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September 17, 2010
Election tomorrow. The city has shut down once again. There are hundreds upon hundreds of posters littering every street. A strange democracy, over 2,500 candidates (405 of them women) are running to fill 249 parliamentary seats. It is conceivable a candidate with one percent of the vote can win a seat. I saw Bashardost the other day, campaigning among the people. He has upgraded his little black, red and green Fiat sized car to a miniature black, red and green pickup truck, do to campaign needs. I will be going to visit him in his tent where he lives, to invite him to teach one of the leadership classes to the girls. Nowhere will you see a poster or advertisement of Bashardost. He goes to the people and let’s them decide. I encountered a western NGO worker who expressed a sentiment I have seen many times in editorials, news reporting, and individuals I have encountered over the last year and a half. It is, I am afraid, a sentiment that seems like a sort of neo colonialist view of "natives" who don't know what is best for them and couldn't manage it if they did. Since it is election time I will devote this entry to elucidating what I believe is the actual situation here in Afghanistan, and the solution as addressed by AFCECO. The imperative in Afghanistan What has ten years of reconstruction and aid and occupation accomplished in securing this generation’s future? Agencies and politicians enjoy producing numbers of books printed and schools built, but they are not eager to highlight some of the less savory human statistics. Afghanistan 2009 statistics: - From 2007 – 2009, the number of orphans has risen from 1 million to 1.6 million.
- Of the 100,000 estimated “enemy combatants” at least 8,000 are boys 14 or younger
- Over 2 million households are headed by children and widows
- 8% of Afghans are drug addicts (twice global average)
- 30% of drug addicts are women (twice global average)
- 87% of women are illiterate
- 30% of girls have access to education. 6% attend secondary school.
- 1 in every 3 women experience physical, psychological or sexual violence
- 80% of women face forced marriages
- In 2009, an estimated 2,300 girls attempted suicide by self immolating
- In 2009, President Karzai signed a bill legalizing a man’s right to deny his wife food, even to rape her if she denies him sexual favors
Why have efforts to defeat the Taliban, reconstruct Afghanistan, liberate its woman and educate its children failed to produce meaningful results? Many say it is a cultural problem that cannot be changed. But examination of two specific catalysts behind the present “culture” defies blaming the people or even tribalism per se. 1) The war effort invests in things (planes, fuel, roads, uniforms, weapons, trucks, buildings, power stations) not people (creating teachers, midwives, engineers, leaders). Investing in infrastructure makes money for consultants, contractors, security companies and middle-men. A western consultant makes $12,000 a week, and a 21 year-old Afghan who happens to know computers and English goes from making $10 a week to making $1,000 a week. In one case the money goes into foreigner savings, in the other a “super” class is created that invests in luxuries, not society. Fueling the war effort makes money for everyone (including, the NY Times reports, the Taliban) except the average Afghan citizen. Cheaply made buildings, inflated costs, nepotism and graft just come with the territory. The general population has been very very patient, considering. 2) The Northern Alliance that was co-opted, armed, funded and placed into power would have been more accurately named “Northern Taliban”. If the people entrusted with the new government as well as the war and reconstruction effort are primarily under the thumb of illiterate and fundamentalist warlords, druglords and their relatives, the “culture” so abhorred is thus perpetuated. These men, like the Taliban have for two decades manipulated and inflamed tribalism, fostering racism and civil war to obtain and retain money and power. Even more devastatingly they have strengthened the grip of extreme fundamentalism and the purveyors of its doctrines. Some will point to the hundreds of schools and the thousands of girls that now attend, but they do not look under the surface. These schools are provided with a government curriculum that is thin on content, ridden with inaccuracies and infused with fundamentalist doctrine. The school day for individual students lasts only three hours, while undertrained teachers work six days a week on a salary of $30 to $50 a month. No greater symbol exists in the gauging of progress than the presence of the burqa and its continued use everywhere in Afghanistan but the few universities in the largest cities. The tragedy of Afghanistan’s recent history is on the verge of unimaginable decent into an even worse fate. The solution If the imperative stated above is acknowledged, a problem so systemic, so huge and mind-boggling requires a solution that is simple and that can be implemented