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“Of course it
hasn’t….and I am an atheist, so I could hardly accept that anything is
“god-given” The fact that Mr Zuberi
seems to consider me some kind of closet Christian brings me considerable
mirth. I have even written a book (unpublished, admittedly) attacking
Christian belief. (Peter Joyce)
It is not my concern
if Peter is a Christian or an atheist. As for my remark on America’s
invasion of other countries as if it has a God given right, it is neither
amusing nor offensive. The phrase “god-given” is a figure of speech not a
commitment to faith, like the term “act of God” used by the insurance
industry to signify natural calamities. It does not mean that all buyers
and sellers of insurance contracts where the expression is used are
believers in God.
“No one has yet
answered my question about what the west can actually do to help Afghans.
Is there anyone home there at FOTH who can escape the tired, trite
responses that seem to be your trademark? ” (Peter Joyce)
This world would
become a more peaceful place if white man stops dreaming that poor
countries like Afghanistan
are in need of constant western “help” and “care”. Anglo-Americans are some
kind nannies that are morally obliged to “help” this infant called Afghanistan
to stand on two feet. This is a patronizing attitude and remnant of
colonialism.
For Peter’s
information, Afghanistan
is an old country. It existed before America was even “discovered”.
It was there when Alexander invaded in 350 B.C. Then came the “Lord
Auckland's Folly", invasion of British East India Company in 1839.
British army while retreating in January 1942 met with an unmitigated
disaster as only one white soldier was survived out of an army of 16000
British-Indian soldiers. A recent
invader disappeared from the map but Afghanistan still endured. Afghanistan
will continue to exist after the current invaders are long gone.
However, it is very
difficult for a close mind to understand the survival of Afghanistan
without the western “help”.
Forget about “helping”
Afghanistan.
It is high time to think about helping 45 million Americans (twice the
Afghan population) who do not have medical insurance, thousands who are
declaring bankruptcies for not being able to pay medical bills, millions
losing their homes in foreclosures and those sleeping in cold winter nights
on the streets of New York and Washington.
Now let me tell Peter
what Afghanistan was and
how it was destroyed by Soviet Union European allies and USA. Please
take a deep breath and see Afghanistan
through my eyes; a victim of “foreign participation” (Using Peter’s
phrase).
AFGHANISTAN AS SAW IN
NINETEEN-SIXTIES
(Regardless of the
cultural differences, I respect people as they are. I believe that no one
has a right to judge others and their way of life. It is a colonial
enterprise to first conquer foreign lands and then change the inhabitants
into the image of their masters)
In 1960s as a young
man, I traveled throughout Afghanistan by road and saw the interior and
cities --- Jalalabaad, Kabul, Ghazni,
Qandhar, Mazar-e-Sharif
and Balkh ---during the days of Late King Zahir
Shah.
I found people
extremely friendly, hospitable and helpful. That was the first evening in Kabul, my wife and I were sitting in a restaurant of the hotel we were
staying. An old man approached and politely requested us to join the
wedding ceremony of his son due to take place in an adjacent hall. We both
attended the function. After the rituals, a register was circulated among
the guests for signatures as witnesses of the event and we both signed it.
The dinner and the celebration lasted until late in the night and we all
enjoyed. That is how the strangers were treated by Afghans.
The city of Kabul was full of
life with economic activities. There were roadside cafés and shops selling
foodstuff, dry fruits, utensils, crockery, textile, latest electronics etc.
The city was frequented by tourists from the west and neighboring
countries. People used to come to Kabul
for shopping as western goods were in short supply in nearby states. I
remember there was a street as long as one could see with shops on either
side selling secondhand clothing, shoes, curtains, purses etc.
I found moneychangers
sitting casually on the pavements of Kabul
with bundles of Afghani, US Dollar, Pound Sterling and Douche Mark bills.
It was an astonishing sight at a time when most of the third world and
communist countries were under strict exchange control regulations. It was
a “crime” to own hard currency and not to surrender it to the country’s
central bank.
I cannot even imagine what would happen if
somebody would be sitting with that much cash on a sheet of cloth in a busy
street of a “civilized” western city like New York.
The countryside was
extremely conservative but Kabul
was a city of contrast. I saw signs of change everywhere, though one could
argue that the pace of change was slow. There were women in the streets
covered head to toe alongside young women in dresses. My wife did not cover
herself with burqa, chador or hijab
but nobody cared. In the morning, I used to see groups of girls and boys
walking by in school uniforms. For the first time I saw female police
officers directing street traffic. I visited a bank branch and a female
teller attended me. There were theaters in Kabul city showing Indian movies. I also
went to an open-air theater in Qandhar city, not
realizing how cold it could be in the evening though it was middle of a
summer. The city of Kabul
and the entire Afghanistan
that I traveled were so peaceful that my wife and I never felt unsafe.
So what happened to
that poor peaceful country? It
suffered by “foreign participation” (Using Peter’s phrase). In December
1979, the secretive top brass of Soviet Union decided to get closer to the
warm waters of Arabian Sea or just to
expand the empire beyond the Central Asian region that was already under
its control. The scars of Viet Nam
were still fresh and America
got an excellent opportunity to settle the scores with the Soviet Union; its help to Vietcong that resulted in
humiliating retreat.
The CIA, set up in
1947, organized the largest covert operation in its history and sponsored a
proxy war called “Afghan jihad” (the very Jihad that Americans now detest)
and those fighting against the Soviet occupation were called Mujahid or freedom fighters. The leaders of Mujahideen were invited to the White House and
President Reagan, standing in front of the camera, introduced them as
comparable to America’s
founding fathers. Those Afghan “freedom fighters” or Mujahideen
were the forerunner of Taliban and Al-Qaeda. America did not realize that it
was sowing seeds and one day would come back to reap the bitter harvest.
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