Change of Hat

F inally the plane touched the ground and along with many other passengers I saw the sunshine of my birth country after more than 20 years of leaving Kabul. I came back to work with a humanitarian organization contributing to the reconstruction efforts. I never had the chance to go back earlier, first because of the Russians, then Mujahideens, and recently the Taliban. But this time it was different; at least that is what I was told. I wanted to see my country governed by the people who really wanted to serve. I wanted to see a great change from what was during the Soviet Union-supported government, the Mujahiddeen, and the Taliban. I went there to help develop my country with others who share the same goal.

Just days after arrival I decided to explore Kabul—the city that Babar, the Mughol emperor, had been so in love with, poets wrote about, and travelers admired. The last time I’d been there, Kabul’s museums had been packed with evidence of a glorious era, its libraries full of books, its archives alive, and its university of high repute. Alas, I saw nothing resembling my memories. Kabul in complete ruin, this is what I went back to.

Every square mile of Afghanistan was painful. The Afghan rulers are still fundamentalists preaching through the voices of Mullahs who wake up early in the morning shouting at the people, using their noisy loudspeakers to criticize Afghan men for allowing their daughters to go to schools and their families to watch TV. (Ironically, Afghan TV does not offer anything special. There is nothing entertaining or educational, but censored Indian films and speeches by strict politicians.)

Outside, the streets are full of children of both sexes begging along with the disabled old men and women. Yet ministers are zooming with big cars from here to there. The warlord system is evident in all aspects of life. Mullahs with long beards demand to have bigger organizations and outfits supported by international and UN funding.

Horrifying stories come alive and touch you, torture you, and traumatize you. The story of Zardad, who had a man-eating dog who was indeed a man. The story of Hezbe Wahdat’s eye gouging and cutting women’s breast. The stories of raping women and keeping them naked in cellars. The story of Sayaf’s party hammering nails on the scalps of innocent civilians. The stories of destruction and madness and, of course, the story of sadness because the same mad people are in power again.

Some of the stories could appear in novels and the people would think they were fiction. But they are the true stories of Afghanistan.

There are some signs of optimism, such as seeing girls and boys going back to school. I traveled to Bamyan and was astonished to see my people still living in dark caves. I was even more surprised to see the same people sending their children to schools. They know that most of the atrocities that happened in the country were related to lack of knowledge and education. UNICEF had predicted that only 1.5 million children would get back to school, but the reality was much more optimistic with an estimated figure of some 4.5 million children attending schools by the summer of 2002. However, the enthusiasm of the people is not matched by the government’s support. UNICEF and the government of Afghanistan have provided no more than the basic facilities for perhaps 50 percent of the 1.5 million targeted school children. Some remote areas such as Bamyan do not get any support. The schools that have been damaged are not repaired. UNICEF massages its figures by claiming that the organization has rehabilitated 1,000 schools. The reality is that much of UNICEF’s engagement is cosmetic and for the sake of statistics, such as counting the replacement of a single door or minor repair or, in the more successful projects, the building of 5 classrooms for an area that requires at least 32. By manipulating the reality such organizations show in the release of their public information that they have single-handedly managed to meet most of the educational demands in Afghanistan, but the truth is different. Moreover, the warlords of the country do not allow the teachers to get their salaries. Teachers’ salaries paid by the UN do not reach them. The warlords control provinces and fraudulently retain the salaries. Teachers are powerless and have not received their salary for a long time in a system with no accountability.

There are a large number of children on the streets. Child labor is also very common. Child abuse cannot be ignored when there is extreme poverty. I have seen girls and boys begging on the street. I have seen children collecting food from garbage. I have seen children being chased by the new regime police and beaten up.

Afghanistan has a few newly rich people. There are streets in Wazir Akbar Khan that now belong to Northern Alliance ministers. Fahim, the defense minister, has bought the whole street and blocked it for his own safety. His soldiers don’t allow anybody, including pedestrians, to go on that street. Each of the houses has a value of at least $400,000. The lions of Panjsheer know very well how to get rich from wars. Destroy half the country, then confiscate some houses from the owners in those places that are not destroyed.

Muslim extremists do not recognize the rights of women. Women come to my office with fear. People like Gulbudin Hekmatyar are there to throw acid on the faces of those women who appear on the street wearing a modest chador, but not a burqa (veil). One of my female colleagues wanted to go to another country for the training provided by the UN. The day she went to the passport office of a fundamentalist mullah (in charge of the passport processing), he told her that she was a prostitute to be working in an office. However, being a prostitute and begging on the streets is not a problem.

The extremists love to see poverty. They were the same people who sold the Afghan women to Arab fundamentalists. People still talk about the shameful act of Taliban when they went and destroyed all Shomali, killed men and took all the women, put them in buses and sent them to Pakistan where the Arabs on the other side received them. Where was the Afghan nang (honor)? Where was their Islam spirit at that time?

Life is very cheap in my country. Frustrated Americans who have failed to find Osama or the real al-Qaeda, bomb wedding parties. I read reports on the Internet, but no action is taken visibly or otherwise by anybody to stop these crimes. I hear that it was the Northern Alliance guiding the Americans to bomb the Pushtoon villages.

The Americans are not in Afghanistan because they love the Afghans. They are there for their own interest and they use the Northern Alliance who has a very poor human rights record. The American humanitarian support to Afghans is the bombing of poor villages. Their record shows heavy spending in Afghanistan, but not for the construction of schools and hospitals. Reagan is back again in Afghanistan in the disguise of Bush. His cowboys this time do not fight the Russians but the al-Qaeda. The poor Afghan masses are paying for it. I know that Osama is going to emerge again in a different form and name, discretely supported by the U.S. I know that, don’t we all?

The turbans have changed to pakols, but the heads are covered with the same mentality. The headgear is not there to allow the old fundamentalism to evaporate. My country’s fall has not slowed or changed, but only its appearance.