By Dr. Andrea Fleschenberg
Dr. Andrea Fleschenberg dos Ramos Pinéu visited Kabul in April, June, September 2007 and March 2008, working as a research consultant for Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, Kabul Office (in cooperation with UNIFEM) and conducting training workshops, a lecture series as well as interviews with female and male parliamentarians and civil society members. The opinions expressed do not necessarily represent those of the above mentioned organizations.
In June 2007 I had a kind of cultural shock when returning from Kabul via Dubai/United Arab Emirates to Germany – the colossal shopping malls and top range hotels of Dubai, the huge, blinking billboards, multi-lane roads, the shopping mania of foreigners and locals alike, and the wealth displayed in a megalomaniac city, albeit still under construction at nearly each and every corner of the city. And then Germany – with its orderliness, calmness, cleanness, easy mobility and regularity, but also the luxury of basic services and infrastructure such as 24/7 electricity, intact buildings and public services, well-paved roads, not puckered by decades of violence and repeated destruction and poorly, somehow improvised reconstruction, and especially a gender-balanced public - women and men, girls and boys roaming the streets freely, unconcerned about dress codes, with no weapons and no guards in sight. Walking whenever and wherever I like, without prior planning my means of transportation, without security-checks at the destination, not having to verify the compliance of socially required dressing or drawing too much public attention – all these things had become precious goods after several months in that other part of the world where I just came from.
At the same time, I look back to these months full of rich and wonderful experiences, exciting and challenging work and wonderful people, which made me feel welcome, needed and somehow at home, hoping to go back soon again, and again and again… Afghanistan struck me the first time I flew over the country, as I witnessed its rough and somehow surrealistic beauty, encountered its people, their hospitality, but also reading in their faces their country’s turbulent, war-torn history, their manifold, intertwined experiences of oppression, fight, victimhood (and sometimes offendership) and sacrifices. Deep down, a special, unknown sentiment struck me, difficult to explain, a certain familiarity or maybe feeling of genuine, but diffuse fascination-cum-belonging…
Traveling to Kabul (but not beyond)
When traveling and working in countries, which are situated at the (ideological) frontlines of world politics, the media usually only constructs a narrow frame or small window through which we perceive these countries, thus often neglecting or stereotyping ordinary people and their daily lives. Usually, we only obtain small glimpses of an often distorted “that-is how-it-is kind of reality”. Who can imagine at “my” part of the world how a “normal” day looks like at “this” part of the world – from washing and having breakfast, going to work to returning home (how and where), seeing family and friends to discuss the daily events or politics – with or without electricity and/or water, with or without the noise of circling military helicopters or cargo planes, coping with complex and fragmented and segmented, coexisting realities and challenges of Afghan society. Hardly anyone has a picture coming up in her or his mind when reading these lines. Other images will pop up, in particular when it comes to “ordinary Afghans” (some might think of the movie images originating from films shot outside of the country such as the nowshowing Kite runner ), but probably not when thinking about how foreigners like me organize and pass their days in Kabul, for instance. Like having breakfast in the garden of the Kabul Inn guesthouse, chatting with the waiters (who always forget to bring one or the other breakfast item like knifes or cheese or sugar, but never the tea or bread), looking at the blossoming almond trees, being safely driven through the, to our eyes, anarchic traffic (you always think now the car will bump, that’s it, the collision, the accident, but actually you don’t, because miraculously the drivers give each other the necessary space, break or deviate – although only at the last second and at the last centimeter, it appears), passing busy roadside food stalls, book shops, mattress shops, beauty parlors, makeshift petrol stations (it takes a few canisters and a funnel to do business), lines of mini vans filling up with passengers, ready to leave, buses from whence passengers can simply hop on and off, arriving in the office, welcomed by the humming sound of the generator (as city power is off again) and a tea, green or black, which is always awaiting you wherever and whenever you arrive somewhere...
Admirably, people always seem to find their way of organizing a kind of daily routine in very intricate ways, they somehow have to, in the quite fluid and hybrid space of today’s, Afghanistan where old power-holders were invited to occupy (or capture?) the newly established (but also the preexisting) institutions of the nascent democratic and pacifiedState, only to find themselves along with refugees and exiles, which returned in the tens of thousands during the last couple of years, trying to find their space and accommodate themselves within the parameters of Afghan reality (and most often within the limitations
of an overpopulated Kabul).
