Women's Enews
October 9, 2006
Afghan Governor Says Her Future Rides on Asphalt
Run Date: 10/08/06
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
Habiba Sarobi was appointed Afghanistan's first female provincial governor last year amid media fanfare about women's rights. Now she says nothing matters for her province or her political career except getting some paved roads.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Two years ago, even the most ambitious girls going to school in Afghanistan's central province of Bamiyan dreamed only of becoming schoolteachers, the favored job for educated young women in Afghanistan.
Then came Habiba Sarobi, Afghanistan's first and so far only female governor, appointed by President Hamid Karzai in March 2005. She presides in a relatively peaceful, poppy-free region where women have significantly more freedom than in neighboring regions.
Still, a concern over the safety of women working in Afghanistan was underscored by the assassination two weeks ago of Safia Ama Jan, a provincial director for Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs. Ama Jan was murdered by two gunmen on a motorcycle outside her house in Kandahar while she was going to her office.
Before naming her as a governor, Karzai had selected Sarobi in 2001 to be minister for women's affairs, a job she held for two and a half years. She spent five years of Taliban control over Kabul in Peshawar, Pakistan, running workshops for women and funding an underground school in Kabul.
"Now the same girls talk of being a governor when they grow up; some even talk of being the president," says Abdullah Barat, an activist with various civil society groups working to rebuild Bamiyan.
Bamiyan, the home of the giant Buddhas that were dynamited by the Taliban in March 2001, lies in Hazarajat and is dominated by the Hazaras, descendents of Mongol or Turkic groups. They are the third largest ethnic community in Afghanistan and were under Taliban control between 1998 and 2001.
After some Hazaras mounted resistance, the Taliban massacred 200 people in Yakawlang, a town in Bamiyan in early 2001. Reports by the media including the BBC indicated that a scorch-and-burn policy in several villages left at least 1,000 Hazaras dead. The United Nations subsequently reported four mass graves in the town of Bamiyan, which has the same name as the province.
Show of Women's Rights
When Sarobi became governor last year international media hailed it as a sign of the Karzai government's commitment to promoting women in a country where political parties are traditionally male-dominated and which, during the last two decades, completely excluded women as armed groups fought each other for political control.
The New York Times described it as a "major advance in a society where only four years ago, under the Taliban, women were denied everything from school lessons to lipstick."
"Her appointment is part of a national initiative to promote women to positions of power," a Voice of America Web site report said at the time.
"There are gifted women in Afghanistan emerging from the destruction and intolerance that is all around," a BBC report concluded. "Habiba Sarobi seems to be one of them."
But a year and a half later, Sarobi, a 49-year-old chemist, says many ultra-conservatives, both nationally and within her own province, are waiting for her to trip and fail.
"Road, road and road," she says when asked to list what she needs most to keep her constituents happy and hang on to her post. Sarobi met with Women's eNews for an interview at her Kabul home.
Sarobi says she raises the province's need for better infrastructure in every meeting, whether with the central government or international donors.
Neither the governor nor Sarobi's staff provided Women's eNews with details of the provincial budget or funding sources. For proof of the province's dire financial straits, Sarobi simply points to Bamiyan's lack of a single meter of asphalted road.
Bone-Rattling Trip to Market
An official involved with disbursing U.S. development aid denies the province is being neglected, and says a ground-breaking ceremony for the first paved road in the province is going to take place soon.
The central government also recently began building a paved road to link Kabul to Bamiyan. The project, announced three years ago, is only just now getting underway.
Sarobi says these road projects are a big relief, but the political heat on her will not let up until traffic is rolling.
A trip from Kabul to Bamiyan that would take three hours on a smooth road currently takes a bone-rattling 10 to 12 hours along an unpaved road.
There are no regular commercial flights to the province and Bamiyan, in the central highlands, needs roads to help diversify its economy. The province chiefly grows potatoes because they are less perishable than other crops and can survive long trips to market.
Three Conditions for Aid
In various statements and compacts, international donors including the U.S. government and U.N. entities, have promised to link development aid to peace, drug eradication and gender justice.
Sarobi says her province boasts all three conditions.
She says it is one of the most peaceful of the country. Insurgent activity is absent and local commanders have largely been demobilized. That relative security allows local government to police poppy cultivation, which is illegal but still rampant in many places. She says the area under poppy cultivation in Bamiyan province has declined from 803 hectares in 2004 to 17 hectares in 2006. A hectare is about two and a half acres.
Hazara women enjoy relative freedom. Few wear the head-to-toe covering burka common in some other parts of the country. Sarobi herself is a sign of the relatively strong status of women in the province. When asked if she could be governor in Helmand or Kandahar, two southern districts, Sarobi laughs. "It would have been impossible there," she says.
Those districts suffer frequent outbreaks of violence between the international forces and the anti-government insurgents. By custom in those provinces, women can be killed by family members--a father, brother or husband--for the slightest hint of dishonor, such as the suspicion of extramarital sex. They can also be given in marriage to settle a feud or to compensate for a crime.
In Bamiyan, Sarobi says, women are not subject to such treatment.
But a confidante of Sarobi's--who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject--said her gender is still a political factor. "Some people are not happy that there is a female governor here," she says. "This is still a country where in many places women are not allowed to go out. The fact that she has no political base allows them to create problems. The warlords and lesser warlords who have lost their power in the Bamiyan area are waiting for her to fail."
(Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and she has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict development in Punjab extensively.)
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information:
"Italians Train Afghans for Non-Traditional Jobs":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2843/
"Afghan Women Wind Up Tough Campaigns":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2455/
"Afghan Women Building Their Own Councils":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2488/
October 09, 2006
Breaking point
Hindustan Times, October 6
Breaking point
Aunohita Mojumdar
On October 7, 2001, the international community, led by the US, stepped in to ‘liberate’ Afghanistan from the Taliban. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent on security and on rebuilding a country bombed out of the current century by 30 years of war. Yet, after five years of efforts, during which time the Taliban was ousted and the Karzai government installed, Afghanistan has hit its lowest point.
