I am struggling not to whine and get depressed. As a general personality trait, I'm neither a whiner nor suffer from moodiness or depression. Kabul has been a mess lately with multiple attacks with two of the recent ones close enough for us to instinctively duck for cover and dash for safety. This has resulted in being locked down for five weekends in a row with nowhere to go and to spend far too many hours in one's own room. I am a social animal and being cutoff from life outside the house and the office is draining my spirit.
My teeth are threatening to constantly clench, my lips feel tight, my gut tense and my breathing forced. My whole being is taut and tense, my shoulders feel hard as rock and my face frozen into something that is not attractive. I've just realized that I need to postpone my trip to India by a day and I still don't have my visa. Next week I have full day workshops and I'm scratching my head and trying to figure out how I will find the time to get the visa, and even more distressing is the nagging thought about whether I will be allowed to venture out to the embassy to process the paperwork.
I am sending out an appeal and a prayer to give me courage, fortitude, wisdom, humor, serenity, and compassion to remain flexible and to retain a sense of fun. I want the wisdom to believe that this too shall pass and to use the possibility of having to spend more time in my room to explore other avenues of serenity and fulfillment. I want to channel the courage of San Suu Kyi of Burma who has spent decades under house arrest and not blow this comparatively miniscule experience out of proportion. Instead of using this surge of energy that wants expression in being whiny and grouchy, I want my line to shine bright and perhaps even brighter. I don't want to this to get me down, but instead to lift me higher.
I don't want to feel as if opportunities are being lost but instead to feel as if this very negative situation is instead opening more doors for me. I want my soul to find even more nourishment instead of feeling as if it is slowly withering. I want my easy smile and laughter and sense of joy - gifts from my mother - to remain fully stocked and even overflowing instead of being drained dry. I want to channel my mother who under far, far more difficult circumstances managed to radiate joy and compassion so much so that people whose lives by all normal standards were more bountiful flocked to her to absorb some of that spirit. I want to channel the dauntless spirit of my Afghan friends who have survived decades of lives being on hold and have come out of it with their ability to be kind, to be compassionate, and to laugh intact. I don't want to wallow in self pity, give in to a pervasive sense of resentment and instead feel as if I'm free and swimming with Dolphins in open water.
I will not allow myself to feel imprisoned and instead make friends with the walls of my room, the walls of my compound, the barbed wires on top of the compound walls, the guard house, the sniper posts, the safe room and most of all with my spirit that is unique, and belongs to me and will not be destroyed by anyone else. This too shall pass.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Peace is not only marches and candles and vigils
I have signed petitions against war, I have staffed booths and encouraged others to sign petitions against war, I have ridden the bus from Minneapolis to Washington to march against wars, created banners, gone to speeches given by anti-war activists - and never stopped to think, "if I am against war, then what am I for"? When I joined the group called "Peace in the Precincts", a group birthed from the organization Friends for a Non-Violent World (www.fnvw.org), I caught a glimpse of what peace might look like and began to realize that simply being against war in the day to day reality of life does not mean that I stand for peace.
Right now, as troops draw down and I witness its happening sitting here in Afghanistan, I am appalled that aid for education, agriculture, and other economic development is also being randomly drawn down. What I suspected is true - the money that is cut for war is not
automatically diverted to programs that will foster peace. Peace is not marches and candles and vigils of holding signs on bridges in sub-zero weather, peace also requires funds. Exponentially less than war, nevertheless it still does.After much prodding from the donor community, the Ministry of Higher Education developed a well thought out 5 year strategic plan that balanced the need for improving quality while increasing access to higher education to a burgeoning youth population in Afghanistan. The five year plan asked for about $550 million dollars, one-fourth the cost of a B-52 bomber. The donor community applauded the plan and exclaimed about how little it costs to develop a decent higher education sector - a sector without whic
h a country cannot develop. This was a year ago - today we have seen only $20Million of it and those of us that work in this sector are in grim despair.The peace community is oblivious to this stunning betrayal of promises made and is no doubt thinking that the start of the withdrawal of troops is the first feather in their cap towards full withdrawal.
Sitting here it is interesting to see how when it comes to countries like Afghanistan -
both the right and the left become machines of propaganda,with neither side doing the hard work of backing sustainable policies for peace. The right has never developed policies for making sure that in a certain number of years the country's police and army are skilled and trained to defend their country. The left has never developed a policy on what needs to happen side by side, so that when the troops leave and the aid is reduced, a solid core of skilled and trained citizens are left behind. Both simply wave flags - just the logos and fabric are different. After the ultimate sacrifices by our own sons and daughters - is this what support looks like? Simply withdraw from the country without ensuring that funds remain for its on-going development? Now that I actually know some soldiers, I want the peace community to know that they are devastated by the scaling down of development funds to Afghanistan. They are outraged and angry that this is how we choose to reward their sacrifice.I love this cou
ntry - a country of full of inexplicably welcoming and hospitable people, a country where 70% of the population is under 30 and whose eyes are wide with hope and an eagerness to reclaim their country and make democracy stick. I hope the soldiers who are leaving the country do not forget the country they have served and urge the government of the United States to continue aid. They themselves have seen the benefits of aid for development being the only thing that can hold the stability in an area that has been cleared by force. I hope those Americans who work in development organizations and are being asked to leave, take the time to write to their congressman about what we need here - even as they start looking for another job.Most of all - I hope the extremely large peace community does the hard work of developing a policy with teeth that supports the building of peace, does the hard work of giving it a house and senate bill numbers, and does the hard work of seeing it pass - it may take years, decades of work - but I don't think anything else will ever really bring peace. The right sees the hammer as a tool for getting to peace, the left sees the absence of hammer - in reality the hammer needs to be replaced with a different tool.
Friday, December 17, 2010
Let Them Eat Promises - Support for Higher Education in Danger in Afghanistan
The long-lasting wars in Afghanistan resulted in a dramatic deterioration of tertiary education; by 2001, there were only 7,881 students enrolled in higher education. Over the past nine years, much progress has been made to improve the sector. By 2009, student enrollment had increased to 62,000. the percentage of female students has increased from zero in 1991 to 21% in 2009. Student numbers have increased an average of 11% over the last five years. Our target is an average growth of 15% per year over the next five years to double enrollment while, simultaneously, increasing quality and updating and expanding the curriculum.
Faculty Qualifications: Currently, only 31% of faculty members have Master’s degrees and 5.5% have Ph.Ds. The goal is to have 60% of the faculty with Masters and 20% with PhDs by 2014. The research culture, the cornerstone of a modern university, has been largely eroded, and the tradition of university service to the community and nation is largely lacking. Over the last four years, this effort has been initiated with 140 faculty members who are now abroad pursuing Master’s degrees; 20 are pursuing PhD degrees with additional students pursuing a range of graduate work ina number of countries. 58 faculty members have returned with Master’s degrees and one with a PhD and are teaching at their institutions. The impact of the infusion of Master’s faculty members is most pronounced at the University of Herat where the percentage of faculty with Master’s has increased from 19.1% to 37.1%.