In March 2007, I informed colleagues, friends and family that I would travel to Afghanistan for a workshop series on women and politics as well as transitional justice, which would take place in Kabul, maybe Herat. Their faces turned into expressions of deep concern, surprise and lack of understanding why I would put myself in such a situation of personal danger, insecurity and difficulties (despite my frequent trips to other, considered “difficult”, destinations in South and Southeast Asia). Even so this time, in February 2008, nobody could understand why I looked so much forward, was so happy to go back to Kabul for another round of project work. The only images popping up in their minds were of fundamentalist warriors, violent insurgencies, military occupation, severe poverty and destruction, suicide attacks – in short, a country out of which the normal life of ordinary people is hardly ever portrayed and broadcasted in “our” media, a place to be scared of, concerned with, but not to travel to or work in.
The flight of the United Nations from Islamabad to Kabul, which I boarded in spring 2007 - not without a kind of concern of what would greet me once landed - took away my breath: a vast, rough landscape shaped by huge mountain ranges covered in snow and reflecting the sun and an incredible blue sky, in-between punctuated by small valleys with winding paths where one could imagine some small, remote human settlings to be located and, shortly before landing, a spacious plateau covered by dried, baked beige earth (the famous dust of Kabul which permeates every corner and every inch of people’s lives) with more and more houses becoming visible from the window of the small UN plane.
Security versus mobility? – Navigating through Kabul’s contesting realities
Navigating through the visa procedures and out of the airport barrack (soon to be a fullyerect and operating building upon my return) over a dusty, muddy track with street holes like a Swiss cheese towards parking place no 2, the different reality features of Kabul soon became apparent.
Wherever you look, you hardly see women, you find instead predominantly men who entirely occupy the public space, interrupted by some spots of blue burqas and, more seldom, head-scarfed female pedestrians – you usually don’t walk around or stand at the roadside waiting for the car, in order not to attract too much public attention (which can turn into a security risk, you are reminded). Guns and weapons are an integral part of the public face of Kabul – you see armed police, heavily armed ISAF troops in city tanks, armed men guarding the back of pickup trucks with or without license plates, armed guards at many street corners and entrances of buildings (some have such entrance placards as “no guns beyond this point” or, like at the UN airport terminal, a big bin with a placard saying “Please drop your weapons here”); road blocks and concrete barriers at major crossing points or buildings across the city – be it close to major hotels with international clientele, the house of local “VIPs”, premises of foreign embassies or the international community, government ministries etc.
The city as such shows an incredible mix of architectural styles and stages of reconstruction, showing signs of striking poverty but also wealth – from old and new government and ministerial premises, to run-down Soviet-style housing blocks with drying clothes hanging and boys playing football in the free areas in-between the houses. Streets are lined with mud-built one-storey houses, or remaining ruins turned into shops or living space, side-by-side with examples of the so-called “narcotecture” – two or threestorey villas with intricate mosaic decoration, huge mirrored windows and even huger walls, owned by (often predatory) political or business “high flyers”, framed by the everpresent mountains surrounding Kabul. These mountains are dotted with ascending lines of mud houses, where many Kabulis live mostly without access to basic infrastructure, where every liter of water and every pound of food has to be brought up by climbing (and to where your usual taxi driver should not return too late at night, which keeps your time outside the office and home/hotel rather well-planned in advance and at an early evening time). This taxi driver - whom you call on in order to do some private shopping or to roam around when the usual office driver has a day off - is of course hired because he is someone whom you implicitly trust since, in principle at least, you should not even take anormal yellow cab due to security regulations and the threat of kidnapping.
Since then, I have returned three more times to Kabul, always via Dubai - and not for tourism, as many concerned Afghans would ask me at the check-in line, or shortly before boarding at Terminal 2 (some call it charmingly “Terminal of the Axis of Evil” as most flights depart to destinations not classified as “touristy” as for most of Terminal 1 Dubai passengers, e.g. Iran, Iraq, Central Asian Republics, Pakistan and Afghanistan). My fascination and comfort with the city remains, but the overall atmosphere has worsened significantly since my last visit.
“Where did all the money go to and whose fault is it?” – One can sense an augmented level of frustration, disillusion and despair about the effects and effectiveness of reconstruction and development among both the local and international people I meet during my stays in Kabul. Billions of dollars have been spent since 2002, but the immediate results of development aid do not appear to have trickled down in anysignificant way to the average Afghan person in most provinces. This leads to a understandable and common disenchantment, although approval rates for the international presence and its reconstruction efforts remain high ( I witness ever more exhaustion and frustration among those working in this field – politicians and civil society actors alike – who feel they do not make a difference, cannot deliver and/or search for whose to blame).
