The other day in the office I sat & mainly listened to Yousef talk to Carlos, Aschiana’s lawyer, who comes from Spain. Carlos focuses on legal issues involving children’s rights here in Afghanistan. Karzai’s first request was that international forces leave by 2014. Many people here are expecting another civil war at that time & many say Karzai is also expected to leave Afghanistan at that time to presumably live a life of luxury in the United States or Europe. The Afghans simply do not seem capable of holding this country together without our support yet I would guess most do not want us here. There is so much poverty & too many different groups vying for power. The lives of the Afghan people simply have not improved enough. What it comes down to if people’s lives do not see improvement there will be chaos in 2014.
Karzai’s appeal for us to leave aside would we have the political will to see this project through to it being an acceptable situation? Will it take too long & cost too much financially not to mention losing the lives of soldiers? We spoke about what to do in 2014 as if it were a foregone conclusion that Afghanistan will fall into more civil war. If Yousef stays he most likely would be killed if extremists took over. The same with Nazar, general program manager and second in charge to Yousef who has already had death threats issued against him. When the coalition leaves Aschiana many here will also have to leave. Nazar will go to Pakistan. What is inspiring about these men is that the contingency plan is more about being able to keep Aschiana operating & providing education to the children of Afghanistan if the country falls into disarray than their own personal safety. Several countries were discussed on where would be safest & best to run Aschiana (which means ‘nest’ in Dari the countries official language.) Perhaps it will be Turkey, or perhaps Dubai but what impressed me the most is the selflessness of these people. Unlike the greedy politicians, besides their families legitimate safety concern the main goal is to keep teaching the children of Afghanistan. Aschiana doing their part & risking their lives for the positive change required for Afghanistan to become a vibrant society. There are glimpses of it especially in downtown Kabul. The key here is a long term vision. Yousef, Nazar & the others at Aschiana see this & are beginning educating the children of Afghanistan a process that may take generations to implement sustainable change & before result are witnessed.
The primary reoccurring issue that is brought up time & time again here is corruption. The coalition, is giving a staggering amount of money and unfortunately it is going to the wrong people. The money goes to war lords and politicians who take care of their own families often outside of Afghanistan & they are not giving the aid money to the people, where it is so desperately needed. After the call for a 2014 military withdrawal by coalition forces Karzai’s second granted request was to have more control over the funding pouring into Afghanistan. What everybody & I mean every single person that I have spoke to is that it will go directly in the politicians pockets & quickly out of the country. Many are frustrated that the United States is spending all this time & resources are looking for Bin Laden, who many here believe has been long dead, instead of focusing on a larger pragmatic problem of prosecuting Afghan leaders lining their pockets stealing millions of dollars & leaving to other parts of the world. The government here seems to be given large amounts of money with little accountability for that money. If the money simply goes to the notoriously corrupt Afghan government it is hard to see anything else but anarchy happening in 2014. As was the case in Sierra Leone bribes seem to part of standard operating procedure here.
I have been relatively sheltered here, the part of Kabul where Aschiana’s main office is located is nice & my Guest House is amazing (whatever bug, flea or tick that is biting me aside) in comparison to where I have stayed in past humanitarian trips. So Traveling through Kabul over the past few days was an eye-opener. I saw the extensive poverty that I saw Sierra Leone. The infrastructure is much better here & there is a strong Afghan military presence (I have seen very few coalition forces in Kabul) yet there is still subject poverty.
It seems that the larger the gap between the haves & the have not’s the worse a society is. Communism has been proven not to work, yet almost everyone had it better here during Soviet backed rule than they do now & as frustrating as it may be for hard working people to support others, throughout the world what I have seen is that Socialism or at least left leaning systems generally make the best governments & the best countries to live. UN statistics support this claim with the most liveable places on the planet generally leaning left; the Scandinavian countries, & Canada for instance which have Socialist policies everyone gets health care, every child gets an education. These statistics match my own observations in Siera Leone & here.
Initially there was a big improvement in Afghanistan from 2001-2003 yet that seems to have deteriorated. Many here thought that a council type government representing the different groups may have been best. It was mentioned that the heavily funded US funded mujahedeen which the Taliban split off from saying that it is good to fight the evil forces occupying your country. Here we are 30 years later suffering from what military strategists call ‘blowback’ (or karma). The short-sightedness of our 4-8 year terms in the democratic system do not match what is needed to make necessary changes in the region. Although Karzai who is seen as an American puppet & like many of our own politicians say whatever it takes to stay in power, almost everyone I have spoken to , surprisingly do not seem to mind Karzai. They say he is only one man the problems here are much bigger than that. Perhaps there is a feeling that he is the lesser of two evils.
Canada is seems to have a positive image here. Although the American Embassy has been more welcoming to me than ours. Thank you Special Agent Justin Smith (a Southern Conservative) of the U.S. State Department you are a tremendous ambassador for the United States. It seems as though we as Canadians have more tolerance here, perhaps due to Canada’s multi cultural policies & the fact that there is a large Afghan community in Canada. Yousef has been to Winnipeg, Toronto & Ottawa. He had been photographed ‘with your PRIME Minister ‘who I assume was Steven Harper. Yousef has also met & been photographed with Laura Bush something that puts his life in real danger here.
I try to remain positive about the future of Afghanistan however most are not optimistic. Contingency plans are already being made for 2014.Nobody knows what the future holds for Afghanistan for the wonderful people & children that I have met I only hope that the future is represented by the colours of the Afghan flag, black for the dark past, red for the years of bloodshed & war and more importantly green for a prosperous future.
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