Infrastructure Facilities: There are not enough classrooms, dormitories, laboratories or libraries and many of those that exist need to be upgraded and/or repaired. Lack of female dormitories providing a safe environment is the single largest deterrent to increasing access for women in higher education since families are unwilling to allow their daughters to pursue higher education without secure supervised housing. Some progress has been made over the last few years with the construction of five women’s dormitories. Other improvements completed in the last few years to increase access and quality of higher education have been as follows: 1) construction of new buildings at Kabul, Bamyan, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Takhar, Herat, and Albiruni universites, 2) establishment of a library at Kandahar, 3) procurement of extensive library resources for Nangarhar, Kabul University English and Engineering Departments, Herat University Computer Science and Engineering Departments, 4) procurement of laboratory equipment for Kandahar, Kabul Medical, and Kabul Polytechnic Universities, and 5) establishment of computer facilities and professional development centers at Herat, Balkh, Kabul, Kabul Polytechnic, Kabul Medical, Kabul Education, Kandahar, Jawzjan, and Nangarhar Universities as well as Faryab, Badakshan, Kunduz, and Parwan Higher Education Institutions.
Many countries and many donors and the World Bank have played a large part in the steady improvement of this sector. With 70% of the population being under 30 years of age, it is critical that the youth (18 to 30) of Afghanistan have the facilities to get educated in an academic subject (e.g., Engineering, Math, Science, Medicine, English, etc.) or get trained in a vocational training subject (e.g., plumbing, film making, auto repair, etc.). Economic stability is key to peace and education plays a leading role in this.
The improvements in this sector and the hard work done by the local and international communities gets very little press and is not the sexiest subject to talk about when the press wants to talk about Afghanistan.
As I work in the higher education sector, this lack of attention has always been troubling and now I wish I myself had taken the time to blog about it more. Why? Because just when we are seeing the effects of years of capacity building, USAID (the largest donor) is backing away from its promises of investing in this sector.
Ambassador Eikenberry has stood before teachers in full robes, proudly celebrating their Masters degree, and stated that US will give a billion to the education sector, and very little has been given. What has been given is now on the verge of drying up and desperate pleas by us who are working in the sector are falling on deaf years.
The Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher Education is a man of extraordinary intelligence and integrity. We have seen him standing up to members of the Parliament refusing their children automatic admission to Universities, and insisting that they go through the formal process of qualifying. He was imprisoned and tortured during the Soviet Occupation and works hard for the country - often pulling in 80 to 90 hour weeks.
It is particularly humiliating to see him being refused by USAID to continue some programs. He has no say in how the US will spend money in his own country.
I am emotionally exhausted through this ordeal and my colleagues are too. In our office about 90 percent of the staff are Afghans and with complete bewilderment they say, "I thought Americans were our friends". It is heartbreaking and what is even more distressing is that the media does not pick up the story.
So, what is the impact of this withdrawal of funds? Funds that have been promised over and over again and then reneged on? Faculty members have to stop their Masters mid-stream, computer centers that open the world to universities located in remote provinces are shut down, leadership training that the universities themselves demanded and attended in droves are no longer available, training to faculty members on how to become better teachers shut down, training in English and Computer being offered to faculty members to enable them to do better research and publish are shut down, newly initiated Masters programs in critical areas such as Public Health and Public Administration are shut down, and the list goes on.
I wish there was a Gandhi or a Mandela or a Desmond Tutu or a Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize the teachers and students to march peacefully, or to go on a hunger strike - something that would catch the western media's attention on this visceral attack at a fundamental level on Afghanistan's ability to stand on its own feet and have it be reported.
It will need to be the Afghans themselves who protest. We are paralyzed into non-action, because we are told, "don't piss them off". If you do anything or say anything then they will get mad and the impact might be even worse.
Whether you are on the right or on the left or in the middle or nowhere in the political sphere - surely a life is a life. We have lost a lot of young men and women over here. Surely we believe that their lives have been sacrificed not to just in exchange kill a whole lot of Taliban or whoever, but those lives have also contributed to the development of a country who needs it urgently in order to become stable.
I will blog more often. I want to be that little voice that really wants to educate on how difficult development is and how politicians (even the liberal ones) need to stop talking only about the war and terrorism and Al Qaeda and really paying attention to the development strategy of Afghanistan. They need to get good people over here to over see the distribution of funds, they need skilled people who can monitor the usage of the funds, they need strong communication specialists who can tell Americans back home the successes of development and the critical role they play in the stabilization of a country and its ultimate ability to protect itself from those who wish to harm it.
Faculty Qualifications: Currently, only 31% of faculty members have Master’s degrees and 5.5% have Ph.Ds. The goal is to have 60% of the faculty with Masters and 20% with PhDs by 2014. The research culture, the cornerstone of a modern university, has been largely eroded, and the tradition of university service to the community and nation is largely lacking. Over the last four years, this effort has been initiated with 140 faculty members who are now abroad pursuing Master’s degrees; 20 are pursuing PhD degrees with additional students pursuing a range of graduate work ina number of countries. 58 faculty members have returned with Master’s degrees and one with a PhD and are teaching at their institutions. The impact of the infusion of Master’s faculty members is most pronounced at the University of Herat where the percentage of faculty with Master’s has increased from 19.1% to 37.1%.
Infrastructure Facilities: There are not enough classrooms, dormitories, laboratories or libraries and many of those that exist need to be upgraded and/or repaired. Lack of female dormitories providing a safe environment is the single largest deterrent to increasing access for women in higher education since families are unwilling to allow their daughters to pursue higher education without secure supervised housing. Some progress has been made over the last few years with the construction of five women’s dormitories. Other improvements completed in the last few years to increase access and quality of higher education have been as follows: 1) construction of new buildings at Kabul, Bamyan, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Takhar, Herat, and Albiruni universites, 2) establishment of a library at Kandahar, 3) procurement of extensive library resources for Nangarhar, Kabul University English and Engineering Departments, Herat University Computer Science and Engineering Departments, 4) procurement of laboratory equipment for Kandahar, Kabul Medical, and Kabul Polytechnic Universities, and 5) establishment of computer facilities and professional development centers at Herat, Balkh, Kabul, Kabul Polytechnic, Kabul Medical, Kabul Education, Kandahar, Jawzjan, and Nangarhar Universities as well as Faryab, Badakshan, Kunduz, and Parwan Higher Education Institutions.
Many countries and many donors and the World Bank have played a large part in the steady improvement of this sector. With 70% of the population being under 30 years of age, it is critical that the youth (18 to 30) of Afghanistan have the facilities to get educated in an academic subject (e.g., Engineering, Math, Science, Medicine, English, etc.) or get trained in a vocational training subject (e.g., plumbing, film making, auto repair, etc.). Economic stability is key to peace and education plays a leading role in this.
The improvements in this sector and the hard work done by the local and international communities gets very little press and is not the sexiest subject to talk about when the press wants to talk about Afghanistan.
As I work in the higher education sector, this lack of attention has always been troubling and now I wish I myself had taken the time to blog about it more. Why? Because just when we are seeing the effects of years of capacity building, USAID (the largest donor) is backing away from its promises of investing in this sector.
Ambassador Eikenberry has stood before teachers in full robes, proudly celebrating their Masters degree, and stated that US will give a billion to the education sector, and very little has been given. What has been given is now on the verge of drying up and desperate pleas by us who are working in the sector are falling on deaf years.
The Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Higher Education is a man of extraordinary intelligence and integrity. We have seen him standing up to members of the Parliament refusing their children automatic admission to Universities, and insisting that they go through the formal process of qualifying. He was imprisoned and tortured during the Soviet Occupation and works hard for the country - often pulling in 80 to 90 hour weeks.
It is particularly humiliating to see him being refused by USAID to continue some programs. He has no say in how the US will spend money in his own country.
I am emotionally exhausted through this ordeal and my colleagues are too. In our office about 90 percent of the staff are Afghans and with complete bewilderment they say, "I thought Americans were our friends". It is heartbreaking and what is even more distressing is that the media does not pick up the story.
So, what is the impact of this withdrawal of funds? Funds that have been promised over and over again and then reneged on? Faculty members have to stop their Masters mid-stream, computer centers that open the world to universities located in remote provinces are shut down, leadership training that the universities themselves demanded and attended in droves are no longer available, training to faculty members on how to become better teachers shut down, training in English and Computer being offered to faculty members to enable them to do better research and publish are shut down, newly initiated Masters programs in critical areas such as Public Health and Public Administration are shut down, and the list goes on.
I wish there was a Gandhi or a Mandela or a Desmond Tutu or a Martin Luther King, Jr. to organize the teachers and students to march peacefully, or to go on a hunger strike - something that would catch the western media's attention on this visceral attack at a fundamental level on Afghanistan's ability to stand on its own feet and have it be reported.
It will need to be the Afghans themselves who protest. We are paralyzed into non-action, because we are told, "don't piss them off". If you do anything or say anything then they will get mad and the impact might be even worse.
Whether you are on the right or on the left or in the middle or nowhere in the political sphere - surely a life is a life. We have lost a lot of young men and women over here. Surely we believe that their lives have been sacrificed not to just in exchange kill a whole lot of Taliban or whoever, but those lives have also contributed to the development of a country who needs it urgently in order to become stable.
I will blog more often. I want to be that little voice that really wants to educate on how difficult development is and how politicians (even the liberal ones) need to stop talking only about the war and terrorism and Al Qaeda and really paying attention to the development strategy of Afghanistan. They need to get good people over here to over see the distribution of funds, they need skilled people who can monitor the usage of the funds, they need strong communication specialists who can tell Americans back home the successes of development and the critical role they play in the stabilization of a country and its ultimate ability to protect itself from those who wish to harm it.
Friday, July 16, 2010
AFGHANISTAN: The best way to ensure NGO staff safety?
I had given an interview to IRIN, a UN news agency and it actually got published. The interviewer also interviewed other organizations. In the end, I believe he drafted a thoughtful article that deserves wider review. It is commonly believed that if we stopped the military funding of Afghanistan, much of it would be automatically moved to development funds. This is not true, as it has been proven twice in Afghanistan. We intervened and played in proxy wars and then walked away when the war was over. Some organizations remained (like C.A.R.E and others - large organizations who get a lot of funding from the US state department to operate in conflict zones), however - it was a drop in a sea of need.
I believe that this change of funding strategy needs to happen while we remain engaged in Afghanistan in a military capacity. The US military itself is asking for this change because they are beginning to realize that this change is needed for their success, for them to declare that they "won" in Afghanistan.
______________________________________________
15 Jul 2010 15:44:07 GMT
Source: IRIN
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
KABUL, 15 July 2010 (IRIN) - During their first six months in Afghanistan expatriate staff members of the NGO International Assistance Mission (IAM) focus solely on learning about the local culture.
They attend language classes, interact with Afghan colleagues, taste local foods and learn other aspects of local life.
"This gives us a unique way of looking at security, just like local Afghans," said Dirk R. Rans, IAM's executive director.
Over three decades of armed violence has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and millions have emigrated. Scores of aid workers have been attacked, abducted or intimidated and access to large swathes of the country has been greatly reduced in recent years.
Registered in Afghanistan as long ago as 1966, according to the Ministry of Economy which registers NGOs, none of IAM's national staff has been killed due to affiliation with the NGO. Only four IAM foreign members of staff died in the country between 1980 and 1990 - one in a car crash.
Registered in Switzerland as a charity with headquarters in Kabul, IAM mostly provides healthcare services in Kabul, Herat and other provinces.
The NGO's foreign staff work as volunteers and tend to serve longer than staff of other NGOs. One staff member from Germany worked for 39 years, retiring at the age of 79.
Curbing attacks on schools
Education has suffered in the past four years with dozens of students and teachers killed and schools destroyed across the country, but in Mandozai District in the volatile southeastern province of Khost, local people have reached an agreement with insurgents that they will not attack students and teachers at schools built by the NGO Partnership for Education of Children in Afghanistan (PECA).
"Our schools have not been attacked, because they're backed by the local people," the NGO's Santwana Dasgupta told IRIN.
Local people have been closely involved in the schools - from construction to management - and all construction materials were sourced locally.
In addition to science, literature and languages some of the schools offer tailoring, bee-keeping and birth attendance classes for female students.
"Schools can also be economic engines and not just for education," said Dasgupta, adding that the NGO was also helping graduates to set up their own businesses.
Staff safety
"Neutrality and local acceptance, not the military or the counter-insurgency, have become the dominant factors of security for NGOs in vast areas of the country," the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said in a report in January.
In order to mitigate risks and be able to access insecure areas, aid agencies should adhere to humanitarian principles and seek local acceptance, ANSO says.
Failure to do so could not only result in the loss of access but could entail risks, experts warn.
"Humanitarians have lost a lot of ground because of political agendas that disregard the humanitarian imperative; humanitarians are under increasing threats given perceived political alignments," Antonio Donini, a humanitarian expert at the Feinstein International Center, wrote in a research paper in May. [https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=36675386]
The security measures adopted by the relatively small IAM and PECA may be unthinkable for some larger international agencies operating more widely across the country and used to relying on armoured cars, armed guards and heavily fortified compounds.
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I believe that this change of funding strategy needs to happen while we remain engaged in Afghanistan in a military capacity. The US military itself is asking for this change because they are beginning to realize that this change is needed for their success, for them to declare that they "won" in Afghanistan.
______________________________________________
15 Jul 2010 15:44:07 GMT
Source: IRIN
Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
KABUL, 15 July 2010 (IRIN) - During their first six months in Afghanistan expatriate staff members of the NGO International Assistance Mission (IAM) focus solely on learning about the local culture.
They attend language classes, interact with Afghan colleagues, taste local foods and learn other aspects of local life.
"This gives us a unique way of looking at security, just like local Afghans," said Dirk R. Rans, IAM's executive director.
Over three decades of armed violence has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and millions have emigrated. Scores of aid workers have been attacked, abducted or intimidated and access to large swathes of the country has been greatly reduced in recent years.
Registered in Afghanistan as long ago as 1966, according to the Ministry of Economy which registers NGOs, none of IAM's national staff has been killed due to affiliation with the NGO. Only four IAM foreign members of staff died in the country between 1980 and 1990 - one in a car crash.
Registered in Switzerland as a charity with headquarters in Kabul, IAM mostly provides healthcare services in Kabul, Herat and other provinces.
