What if I told you that Afghanistan, a nation synonymous with war and chaos in the global imagination, once sent a man to space? Not as a footnote in some obscure Cold War footnote, but as a bold declaration of ambition in 1988. Abdul Ahad Momand, the first and only Afghan to orbit Earth, spoke Pashto in the vacuum of space—a moment that should have been etched into history. Yet here we are, decades later, with most of us unable to name him. This isn’t just a story about forgotten heroes; it’s a mirror held up to how trauma and conflict warp our collective memory. Personally, I think it’s a tragedy that such a human achievement gets buried under the weight of war headlines. What does it say about us that we remember the violence but not the victories?
Elham Ehsas, the London-based filmmaker behind Forgotten Spaceman, stumbled onto Momand’s story while researching a sci-fi project. But what he found wasn’t just a historical curiosity—it was a personal reckoning. His parents didn’t tell him about Momand, and neither did his cousins. That silence, I find fascinating. It speaks to a generational erasure, a cultural amnesia where the narrative of Afghanistan is reduced to refugees and rubble. Ehsas’s film isn’t just about rediscovering Momand; it’s about confronting the gaps in our own family histories. How many of us have stories buried in our bloodlines, waiting to be unearthed? This isn’t just a documentary—it’s a call to dig deeper into the layers of identity that war and displacement have tried to erase.
What makes Forgotten Spaceman so compelling is its refusal to stay small. It starts with a single man in space but expands into a universal meditation on exile. Momand, after his flight, became an accountant in Germany. His journey mirrors the fate of millions of Afghans who left their homeland, carrying fragments of culture and memory. Ehsas frames this as a paradox: a nation that sent a man to the stars but lost its voice in the process. From my perspective, this isn’t just about Afghanistan—it’s about any country whose story is defined by conflict. How many other nations have had their achievements drowned out by the noise of war? The film’s use of Pashto, the language Momand spoke in space, is a deliberate act of defiance against the dominant Western narrative that reduces Afghanistan to a war zone.
There’s a poetic structure to Ehsas’s storytelling. He builds the film like a music album, weaving three Afghan folk songs into its fabric. This isn’t just aesthetic flair; it’s a reminder that art survives where politics fail. The music becomes a bridge between past and present, between the cosmic and the intimate. A detail that I find especially interesting is how the film’s title in Pashto—Hershewe Fazanawerd—translates to ‘the man who went to space.’ It’s a phrase that feels both humble and monumental, like a lullaby for a forgotten hero. What this really suggests is that language carries memory, and when we reclaim it, we reclaim our history.
But let’s talk about the bigger picture. The film’s premise raises a deeper question: Why do we so often forget the non-violent narratives of countries ravaged by conflict? Afghanistan’s space program was a product of Soviet collaboration, a fleeting moment of scientific curiosity in a region more often associated with religious extremism. Yet, the West’s memory is short. We remember the Taliban, the Soviets, the Americans—but not the poets, the scientists, the spacemen. Ehsas’s work is part of a growing movement by diaspora artists to reclaim agency over their stories. This isn’t just about pride; it’s about survival. When a nation’s identity is reduced to violence, its people become ghosts in their own history.
What I love most about Forgotten Spaceman is its refusal to be a mere historical correction. It’s a film that asks us to look inward. The discovery of the family photo linking Ehsas to Momand isn’t just a plot twist—it’s a metaphor for how personal and national histories are intertwined. We all carry fragments of the past in our blood, and sometimes, it takes a stranger’s story to help us see ourselves. This film isn’t just about Afghanistan; it’s about anyone who has ever felt disconnected from their roots. If you take a step back and think about it, every refugee, every diaspora member, is a living archive of a forgotten homeland. Ehsas’s work reminds us that even in exile, we carry the stars within us.
As for the future, I can’t help but wonder: Could this story evolve into a feature film? Imagine a narrative that spans generations, tracing how Momand’s legacy influences not just Ehsas, but countless others who have left Afghanistan. The possibilities are endless. But more importantly, this film is a spark. It’s a reminder that history isn’t static—it’s something we choose to remember, to reclaim, to reimagine. And in doing so, we give ourselves the power to rewrite the future.
