “ On the Front Lines in the World’s Deadliest Megacity” above his name. This is a gripping, devastating book, and it must have taken great courage and determination to write. The best way to honour this book would be for us all to read it and ask ourselves what we can do for the thousands of unknown and unrecognized people who are treading this terrifying path.’ The book shines a humane spotlight on many of the people the author met along the way as well as on the role chance played in their fates, with particularly moving chapters on life within the Greek refugee camp. The narrative is scrupulous and often suspenseful. Sharp insider insights into a global dilemma.’ Journalist Aikins debuts with a powerful account of the “long and dangerous journey” many Afghans take out of their war-torn country…The result is a heart-wrenching portrait of resilience and ingenuity under the most trying of circumstances.’

AIKINS: That's one of the hiding places, is to climb onto the axle itself, often with, like, a little board so you don't get caught in the spinning shaft. A riveting and heartrending look at the hidden world of refugees that challenged everything I thought I knew about the consequences of war and globalization. It’s the most important work on the global refugee crisis to date, and a crucial document of these tumultuous times. It will go down as one of the great works of nonfiction literature of our generation.’

AIKINS: I was the only reporter on the ground for a while, along with two photographers, Jim Huylebroek and Victor Blue. But because we were freelancers, we were able to choose to stay behind, whereas all the staff had to evacuate. AIKINS: Well, it was already clear by then that things were not going well, that the foreigners would eventually leave and that the Afghan government was, you know, becoming more and more dysfunctional and corrupt. The Taliban were on the march in the countryside. The Taliban briefly captured a provincial capital at the end of 2015. So there's that, and there's also the fact that Omar - you know, since he was a kid, he had dreamed of emigrating to the West. He used to watch a Canadian television show on - when he was a kid in Iran. And he had actually applied for a visa to emigrate here. He should have been eligible under this Special Immigrant Visa program for former Afghan and Iraqi employees of the U.S. government, but he was rejected because he didn't have all the paperwork. So after that happened, he decided to take the smugglers' road to Europe. AIKINS: Well, it was the Taliban who were going to kidnap you beforehand a lot of times. And now that they were the government and supposedly claimed to want to protect foreign journalists and NGO workers because they wanted to portray themselves as a responsible authority, there was actually less threat of kidnapping in the beginning, at least. We were more worried about ISIS, who might want to kill a foreigner, or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. There was a lot of shooting around the airport. DAVIES: Yeah, you said a million people reached Europe by sea during this movement, the largest movement of refugees across waters in history. By the time Omar decided he was going to go, he had some personal considerations that delayed him. Things had changed. How did they change? Afghan youth from Kunduz bathe while waiting with other recently arrived migrants to board a ferry to Athens from Mytilene, Greece on October 16, 2015. Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

DAVIES: What was that like, I mean, a country in chaos? How did you decide what to do? Did it - did you feel a lot of pressure? Matthieu Aikins is that rarest of combinations – an intrepid journalist who writes beautifully. The Naked Don’t Fear the Water is a compellingly original piece of work, an unforgettable narrative about one of the great human epics of our day.’ DAVIES: Right. And he certainly would have qualified. I mean, he had done translating for coalition forces. He'd seen combat. He - but they wanted a lot of documentation that people, when they're in action, don't think to collect. So you decided you would go together and report on this, which meant you would be traveling as an Afghan. But, of course, you are, in fact, a Westerner. You're Canadian-born. What advantages or risks did that pose to the two of you, that you were there kind of looking like an Afghan refugee, but really a Western journalist? AIKINS: I thought maybe we'd all go in the water, and if we did, people are going to die. You know, I'm a strong swimmer. I've grown up on the ocean. Many of the people there, they had never seen the ocean before; this is Omar's first time in a boat. So I just knew that things were going to get really bad if we capsized.AIKINS: Yeah, people were somewhat free to come and go from the camp itself but not to leave the island. AIKINS: I think that the country is in survival mode right now. The state is on the verge of collapse because it's completely dependent on foreign funding, which has now been cut off. And there is a very uncertain political situation. I don't know if the Taliban is going to be able to unite the country under them and govern. And if they can't, then we could see a new round of civil war. So fortunately, I think that this is dependent on the actions of the United States and other regional countries. And if there's a way to stabilize the state and prevent a new outbreak of fighting, you know, it might not be as bad. But we're looking at a situation where millions of people are in danger of starvation. DAVIES: One of the remarkable things about this book is that there's - it's a very detailed account of a pretty remarkable experience. And I know in my own reporting experiences, when you're out at something where there's a lot of action, like a demonstration, or when you're on the road, it's hard to take good notes, hard to preserve them. You had to keep your identity as a journalist secret. How did you keep records and notes of what you were experiencing?