The NGO's foreign staff work as volunteers and tend to serve longer than staff of other NGOs. One staff member from Germany worked for 39 years, retiring at the age of 79.
Curbing attacks on schools
Education has suffered in the past four years with dozens of students and teachers killed and schools destroyed across the country, but in Mandozai District in the volatile southeastern province of Khost, local people have reached an agreement with insurgents that they will not attack students and teachers at schools built by the NGO Partnership for Education of Children in Afghanistan (PECA).
"Our schools have not been attacked, because they're backed by the local people," the NGO's Santwana Dasgupta told IRIN.
Local people have been closely involved in the schools - from construction to management - and all construction materials were sourced locally.
In addition to science, literature and languages some of the schools offer tailoring, bee-keeping and birth attendance classes for female students.
"Schools can also be economic engines and not just for education," said Dasgupta, adding that the NGO was also helping graduates to set up their own businesses.
Staff safety
"Neutrality and local acceptance, not the military or the counter-insurgency, have become the dominant factors of security for NGOs in vast areas of the country," the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) said in a report in January.
In order to mitigate risks and be able to access insecure areas, aid agencies should adhere to humanitarian principles and seek local acceptance, ANSO says.
Failure to do so could not only result in the loss of access but could entail risks, experts warn.
"Humanitarians have lost a lot of ground because of political agendas that disregard the humanitarian imperative; humanitarians are under increasing threats given perceived political alignments," Antonio Donini, a humanitarian expert at the Feinstein International Center, wrote in a research paper in May. [https://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=36675386]
The security measures adopted by the relatively small IAM and PECA may be unthinkable for some larger international agencies operating more widely across the country and used to relying on armoured cars, armed guards and heavily fortified compounds.
ad/cb
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Obama's Troop Surge - Why I cannot agree with WAMM
I tried to keep awake in Kabul so that I could hear first hand Obama’s speech on Afghanistan and failed. I woke up and logged on to screaming headlines and a flood of outraged mail from various Peace groups – Women Against Military Madness, Friends Committee on National Legislation, Avaaz, Progressive Democrats of America, The Brave New Foundation Team.
President Obama had announced that he will send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan while setting a goal of starting to bring forces home by summer 2011.
I logged on to Face Book and an Afghan friend wondered if Obama had asked any Afghan his/her opinion about whether to increase troops or not. I wondered if any of the members of the peace groups had asked any Afghan his/her opinion on whether to withdraw troops or not.
I walked to the office and asked my colleagues what they thought of the decision. Except one, everyone said the decision was good. I asked the guards – all agreed the decision was good. In the evening I went out and asked my driver. He said that the decision was good. I looked inside my own head and came to the horrible realization that if certain conditions were met, I too thought the decision was good.
Since my own reach is limited, I turned to Pajhwok Afghan News whose reporters swarmed the streets across every province in Afghanistan to get reaction. Here too, most thought, with some conditions, the decision was good. Those who did not want the surge, definitely also did not want an immediate withdrawal. Those few who wanted an immediate withdrawal, wanted the American soldiers to instead go guard the border with Pakistan.
Given my years within the non-violent peace movement, I am now so conflicted, I feel compelled to explain myself and to lay out my thoughts, so that others can read and challenge them, and I can examine this turnaround more clearly.
The ridiculous assertions
I’ll just get these out of the way because they are too silly. If you want me to explain why these assertions are silly, write me and I’ll do another blog on it. A Russian General has come out saying, “Afghanistan is an unwinnable war” because after all they tried to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Stop. I’m not a flag waving American, but I know enough that we are not behaving the way the Russians did. At least not yet. Some are declaring this to be Obama’s Vietnam. Stop. Compare the casualty numbers between the two events and restrain yourself. There are other comparisons, but reviewing those would mean I take this assertion seriously.
Do Not Escalate the War
When we are in America digesting news about Afghanistan through CNN and most other media sources, “WAR” is what we think about. When we are HERE in Afghanistan, two other words come to mind – “SECURITY” and “DEVELOPMENT”. We don’t really use the word “war” here. A typical question might be, “what do you think? Is the security on the road from Kabul to Jalalbad good?” We don’t say, “What do you think? Is the war bad now between Kabul and Jalalabad”?
“Development” is broken into sectors, and we talk about the education sector, or agriculture, or public health, etc. So when we talk about development, it is usually focused on one area and we all pitch in with what we know. Over a period of 30 years, hospitals, schools, universities, irrigation systems, farmlands, parks, entertainment centers, museums, art galleries, libraries, and more have been destroyed. Systems that make up civil society and run things: education of children, fire and water departments, communication, garbage clearance, sewage systems, banking; all severely damaged. So, as you can see, we have a lot to talk about and it is usually 60 to 80 percent of our daily conversations.
So Obama’s decision on increasing troops is talked about here in Afghanistan, as it relates to how it may/may not improve the security situation in Afghanistan, and how security and development to most Afghans are NOT a chicken and egg story – it is clear to most people. If there is no security, there is no development. There is improvement in certain sectors. However, large scale job creation that is only possible through industrialization (and it could be green economy here) is impossible without security. So, Afghanistan is awash in goods from every country except Afghanistan. The manufacturing industry is a struggling, unhealthy infant.
Along with never talking about the need for Afghanistan’s development, there are two more pieces to this situation that the peace movement chooses not to talk about, or when it does, you over there and us over here are not only singing different tunes, we are singing two completely different songs.
One, the anti-war movement talks about the war “spreading to Pakistan”. Most people here think that the insurgency is “coming from Pakistan”, and now that Obama has put pressure on Pakistan’s leadership to clean house and hell has broken loose in the Waziristan area, most Afghans will say the local version of “the chicken has come home to roost”.
Second, is a skeleton in the closet of Afghanistan’s history, a fear that simmers only skin deep under the skin of many Afghans, and that is the Afghan civil war. The Russians finished their humiliating withdrawal in 1989. The Taliban did not come in till 1996. In this very dark period, Afghanistan erupted into a horrific civil war and in 1994, 10,000 (ten thousand) people died in Kabul alone. This is only a few years ago, and there are many who fear that a quick withdrawal will result in another power vacuum and as such another civil war.
Before I go on to my wish list, I want to vent on my main peeve. There are three kinds of armed forces here that help with security in Afghanistan. There are the Afghan police. The insurgents are not afraid of them, as they are not well trained or well equipped. There are the international forces. The insurgents are not terribly afraid of them, as they don’t do hand to hand combat and can be easily manipulated into bombing innocent civilians. Then there is the Afghan National Army (ANA) – not enough in number, maybe not the best trained, but very brave and well armed and trusted by the locals.
More members of the ANA have died than ALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOLDIERS ACROSS ALL OF THE COUNTRIES PUT TOGETHER. They deserve our support in helping to increase their number and improving their training to the point at which they can defend themselves. They deserve that their contribution in bringing security and stability to Afghanistan be recognized. Please, stop talking only about American soldiers giving up their lives, and about Afghan civilians. There are Afghan soldiers here fighting more bravely than the international forces and paying a heavier price for it.
