BOOK REVIEW Rebuilding pangs Come Back to Afghanistan. A California Teenager's Story by Said
Hyder Akbar
Buy this book
Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia
Editor's note: Donors pledged US$10 billion in aid for Afghanistan at a meeting
in London this week. This follows more than $5 billion for the reconstruction
of the country pledged in January 2002.
What can one expect from an undergraduate student of Afghan origin living in
California? Identity crisis, teenybopper mores,
college pranks and carefree existence fit the prototype. An introspective
odyssey back to Afghanistan may also be foreseen, but little beyond that.
Said Hyder Akbar - son of Fazel Akbar, Afghan President Hamid Karzai's former
spokesman and a former governor of Kunar province - is a young man made of
different mettle. Meticulous record-taking of annual visits to his father's
homeland has yielded a book that must be treasured for its political acuity. Come
Back to
Afghanistan is a lesson in engaged and unbiased reportage; all other
accounts written on post-Taliban rebuilding pangs pale in comparison.
Hyder's first encounter with "the country that is constantly on the verge of
falling apart" was in May 2002. Paved roads and electricity were rarities and
the obliteration of physical infrastructure was ghoulish. Qualified Afghans
hedged their bets and did not return from foreign perches. Although people were
desperate for peace and national unity, warlords such as the self-proclaimed
"Amir of Southwest Afghanistan", Ismail Khan, cooked their own morbid stews.
Landmines threatened and Pakistan worked against its western neighbor's best
interests as usual. In the backdrop was the 17-year-old author's insecurity
about "not being Afghan enough" (p 27) and journeys offering multiple
rediscoveries of a fragmented self.
Shortly after his arrival, a Tajik guard subjected Hyder to frisking just
because he was Pashtun. Having hero-worshipped his family friend and legendary
mujahideen commander Abdul Haq, Hyder painfully discovered his posters torn
down in Kabul by supporters of the new national hero, Ahmad Shah Masood. The
hotel that housed him in the capital had a huge multi-story crater from a
missile hit. Locals had seen enough rockets to become desensitized to the
unceasing attacks and counterattacks in the limbo left by the fall of the
Taliban. At the presidential palace, Hyder met the barbaric General Rashid
Dostum, noting that "his presence underscores the ethical muddiness of this
time. Even the most outrageous characters are trying to curry favor with the
new government." (p 42)
In Kunar, his father's native province, there were men aiming to kill Fazel
Akbar but posing as followers. Several factions had a furious interest in
keeping this border region lawless. The interim government was dominated by
Masood's Panjsheri Tajiks and lacked a popular mandate. Many believed the loya
jirga (grand council or consultative assembly) of June 2002 to be
controlled by US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, who compelled King Zahir Shah to
accept a ceremonial post. Delegates at the jirga who spoke out against
warlords and misuse of Islam were removed and jailed. Heated debates took place
on the floor on "Death to Russia!" or "Death to Pakistan!" Hyder found that the
world was not transformed by the jirga. Women were allotted only two
ministries in the new cabinet and many still shielded themselves in the burqa
(a veil worn in addition to a headscarf to cover their faces). In Kunar, for
women even to be in a public place was severely intimidating.
Vice president Haji Qadir's assassination in July 2002 put paid to Karzai's
plan of luring warlords away from their fiefdoms with desirable offices in the
central government. Qadir was supposed to be a test case. The nation's true
power and strength emphatically lay in the countryside, not in the presidential
palace. Important governmental information from the center had to pass through
the barrier of provincial suzerains who ran communication networks devoting
bandwidth to their own propaganda. The September 2002 assassination attempt on
Karzai in Kandahar prompted a comment from the president that lax
security-forces recruitment in the provinces had to be changed. Hyder wondered
how he could follow through on such impossible tasks. Bereft of a team of
like-minded advisers, "how can one man rein in the warlords or force the
regional militias to disarm?" (p 105)
Hyder's second stint in Afghanistan was in the summer of 2003. With war in Iraq
taking center stage, Afghanistan was once again "abandoned half-finished". (p
123) The Karzai government swam against the tide of centuries of Afghan history
by trying to strengthen domestic tax collection from the parsimonious
provinces. American bodyguards for the president, initially meant to be a
temporary measure, became a permanent arrangement. Karzai's Gul Khana palace
sported wartime windows pitted by bullet holes, yet to be replaced.