cheaply, universally and immediately. (Case in point: the microloan program of Nobel Lauriat Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh.) With every orphanage AFCECO opens, the answer becomes more and more clear. As soon as it is announced, the orphanage is filled. The only drawback is the dozens of children who are “waitlisted” until another orphanage can be opened. Most extraordinary is the plethora of AFCECO children from Farah Province, from Kunar and Nuristan, areas more conservative than the Kandahar and Helmond Provinces so much the focus of NATO forces. These southwestern and northeastern provinces are almost completely controlled by Taliban forces. And yet, here the people are lining up to place their children in an orphanage where girls are taught to be equal, boys to allow it, and all are exposed to a secular and liberal arts education. What must be stressed is the extended family members and village elders are not simply looking for humanitarian relief. This they can often find. Besides, in many cases the children survive better in the streets than in orphanages. What they are looking for, what they see in this orphanage is opportunity. How this opportunity is provided dissolves ideological boundaries, or at least allows for ideologues to look the other way because AFCECO’s tenets are universally, indisputably desirable: create a safe, clean, beautiful environment, encourage alliances and strength through diversity, and provide a dynamic education. All of these are created in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect. In this way AFCECO is free to go about its mission to affect Afghan society from the inside out. This is achieved in four specific areas: Deep seeded tribalism is eradicated; children from every corner of Afghanistan are now solving daily problems together, cooking, cleaning, and helping one another with homework. A Pashtun is assigned with a Hazara to look after the storeroom, and lifelong friendships develop. If a child wishes to practice her prayers, she is free to do so, but neither is religion pushed on the children. Girls are lifted from a place of self-loathing and hopelessness to developing strength of character. Slowly the scarf creeps lower from the head and a confident smiling young woman emerges. Boys are taught to compete fairly with the girls, to embrace them as equals. All learn from a very early age that the only thing distinguishing them is their ability to dream of what they can become. The competitive edge goes to AFCECO’s children, as they will graduate class 12 with an augmented education that places them years ahead of other students from the government schools applying for the few slots available in Afghan universities. Undeniably a high percentage of the orphans, boys and girls will find their way to providing midwifery skills in Nooristan, engineering skills that provide irrigation in Farah, and journalism skills that seek the truth behind crucial events. Ask the children what they dream of doing. Almost all of them express a desire to one-day help their people. It has been proven that those who are destitute and who benefit from kindness are most eager to return the favor later in life. AFCECO’s children will fly away like birds of freedom to every village in Afghanistan, and they will be welcomed as harbingers of hope and prosperity. There are people who challenge the vision here on a practical level. It is as if they are saying Afghan children are condemned to some sort of evolutionary process that should take generations for them to be able to use these skills when they enter into adulthood. But this is like saying the horse must be pulled by the cart. Waiting for society to somehow change on its own, a society that self perpetuates through its oppressiveness, before giving children the tools to steer a new society is doomed to failure. Waiting for this society to change from outside pressure seems equally doomed, given ten years, billions of dollars and over a hundred thousand soldiers have not changed it. The oppressive societal forces that have reaped more and more power off the war effort will still be in power long after the money dries up and the soldiers go home. But there is hope. A new driving force is growing from within. As soon as an orphanage is opened it is filled. Come and watch, see these children blossom, and it will not be so difficult to imagine they are supremely better equipped for real life hurdles they will face. Yes, these children will be on the front line of this social change, and it will be difficult, but it does not take a leap of faith to realize these children are going to be very big fish in a very small sea. (Remember the story of Zainab returning to her Nooristan village, a virtual celebrity?) With such well-rounded skills they automatically become the most respected, most valued members of their villages. The people here yearn democracy; they know what it is, and here I have met children more capable of filling its shoes than I've seen anywhere else in the world.
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