My Wish List
President Obama gave a speech. I do not know the details of his plan. I hope it includes the following:
1. Increase in the number of troops with the following caveats: their primary responsibility is to recruit and train more people in the ANA, they consult heavily with ANA before engaging in any battle, they run away from battles if it looks like they are out gunned and come back the next day; they do NOT call in for air power and bombing. It does not work. This last tactic has already started and people are appreciating it.
2. I like the deadline, because it does say two things: we are not here to stay, and it puts pressure on Afghanistan to take responsibility for their own security. Keep repeating this message.
3. Put pressure on BOTH the Afghan government and USAID to not engage in corruption and implement best practices in the use of development aid dollars.
4. Pledge to continue giving money for development even after we have withdrawn. We cannot rebuild in two years. We cannot rebuild in 10 years. It will take longer. We need to keep supporting Afghanistan in its development because we played a large part in its destruction.
5. Return USAID to what it was, a genuine aid organization full of people who knew what they were doing and people who cared. Take it away from the State department.
6. This one is a real stretch - the US Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and the Army Core of Engineers (ACE) cannot be effective when they are part of the US Army. Remember, even the Taliban are calling for the withdrawal of the NATO army, NOT of aid organizations. No other country has this linkage. Relabel them as private or non-military government organizations staffed with skilled engineers who are skilled in reconstruction of roads, buildings, etc.
7. Peace is not the absence of war. My challenge to the Peace Community is to develop a compelling policy of peace and stability in Afghanistan and lobby for its continued funding by the US Government long after the last soldier has been withdrawn. I have scoured the web-sites of the anti-war groups, and I find no such policy of peace. It is not candles and sage, it is not posters and bumper stickers, it is not marches with chants of “Who is the terrorist? Bush / Obama is the terrorist”. it is a whole lot of tangible infrastructure that challenges us American to share our wealth for sound domestic policies – both at home and for those countries less fortunate than us.
8. I believe that ONLY WHEN we financially contribute towards a compelling peace policy, which is far, far cheaper than a policy of using weapons to keep peace, true peace is possible. When we believe that spending money on our own health care is important and giving some money to another country’s health care is also important, peace will arrive. Until the various peace movements can rally together, come up with such a policy, lobby for it and legislate it, simply a rant of “withdraw all troops” is not just ineffective, it is naive.
President Obama had announced that he will send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan while setting a goal of starting to bring forces home by summer 2011.
I logged on to Face Book and an Afghan friend wondered if Obama had asked any Afghan his/her opinion about whether to increase troops or not. I wondered if any of the members of the peace groups had asked any Afghan his/her opinion on whether to withdraw troops or not.
I walked to the office and asked my colleagues what they thought of the decision. Except one, everyone said the decision was good. I asked the guards – all agreed the decision was good. In the evening I went out and asked my driver. He said that the decision was good. I looked inside my own head and came to the horrible realization that if certain conditions were met, I too thought the decision was good.
Since my own reach is limited, I turned to Pajhwok Afghan News whose reporters swarmed the streets across every province in Afghanistan to get reaction. Here too, most thought, with some conditions, the decision was good. Those who did not want the surge, definitely also did not want an immediate withdrawal. Those few who wanted an immediate withdrawal, wanted the American soldiers to instead go guard the border with Pakistan.
Given my years within the non-violent peace movement, I am now so conflicted, I feel compelled to explain myself and to lay out my thoughts, so that others can read and challenge them, and I can examine this turnaround more clearly.
The ridiculous assertions
I’ll just get these out of the way because they are too silly. If you want me to explain why these assertions are silly, write me and I’ll do another blog on it. A Russian General has come out saying, “Afghanistan is an unwinnable war” because after all they tried to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan. Stop. I’m not a flag waving American, but I know enough that we are not behaving the way the Russians did. At least not yet. Some are declaring this to be Obama’s Vietnam. Stop. Compare the casualty numbers between the two events and restrain yourself. There are other comparisons, but reviewing those would mean I take this assertion seriously.
Do Not Escalate the War
When we are in America digesting news about Afghanistan through CNN and most other media sources, “WAR” is what we think about. When we are HERE in Afghanistan, two other words come to mind – “SECURITY” and “DEVELOPMENT”. We don’t really use the word “war” here. A typical question might be, “what do you think? Is the security on the road from Kabul to Jalalbad good?” We don’t say, “What do you think? Is the war bad now between Kabul and Jalalabad”?
“Development” is broken into sectors, and we talk about the education sector, or agriculture, or public health, etc. So when we talk about development, it is usually focused on one area and we all pitch in with what we know. Over a period of 30 years, hospitals, schools, universities, irrigation systems, farmlands, parks, entertainment centers, museums, art galleries, libraries, and more have been destroyed. Systems that make up civil society and run things: education of children, fire and water departments, communication, garbage clearance, sewage systems, banking; all severely damaged. So, as you can see, we have a lot to talk about and it is usually 60 to 80 percent of our daily conversations.
So Obama’s decision on increasing troops is talked about here in Afghanistan, as it relates to how it may/may not improve the security situation in Afghanistan, and how security and development to most Afghans are NOT a chicken and egg story – it is clear to most people. If there is no security, there is no development. There is improvement in certain sectors. However, large scale job creation that is only possible through industrialization (and it could be green economy here) is impossible without security. So, Afghanistan is awash in goods from every country except Afghanistan. The manufacturing industry is a struggling, unhealthy infant.
Along with never talking about the need for Afghanistan’s development, there are two more pieces to this situation that the peace movement chooses not to talk about, or when it does, you over there and us over here are not only singing different tunes, we are singing two completely different songs.
One, the anti-war movement talks about the war “spreading to Pakistan”. Most people here think that the insurgency is “coming from Pakistan”, and now that Obama has put pressure on Pakistan’s leadership to clean house and hell has broken loose in the Waziristan area, most Afghans will say the local version of “the chicken has come home to roost”.
Second, is a skeleton in the closet of Afghanistan’s history, a fear that simmers only skin deep under the skin of many Afghans, and that is the Afghan civil war. The Russians finished their humiliating withdrawal in 1989. The Taliban did not come in till 1996. In this very dark period, Afghanistan erupted into a horrific civil war and in 1994, 10,000 (ten thousand) people died in Kabul alone. This is only a few years ago, and there are many who fear that a quick withdrawal will result in another power vacuum and as such another civil war.
Before I go on to my wish list, I want to vent on my main peeve. There are three kinds of armed forces here that help with security in Afghanistan. There are the Afghan police. The insurgents are not afraid of them, as they are not well trained or well equipped. There are the international forces. The insurgents are not terribly afraid of them, as they don’t do hand to hand combat and can be easily manipulated into bombing innocent civilians. Then there is the Afghan National Army (ANA) – not enough in number, maybe not the best trained, but very brave and well armed and trusted by the locals.
More members of the ANA have died than ALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL SOLDIERS ACROSS ALL OF THE COUNTRIES PUT TOGETHER. They deserve our support in helping to increase their number and improving their training to the point at which they can defend themselves. They deserve that their contribution in bringing security and stability to Afghanistan be recognized. Please, stop talking only about American soldiers giving up their lives, and about Afghan civilians. There are Afghan soldiers here fighting more bravely than the international forces and paying a heavier price for it.