“Make sure you get a safe way out” – Research findings indicate that (post)conflict countries encounter a severe crisis five to seven years after the cessation of major fighting. This is where Afghanistan seems to be right now – 2007 has been a terrible year for the people of Afghanistan, with mounting numbers of attacks and civilian casualties. It does not take long until you experience greater-than-before security concerns among your colleagues, generated by a perceived and real mounting level of threats by fundamentalist insurgents to “boil Kabul”. This has been visible in particular with the foreigners present as the January attack on the Serena Hotel, a trend heightened by the subsequent closing of expat restaurants or their increased security facilities (such as more armed guards and checkpoints mounted in front of normal restaurant doors), as well as disturbing reports from local staff members. When visiting their families outside of Kabul, they report Taliban roaming around neighboring provinces at night, controlling once again the lengths of beards, knocking at doors behind which the noise of radio/TV can be heard, and distributing night letters to those who collaborate with (read: work for) foreigners.
You are also told that internationals, working here for quite some time, left the country the very day after the Serena attack, that more and more consultants and short-time experts are reluctant to come to Afghanistan for an assignment - or simply decline due to security reasons – and that therefore, for mid- to long-term assignments you don’t get anymore your first choices, the ones with the best and most fitting CVs. And that you should be careful, even more careful than last time – you better put on your headscarf, for security reasons of course, and you better consult your embassies’ “no go”-list and security alerts like for Afghan New Year, Nawroz on 20th of March 2008, where you were advised to stay at home (and not travel to Bamiyan or Herat), you had better avoid public and crowded places across Kabul due to possible demonstrations in response to the republication of the Danish cartoons or possible attacks wherever, whenever...
The face of democracy and reconstruction – working with MPs and civil society
Despite all those concerns, there is no alternative – the international community has to remain committed and has to contribute to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan, and not to abandon it once again after the interests and fault lines of world politics shift to another hot spot. Despite all criticism, its presence is welcomed, needed and requested. To make a difference, to have an impact and to generate not a trickle down, but a pouring downeffect of reconstruction and development requires a long-time commitment, time and willingness for communication and translation to occur (both in its literary and metaphoric, intercultural sense, i.e. the will and the capability to listen to what people inform you about, to include their thoughts and ideas and to investigate and to keep on looking after project failures).
Democratic politics at work
This time around, two specific encounters struck me in particular. Having interviewed many parliamentarians, the office-cum-reception tent of parliamentarian Dr. Bashar Dost, an independent and returnee exile from France, is quite a different sight from the usual office spaces, the large and well furnitured private reception rooms, or the parliamentary meeting rooms. The simple tent on some wood sticks opposite the main entrance to the parliament is equipped with purple plastic chairs, a clock in the shape of Afghanistan, an Afghan flag, an entrance banner (“Welcome to the house of all people”) and a table with a notebook, address books and a stack of unfilled recommendation letters with his face in watermark. No security provisions like armed guards are anywhere at sight. Women and men, old and young, teachers and unemployed from different parts of Afghanistan are waiting patiently to seek help from the MP, narrating in a low voice (but under the eyes and at hearing distance of everybody else present) their petition. Bashar Dost – one of the MPs with the highest popular vote and maybe a presidential candidate in the upcoming 2009 elections – listens carefully, distributes small amounts of money (he donates his income as MP, he told us), calls colleagues and other influentials to open doors and to pave the way for the petitioners, writes recommendation letters for job applications or hospital treatments and simply listens to people’s concerns severaldays a week, always after parliamentary sessions finish around noon and no other important parliamentary meetings are scheduled. People praise him for being there and being responsive, being accessible – maybe not more than other MPs as well, who daily receive their clients in their private homes and guesthouses, but probably easier and more egalitarian in access, interaction and communication.
Hopefully fruitful were also the workshops with the Afghan Civil Society Forum and their interesting, challenging and crucial project on transitional justice and reconciliation. Data collectors, as maharam couples to ensure gender balance, will visit nine provinces across Afghanistan to document people’s proposals on how justice can be done, and to ascertain what features reconciliation should include for a society scarred by decades of violence, multiple forms of victims and offenders, bystanders and war-winners (some even now again in positions of power and authority). A difficult, sensitive and challenging endeavor. Democracy and security have justice and reconciliation as preconditions – the social fabric has to be repaired, rewoven, the balance set right for a more peaceful, prosperous future so many Afghans are longing for such a long time. For this, the support and expertise of the international community, a dedicated and understanding international companionship, conscientious of time and place, is surely welcomed.
Dr. Andrea Fleschenberg dos Ramos Pineu, Kabul, March 2008