Reconstruction lagged throughout and speculation was rife that the US$1.3
billion that poured in from donors was used to purchase Toyota Land Cruisers
and posh houses in Kabul for foreign aid workers.
In Kunar, ex-communists who fought on the Soviet side and massacred thousands
in the resistance era, resurfaced in new avatars to pose challenges to Fazel
Akbar's governorship. "Ninety percent of Kunar's troubles are caused by its
proximity to Pakistan." (p 217) An influx of insurgents from across the border,
operations of US troops and attempts by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)
to undermine the Afghan government were thorny issues. "America needs to
choose: either keep Pakistan happy, or build a stable Afghanistan. It will be
impossible to do both." (p 160)
When American soldiers talked with the masses, they sounded arrogant, "often
failing to appreciate the intensity of the nation's past". (p 169) Kunaris
considered them tense, alarmist and over-cautious newcomers unworthy of trust.
Targets alleged to have Taliban or al-Qaeda connections, albeit innocent, "hole
up in their houses, hoping that suspicion will just disappear, their silence
all the while increasing the risk of a raid by the US forces". (p 187) The
torture and death of a civilian, Abdul Wali, in US detention dealt a further
blow to US credibility in Kunar. A second assassination bid on Fazel Akbar
revealed how development and security were intertwined. Paved roads would have
prevented laying of mines to blow up government vehicles.
Hyder's last stay in Afghanistan was in the summer of 2004. Chaos was rising
and a sense of futility and exhaustion set in. "Good news seemed secondary when
lined up against the bad." (p 262) Mukhalafeen (oppositionists)
simulated disorder in Kunar to chase away Fazel Akbar. The central government
could hardly handle itself, unable to establish command over the capital city,
not to mention the vast Afghan outback. Government personnel were trading opium
on the black market, re-enacting the familiar "narco-terror state". Commanders
would slip into Pakistan, purchase hundreds of Kalashnikov assault rifles and
then present the guns to the disarmament authorities to bag incentives for
turning in weapons. Tricksters skillfully manipulated US troops to settle
private scores. Hyder asks in exasperation: "Is what is going on now war? You
can't really call it peace." (p 280)
Registration tallies for the October 2004 presidential election served as
unofficial censuses and provoked tensions for being likely bases of determining
ethnic representation for the 2005 parliamentary polls. Pashtuns were on edge,
believing that the Panjsheris were purposefully undercounting them to hand them
the short end of the stick. Ill-treatment of prisoners at the US base in
Asadabad, Kunar's capital, remained amid angst over secrecy and framing of the
guiltless. The Americans were rumored to be trading aid for intelligence. "The
line between militarism and humanitarianism has been blurred." (p 288)
Before departing for California, Hyder went to Osama bin Laden's former home
near Jalalabad. At Tora Bora, residents had made a shrine for the Arabs who
died fighting the US flush-out operations. People brought deaf and blind kids
to the mythologized cave complex to get healed by its "spiritual force field".
Al-Qaeda Arabs were far more popular in the area also because they built wells
and funded welfare projects, an enterprise the Americans have failed at
comparatively.
Hyder concludes by avowing that the George W Bush administration's storyline
that Afghanistan is a "success" does not square with the facts. The big
question this memorable account evokes is less whether Afghanistan will rebuild
institutions and stability and more whether it will be allowed to do so by
carnivorous neighboring states and home-bred war profiteers. The daunting
challenge for the international community is to ensure that the blatant foreign
interference that destroyed this once-vibrant society is permanently consigned
to irrelevance.
Come Back to Afghanistan: A California Teenager's Story by Said Hyder
Akbar. Bloomsbury Publishing, New York, November 2005. ISBN: 1-58234-520-1.
Price: US$24.95; 339 pages.
(Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
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to
Afghanistan is a lesson in engaged and unbiased reportage; all other
accounts written on post-Taliban rebuilding pangs pale in comparison.