My Wish List
President Obama gave a speech. I do not know the details of his plan. I hope it includes the following:
1. Increase in the number of troops with the following caveats: their primary responsibility is to recruit and train more people in the ANA, they consult heavily with ANA before engaging in any battle, they run away from battles if it looks like they are out gunned and come back the next day; they do NOT call in for air power and bombing. It does not work. This last tactic has already started and people are appreciating it.
2. I like the deadline, because it does say two things: we are not here to stay, and it puts pressure on Afghanistan to take responsibility for their own security. Keep repeating this message.
3. Put pressure on BOTH the Afghan government and USAID to not engage in corruption and implement best practices in the use of development aid dollars.
4. Pledge to continue giving money for development even after we have withdrawn. We cannot rebuild in two years. We cannot rebuild in 10 years. It will take longer. We need to keep supporting Afghanistan in its development because we played a large part in its destruction.
5. Return USAID to what it was, a genuine aid organization full of people who knew what they were doing and people who cared. Take it away from the State department.
6. This one is a real stretch - the US Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) and the Army Core of Engineers (ACE) cannot be effective when they are part of the US Army. Remember, even the Taliban are calling for the withdrawal of the NATO army, NOT of aid organizations. No other country has this linkage. Relabel them as private or non-military government organizations staffed with skilled engineers who are skilled in reconstruction of roads, buildings, etc.
7. Peace is not the absence of war. My challenge to the Peace Community is to develop a compelling policy of peace and stability in Afghanistan and lobby for its continued funding by the US Government long after the last soldier has been withdrawn. I have scoured the web-sites of the anti-war groups, and I find no such policy of peace. It is not candles and sage, it is not posters and bumper stickers, it is not marches with chants of “Who is the terrorist? Bush / Obama is the terrorist”. it is a whole lot of tangible infrastructure that challenges us American to share our wealth for sound domestic policies – both at home and for those countries less fortunate than us.
8. I believe that ONLY WHEN we financially contribute towards a compelling peace policy, which is far, far cheaper than a policy of using weapons to keep peace, true peace is possible. When we believe that spending money on our own health care is important and giving some money to another country’s health care is also important, peace will arrive. Until the various peace movements can rally together, come up with such a policy, lobby for it and legislate it, simply a rant of “withdraw all troops” is not just ineffective, it is naive.
________________________________________
Thursday, November 26, 2009
My Experience of the Afghan Culture
A View from the Top of the World
It's almost Eid and I thought this might be a good time to post this article. To all my Afghan friends, if anything that I've written is insulting, I apologize. I'm just beginning to scratch the surface of the Afghan culture and I've loved writing this piece to share with everyone a bit about what my experience with the Afghan culture has been here.
I have lived in 
large section of the Afghan population is nomadic. I am not writing about them as I have not got close to anyone in this group. I am mainly talking about people who most likely share the kind of demographics as the readers of this article – middle class and educated.
A child is born. “It’s a boy!!” He will continue the family name and take care of his parents. Huge numbers of relatives and neighbors are invited on the sixth day – Shab-e-Shash – evening-of-the-sixth. I was invited to one and took a friend with me. We entered to find at least 50 other women sitting tightly against each other along the perimeter of the living room. We sat down in one corner and wondered if we had been impolite by not individually greeting everyone, even though we knew no one. We had. We made up for it by overdoing the good-byes.
This brings me to Afghan greetings – an overwhelming, elaborate and complex set of rituals for the uninitiated. I am invited and I enter the house. The hostess comes up, grasps my hand and kisses me three, four, five, six times on my cheeks while unleashing a series of sentences at the same time: how are you, are you tired, is your health ok, is your family ok, welcome to my home, may you live long. I am supposed to do the same, but even after a year I helplessly hyperventilate as I cannot keep up. I’m entrenched in the polite, how are you, I’m good, thank you. End of greeting.
Now let us reflect that in most Afghan houses several brothers with their wives and parents and children live together. Each man, one by one, rests a hand on his heart, bows slightly and greets you with, Salam-wale-kum, khush amadi, zinda bashe – Hello, welcome, may you live long. All the women and teenage girls kiss you, shower you with questions, and all the little ones, boys and girls, gravely approach you and shake your hands. A good 15 minutes have passed by before it is all over and I can sit down, and I’m secretly dreading the time I have to leave, because a variation of this is going to happen all over again. At the same time, it is difficult to explain how nice it feels when a person always, always asks “how are you, are you well” before launching into whatever question he/she has.
Children are completely adored and spoiled. I genuinely can’t understand how they grow up to be so polite and capable. An
Afghan 13 year old boy or girl is extremely self-sufficient. Most boys marry by the time they are 22 and girls by the time they are 18. The boy is capable and confident, able to work, negotiate in the bazaar for the best price on everything from a melon to a TV, maneuver the bureaucracy to get jobs done, organize events and the girl can cook for 30, sew everything from curtains to elaborately designed wedding outfits, take care of babies, manage a budget – it amazes every non-Afghan here.
The society is segregated at a very early age, and boys and girls older than five or six do not play together. At weddings a huge hall is separated by a wall - the women sit on one side and the men on the other. The male guests never see the bride as they celebrate the marriage of a friend. The weddings are wild and raucous affairs with hours and hours of dancing and jokes and laughter – of course the women dance with women and the men with men.
And yet, once married, the couple is allowed, in their own house, a surprising level of public
display of intimacy. As the whole family sits down for dinner, husbands and wives sit side by side with knees touching and hands resting easily on each other’s legs. After dinner, as we relax over tea and fruits, husbands and wives will sit very close and even softly talk to one another while everyone else is engaged in another conversation. It is a startling contrast to the high level of segregation found in almost all other areas.
While a man can have up to four wives, most Afghans I know only have one. Culturally, it does not appear to be a hugely popular thing to do and the Afghan women I know would be deeply hurt if their husbands brought home another wife. While it is easy to divorce, it is virtually unheard of as the commitment of marriage is taken very seriously. Every earner in the family contributes a share to the family pot, and this share is determined by the money manager – and this could be the oldest male or female of the house.
Although Afghans do socialize with friends, most of the socializing is done within the family, with we
ekends being taken up by visiting relatives and celebrations related to birth, engagements and weddings of relatives. Everyone is introduced to me as a cousin as it is too complicated to explain what the relationship is.
There are celebrations that take on a more communal slant – the two big ones being Nowruz (New Year) and Qurbani-Eid. Afghans follow the lunar calendar and New Year is around March 15th and it is so, so, so, so much fun. The markets are a crush of people buying new clothes. Fish comes into
A big fish is filleted and cleaned along its length, rubbed by spices and flour and deep fried till it is crisp. A mixture of lemon juice and oil is squirted over the fish, it is wrapped in a huge nan, which is then wrapped up in newspaper. In another paper bag, hot and colorful jalebis are placed and you strut off with your fish and jalebis – a staple to celebrate the new year.
Three days before the New Year you start preparing Haft Mewa (seven fruits) – walnuts, almonds, redkishmish, black kishmish, pistachios, dried apricots and dried plums. You wash and rub, wash and rub, till the almonds and walnuts are white and all the skin is gone. You then cl
ean the raisins and soak it all in water for three days. In the end you get this heavenly fruit soup in which you sprinkle rose water. It is a good thing that people laugh at you if you make it any other time, because honestly, you can eat kilos of it – it is just that good.
