The Afghan conundrum: A metaphor for 2004

Two years after the rain of mortar shells from opposing warlords levelled most of Kabul, wide swaths of crumbled roofs, walls with gaping holes and piles of ruins can still be seen all over the city. Some face-lifting has been attempted by removing hills of debris on the occasion of the Constitutional Loya Jirga now in session in Kabul. Work is going on to restore and rebuild homes and commercial buildings. Yet, the sight of ruins is evident in all directions. Habibya High School, where Syed Muztaba Ali taught and immortalised Afghan characters for Bengali readers of "Deshe Bideshe," bore innumerable bullet marks and mortar holes and remained un-repaired and un-opened.

Not many women can be seen on the streets of Kabul, and very few without the traditional tent-like burqa, which was mandatory during the Taliban days. Girls are being encouraged to enroll in schools with the support of international donors and there is no longer restrictions on women working outside home. But historical educational disadvantage for women and traditional attitudes in society stood in the way. When a woman on a city street in the Helmond province greeted a male acquaintance, a BRAC worker from Bangladesh travelling in a car, the Afghan driver of the car raised both his hands from the steering wheel and covered his eyes, saying "no, no. no..." His gesture meant a woman greeting a man on the street was unacceptable and could not be acknowledged.

Bangladesh development NGO BRAC offered to bring its own experience of rehabilitation and development to Afghanistan early in 2002. BRAC is now active in five provinces in education, micro-finance projects, de-mobilisation of child soldiers, and an imaginative project for "building national solidarity." The latter is an effort to create a representative body in the village that would plan and implement essential reconstruction and development activities with funds provided by the government. Women are also expected to participate in electing the village council. The council is seen as a complement to the local Shura council, which is composed of local warlords and tribal chiefs, and of course, no women. BRAC workers spoke of displeasure and even anger expressed by men when BRAC's Afghan staff went to homes to register voters for the village council and asked for names and ages of the female members of the household. Nonetheless, BRAC's down-to-earth approach and the symbolism of a fellow developing country's assistance are much appreciated by the government and the people.

The Constitutional Loya Jirga, a motley group of 502 people, mostly men from all parts of the country, representing the traditional jirga, warlords, officials and professional groups, has the historical task of cobbling a constitution for a new Afghanistan. The Constitution has to settle difficult issues such as reconciling government authority at the central and local levels, how strictly laws should be based on the Sharia, and whether the government should be unitary with a powerful president or of a cabinet style with shared authority.

The man on the street skeptically believes that the Loya Jirga will end up doing America's bidding and opt for a presidential unitary government. On the matter of reconciling Sharia with the requirements of a modern state, there is a genuine division of views and a blurry compromise is the likely outcome.

ISAF, the International Security Assistance Force, replacing the American invasion force, maintains a semblance of order in Kabul. Omnipresent kalashnikovs carried by people on the street a few months ago is less visible now. But the writ of ISAF does not extend much beyond Kabul into the provinces, where warlords levy taxes, control unofficial import and export -- call it smuggling -- and the drug trade, and enforce rough justice. The central government has no source of revenue other than international donations, of which only a fraction of what was promised has been received.

Educated Afghans, worried about their country, see the superpower that pulls the string of power is really concerned about its own geo-political interests. These include, as the perception goes, building the oil pipe line from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean and making it secure, showing that the facades of western-style democracy have been built, and convincing the public back home that the Islamic terrorist network has been subdued. Photogenic events need to be orchestrated before the American Presidential election in November, 2004 to score points for the current administration -- events like installing Mr. Hamid Karzai, the transitional President of Afghanistan as the elected President. No matter if this does not fit the Afghan time-table for working out the differences regarding the Constitution or creating the conditions for a meaningful presidential and national parliamentary election. A show of success is needed in Afghanistan in 2004, since the Iraq promises to be an imbroglio and a string of bad news.

The proverbial "man on the street" calls the central government of Afghanistan the Unocal Government, because President Karzai, the American Ambassador Zalmay Kahalilzad (of Afghan origin), and several other high officials are former employees of the American oil giant Unocal Corporation.

Afghanistan was beginning to emerge from the middle ages in the 1960s and 1970s under King Zahir Shah's effort to balance tribal and feudal forces, while maintaining his own authority. Then in 1979, it fell victim to the Soviet expansionist strategy. The Soviets took advantage of the divisions between the northern and the southern tribes. Perhaps in a decade, when the Soviet Empire collapsed, Afghanistan would have fashioned a political compromise of its own, as many other former Soviet-controlled countries in Central Asia and Eastern Europe did -- if Afghanistan was left alone to cope with the Soviet occupiers. But it was not. The United States decided to "defend freedom to the last Afghan." CIA and the Pakistani Military Intelligence Service ISI spawned and nurtured the Mujahideen and the Talibans and helped Afghanistan plunge into the fiercest internecine conflict even for the volatile and bloody history of Afghanistan. The country was set back a hundred years.

Informed Afghans doubt that the current effort to rebuild the country can make up for lost time and succeed, if extraneous interests do not allow Afghanistan to move on its own time-table, working out its own solutions to critical problems. This is a metaphor for many of the trouble-spots of today's world. The other metaphor is the woman and the child on the street of Kabul, pleading for help to some one, whose mission ostensibly is to help, but is oblivious to the pleading, or does not know what he can do.

Dr. Manzoor Ahmed, a writer and researcher on education and development, returned recently from a visit to Afghanistan.