Music blares from every street corner, people visit each other, kite flying competitions decorate the sky and then the mela– Sakhi-Jan mela – starts and GOES ON FOR 40 DAYS!! Vendors, palm readers, gamblers, musicians, tricksters all come together to give you and your loved ones a very good time.
In contrast to the revelry is the celebration of Qurbani Eid, in which animals are sacrificed and the rich feed the poor. The smell of blood fills the air as brightly colored sheep, cows and goat are sacrificed, the meat divided into three parts – part one for the family, part two for the neighbors who could not afford to sacrifice, part three for the mosque where it is cooked in huge vats and served to the poor. Again, droves of families and friends visit each other and people keep track of who did not come to visit!
Aside from food, most expendable income is spent on clothes. Afghans are fashionable people and extremely good looking. They are also thin, have wonderful skin and hair, and are comfortable in traditional and western outfits. The men wear salwar kameez. For casual attire they have jeans, t-shirts and casual shirts. For women, the salwar kameez is an import from
Every culture has a relationship with sports and it is huge here in
I'm at a loss of words on how to describe this game. The one I went to had about a 100 horses with riders. It was a large field surrounded by the ever present wall and there was a white circle (about 5 feet in diameter) in the center of this dusty field. A calf had been slaughtered and beheaded and dipped in brine overnight to prevent rigor and to make it pliable. The body was thrown next to a flag on a post dug into one end of the field, and the riders went at it. The object is to retrieve this calf (estimated at between 30 to 40 kilos) and then to toss it inside this circle. It is one man against all and except for hitting the face, all is fair.
The men bandage their legs with layers of cloth, then surround their calves with long sticks and bandage that, and then put on the famous long Buzkash boots. Their bodies are heavily padded with very thick coats and pants, their heads are covered with thick fur hats. They have to leave their hands bare. No gloves are allowed. They carry short whips filled with sand and the horses are trained to bite. In the crush of vicious horses that are bucking from the whips, men who are whipping each other, a rider has to retain control of his horse, grab the calf, shove it under one leg to grip it, hold on to one leg of the calf with a hand, and then try to get it to the circle.
Sometimes the body positions simply defy any sense of gravity and often you see a rider holding on to the calf with just his thigh, lashing out with both hands at attackers, with the horse seemingly knowing exactly where to go. The better rider watches other riders fight to lift the calf off the ground (remember, these horses are about 6 feet high, muscular and strong) and just as someone has a bit of a hold, forces his horse right into the tangle of horse and men, takes the other leg and through sheer physical force of horse and rider emerges with the calf.
It went on for three hours (there were several rounds) and at the end no man died, fell off a horse, no horse buckled or limped - and most of us just sat there in complete disbelief about what we just saw. I mentioned that once there is peace and security in
We were just four women among a few thousand spectators of men and could not really cheer loudly and that was difficult. There were bleachers carved into the mountain for everyone to sit. As soon as we entered, there was first silence, and then people scrambled to bring out rickety plasic chairs for us to sit on. We were with my favorite Afghan guide here, who scoured us an invitation from the war lord (General Fahim, the famed Masood's right hand man, and an ex-defence minister). General Fahim never demeaned himself by actually coming to us, but we felt pretty safe knowing that we were his guests. You can google this sport for narrative that does more justice to this extraordinary sport, than my narration has been able to achieve.
Peace be with you. You can write to me at santwana@hotmail.com.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Swine Flu and Elections in Afghanistan
A few hours ago we learned that a Presidential order has been issued to close all schools and universities for three weeks – to stop the spread of swine flu. I just returned from the Philippines and was told by the health professionals there that none of us from Afghanistan were a danger, because there were no recorded cases of swine flu in Afghanistan. Zero. Nada.
So, what is going on? A few days ago, on Afghanistan television it was reported that an international aid worker (read "a foreigner") had gotten swine flu after eating a ham sandwich. Let us forget for a moment that this is an entirely air borne flu and one cannot get it from eating any kind of sandwich. What is more interesting is the timing of this little piece of news that has caught on like wild fire. It is curiously similar to those of George Bush's periodic declaration of "orange alert" - throwing the nation into panic about an impending terrorist attack. Any time bad news about the economy came up, poll numbers were down, another messy embarrassing news about corruption by one his best friends - ORANGE ALERT!!!! and the news media repeated the same mantra and the public quietened.
As a person working in the education sector, and as a person who manages two NGO's whose primary work is in the education sector, I am outraged by this decision. Schools were halted two months ago for elections and the teachers worked hard to make up the lost time. Now to make up THREE WEEKS of lost classes is, I believe, impossible. In Afghanistan, exams are held in November, results declared in early December, and then schools close for three months as winter settles in. I suppose one can push the exams back. However, if winter comes early and indications are that it is, it will not be possible.
So, what gives? Here is my take on what gives. A series of events, falling one behind the other like dominoes, may well be the reason for this ridiculous use of "swine flu" as an excuse to close down all schools and colleges for three weeks.
Event A: The second Presidential elections in the history of Afghanistan are held in August, 2009. President Karzai declares victory. The United Nations says, "not so fast", and the election commission settles down to review allegations of wide spread fraud.
Event B: As most Afghans, even the highly educated ones, publicly say "no" to a run-off election and just want to move on, the west finds itself between a rock and a hard place. As enough votes are tossed out to deny Karzai a majority, the west has to support a run-off. Otherwise, history might very well state that the west turned a blind eye to outright fraud and corruption in the election process.
Event C: While a run-off election is settled for November 7th, nothing is done to eliminate the root causes of the fraud claimed by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the key opponent to Karzai. No election commissioner or minister is removed from the process, and as far as I can see, no pressure by the west is put on Karzai to take action to prevent another round of fraud.
Event D: The Taliban vow to disrupt this new round of elections and in a brazen attack on a UN guest house kill 5 UN workers and injure 9 others. Two of the workers were working on the elections. Suddenly, the UN - bastion of fraud-free elections - loses its will to really get behind this run-off and evacuates all of its non-essential personnel. It also appears to have lost its will to really push for a second round of elections and is uttering phrases like, "we will support the people of Afghanistan and their wishes". Well, what they really wished for was NOT to have a run-off in the first place!!
And now the west, stymied in its attempts to make democracy happen overnight in Afghanistan is offering up canned statements like, "the United States remains committed to supporting the Afghan people in carrying out a constitutional electoral process". Whatever that means.
Event E: The pressure mounts on Dr. Abdullah and President Karzai to form a "unity" government. Someone should get whacked upside the head for coining such a ridiculous term. Obama and Hillary fought a bitter campaign, and Obama did not take on Hillary as his running mate!! So, why these two men who fought a very bitter campaign should now all of a sudden be expected to become all chummy beggars belief. Additionally, one of them is in power (neither Obama nor Hillary were the President), and the other accused him of all kinds of nasty stuff. And now they should share power? How will that be? And how can that be worked out in a short time frame?
Event F: Dr. Abdullah runs out of money and also realizes that the fraud machinery is still in existence and the likelihood of him winning is very slim. It is also possible that the attack on the UN may have made him pause and think about other violence that would sure unleash if the elections were to continue. So, he pulls out and asks for his people to be calm.
Event G: Now President Karzai is in a tough position. Dr. Abdullah has strong support and that base is bitterly disappointed. As is with change candidates, a lot of the base is the youth. Dr. Abdullah himself made his "I'm pulling out" speech near the area where several colleges are right next to each other. An interesting choice.
Conclusion: There is absolutely no telling what tomorrow will bring. Will there be an election on November 7th? And if so, who the heck is going to come out and risk life or finger to vote, when there is ONLY ONE candidate? What will Dr. Abdullah do in the next few weeks? What are Karzai's options? The pressure is intense on both men to share power - two easy words, but what does that look like? Afghanistan does not exactly have a grand history of men sharing power - if you know what I mean. Can these two men create history?
What about the wild card - the youth? Will they be placid spectators to this game, or will they simmer in discontent ready to explode into violent protests? In all honesty, it is very difficult to take the risk of the youth rioting on streets. So, Karzai and his administrative machine stoke this small piece of swine-flu-caused-by-ham-sandwich news, and close down the main source of youth gatherings - all in the name of - I want to take care of you and make sure that you don't get swine flu.
The Bush-Cheney team certainly taught the leadership here well. Using swine-flu as an excuse to close schools for three weeks also is a subtle way of saying - "these foreigners are causing our children to fall sick". Just like the Bush-Cheney team successfully used the "we must be afraid of the terrorists (foreigners)" technique to stop the masses from thinking in America, the administration here is using the same technique. Good teacher. Good student.
And while the children and the youth celebrate a surprise holiday, they remain too young to realize that the government just stole something from them - a hope for the future. I am the eternal optimist, and I hope the two men seize this moment in history, and do indeed figure out a way of sharing power, and create history - something that makes Afghans proud, the international community bow in respect, and the children see behavior they can aspire to.
So, what is going on? A few days ago, on Afghanistan television it was reported that an international aid worker (read "a foreigner") had gotten swine flu after eating a ham sandwich. Let us forget for a moment that this is an entirely air borne flu and one cannot get it from eating any kind of sandwich. What is more interesting is the timing of this little piece of news that has caught on like wild fire. It is curiously similar to those of George Bush's periodic declaration of "orange alert" - throwing the nation into panic about an impending terrorist attack. Any time bad news about the economy came up, poll numbers were down, another messy embarrassing news about corruption by one his best friends - ORANGE ALERT!!!! and the news media repeated the same mantra and the public quietened.
As a person working in the education sector, and as a person who manages two NGO's whose primary work is in the education sector, I am outraged by this decision. Schools were halted two months ago for elections and the teachers worked hard to make up the lost time. Now to make up THREE WEEKS of lost classes is, I believe, impossible. In Afghanistan, exams are held in November, results declared in early December, and then schools close for three months as winter settles in. I suppose one can push the exams back. However, if winter comes early and indications are that it is, it will not be possible.
So, what gives? Here is my take on what gives. A series of events, falling one behind the other like dominoes, may well be the reason for this ridiculous use of "swine flu" as an excuse to close down all schools and colleges for three weeks.
Event A: The second Presidential elections in the history of Afghanistan are held in August, 2009. President Karzai declares victory. The United Nations says, "not so fast", and the election commission settles down to review allegations of wide spread fraud.
Event B: As most Afghans, even the highly educated ones, publicly say "no" to a run-off election and just want to move on, the west finds itself between a rock and a hard place. As enough votes are tossed out to deny Karzai a majority, the west has to support a run-off. Otherwise, history might very well state that the west turned a blind eye to outright fraud and corruption in the election process.
Event C: While a run-off election is settled for November 7th, nothing is done to eliminate the root causes of the fraud claimed by Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the key opponent to Karzai. No election commissioner or minister is removed from the process, and as far as I can see, no pressure by the west is put on Karzai to take action to prevent another round of fraud.
Event D: The Taliban vow to disrupt this new round of elections and in a brazen attack on a UN guest house kill 5 UN workers and injure 9 others. Two of the workers were working on the elections. Suddenly, the UN - bastion of fraud-free elections - loses its will to really get behind this run-off and evacuates all of its non-essential personnel. It also appears to have lost its will to really push for a second round of elections and is uttering phrases like, "we will support the people of Afghanistan and their wishes". Well, what they really wished for was NOT to have a run-off in the first place!!
And now the west, stymied in its attempts to make democracy happen overnight in Afghanistan is offering up canned statements like, "the United States remains committed to supporting the Afghan people in carrying out a constitutional electoral process". Whatever that means.
Event E: The pressure mounts on Dr. Abdullah and President Karzai to form a "unity" government. Someone should get whacked upside the head for coining such a ridiculous term. Obama and Hillary fought a bitter campaign, and Obama did not take on Hillary as his running mate!! So, why these two men who fought a very bitter campaign should now all of a sudden be expected to become all chummy beggars belief. Additionally, one of them is in power (neither Obama nor Hillary were the President), and the other accused him of all kinds of nasty stuff. And now they should share power? How will that be? And how can that be worked out in a short time frame?
Event F: Dr. Abdullah runs out of money and also realizes that the fraud machinery is still in existence and the likelihood of him winning is very slim. It is also possible that the attack on the UN may have made him pause and think about other violence that would sure unleash if the elections were to continue. So, he pulls out and asks for his people to be calm.
Event G: Now President Karzai is in a tough position. Dr. Abdullah has strong support and that base is bitterly disappointed. As is with change candidates, a lot of the base is the youth. Dr. Abdullah himself made his "I'm pulling out" speech near the area where several colleges are right next to each other. An interesting choice.
Conclusion: There is absolutely no telling what tomorrow will bring. Will there be an election on November 7th? And if so, who the heck is going to come out and risk life or finger to vote, when there is ONLY ONE candidate? What will Dr. Abdullah do in the next few weeks? What are Karzai's options? The pressure is intense on both men to share power - two easy words, but what does that look like? Afghanistan does not exactly have a grand history of men sharing power - if you know what I mean. Can these two men create history?
What about the wild card - the youth? Will they be placid spectators to this game, or will they simmer in discontent ready to explode into violent protests? In all honesty, it is very difficult to take the risk of the youth rioting on streets. So, Karzai and his administrative machine stoke this small piece of swine-flu-caused-by-ham-sandwich news, and close down the main source of youth gatherings - all in the name of - I want to take care of you and make sure that you don't get swine flu.
The Bush-Cheney team certainly taught the leadership here well. Using swine-flu as an excuse to close schools for three weeks also is a subtle way of saying - "these foreigners are causing our children to fall sick". Just like the Bush-Cheney team successfully used the "we must be afraid of the terrorists (foreigners)" technique to stop the masses from thinking in America, the administration here is using the same technique. Good teacher. Good student.
And while the children and the youth celebrate a surprise holiday, they remain too young to realize that the government just stole something from them - a hope for the future. I am the eternal optimist, and I hope the two men seize this moment in history, and do indeed figure out a way of sharing power, and create history - something that makes Afghans proud, the international community bow in respect, and the children see behavior they can aspire to.
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