Security is spiralling out of control, poppy cultivation and the drug trade have hit a new high, governance remains confined to pockets of security and development has completely halted in some areas. For the first time, the international community is talking of the possibility of a ‘failed State’. The current year is being described as a critical period, one which will make or break the situation.
Milestones of progress are trotted out glibly by diplomats and politicians: children back in school, refugees returning to the country, the absence of the Taliban. The benchmarks of the Bonn process are also recounted as major accomplishments — a new Constitution, presidential elections and a new Parliament. Yet, despite the completion of the road- map, these efforts and institutions have not yielded the results hoped for.
Three years ago, the fact that the government’s authority extended only over Kabul was an object of mockery. But even that small oasis of comfort no longer exists. Bomb explosions are routine, there are frequent suicide attacks and kidnappings. Foreigners are considered a favourite target of anti-government insurgents and have been urged by their countries to curtail their movement. An increasing number of roads have been blocked off and there are new barbed wire fences and cement blocks outside offices and residences of foreigners. While glitzy malls and restaurants — some of which prohibit entry to Afghans — proclaim the advent of easy money in some sections, most of the country continues to lack the basics.
Nothing illustrates the unravelling of the Afghan effort better than the ongoing blame game. Whether it is the Afghan government, the diplomatic community or the international military forces, each has its favourite reason: lack of money, lack of security, corruption, an ineffectual President, the drug trade.
Yet, most of the anger among Afghans seems to stem not from resentment about lack of international aid and support, but from a perception of its misuse. The real question is not whether things have not improved for some people, but whether the reconstruction of the last five years could have been delivered better.
“Few expected the international community to fix all these problems in five years,” says Fariba Nawa, an Afghan American, in a critique of the reconstruction process that she did for CorpWatch, a US watchdog body. “But taxpayers do expect their aid money to be spent responsibly,” she adds. According to Senlis Council, a think-tank, “Afghans perceive that their government is accountable to international donors and not to the Afghans themselves.”
Focus on poverty relief and development could have created a solid foundation on which to rebuild Afghanistan, it says. Instead, $ 82.5 million was spent on military operations as opposed to $ 7.3 billion on development (since 2002). Even money spent on reconstruction has been “mismanaged, misused and wasted”, says Nawa, “International and national aid agencies have designed a system that in effect funnels money back to the wealthy donor countries without providing sustainable development in poor states.”
The effort is on having projects up and running rather than on the sustainability of projects or community engagement. An example was the pressure on deadlines before the presidential elections in both the US and Afghanistan. Since Afghanistan was to be presented as a success story, it was imperative to have achievements in numbers. But it is not just roads, school buildings and ill thought-out income generation projects that have paid the price for the short-sightedness. There has been little effort to build and strengthen the institutions of State.
The international community has reposed its faith on the instrument of the presidency alone, often strengthening it at the cost of other institutions. This was best illustrated during the parliamentary elections. A Brussels-based think tank, International Crisis Group, wrote: “The Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV) system used in the 2005 legislative election all but excluded political parties vital for the development of a robust democracy. Karzai has done all he can to marginalise these parties, leaving him isolated and dependent on unstable alliances in a fragmented body.”
Efforts on the security front have been equally myopic. Though billions have been spent on military expenditure, little has gone into rebuilding and stabilising institutions of security within the country — the police, the judiciary and the Afghan National Army.
Warlords, often with records of abuse of human rights to match the Taliban’s excesses, have been co-opted in the hope that they will deliver quick results against the war on terror, at the cost of stabilisation of the country.
The result is a slow unravelling of faith, bringing the country once again to a dangerous brink where it could pose a serious threat to the world.
(Aunohita Mojumdar is a freelance journalist currently based in Kabul)
Breaking point
Aunohita Mojumdar
On October 7, 2001, the international community, led by the US, stepped in to ‘liberate’ Afghanistan from the Taliban. Since then, billions of dollars have been spent on security and on rebuilding a country bombed out of the current century by 30 years of war. Yet, after five years of efforts, during which time the Taliban was ousted and the Karzai government installed, Afghanistan has hit its lowest point.
Security is spiralling out of control, poppy cultivation and the drug trade have hit a new high, governance remains confined to pockets of security and development has completely halted in some areas. For the first time, the international community is talking of the possibility of a ‘failed State’. The current year is being described as a critical period, one which will make or break the situation.
Milestones of progress are trotted out glibly by diplomats and politicians: children back in school, refugees returning to the country, the absence of the Taliban. The benchmarks of the Bonn process are also recounted as major accomplishments — a new Constitution, presidential elections and a new Parliament. Yet, despite the completion of the road- map, these efforts and institutions have not yielded the results hoped for.
Three years ago, the fact that the government’s authority extended only over Kabul was an object of mockery. But even that small oasis of comfort no longer exists. Bomb explosions are routine, there are frequent suicide attacks and kidnappings. Foreigners are considered a favourite target of anti-government insurgents and have been urged by their countries to curtail their movement. An increasing number of roads have been blocked off and there are new barbed wire fences and cement blocks outside offices and residences of foreigners. While glitzy malls and restaurants — some of which prohibit entry to Afghans — proclaim the advent of easy money in some sections, most of the country continues to lack the basics.
Nothing illustrates the unravelling of the Afghan effort better than the ongoing blame game. Whether it is the Afghan government, the diplomatic community or the international military forces, each has its favourite reason: lack of money, lack of security, corruption, an ineffectual President, the drug trade.
Yet, most of the anger among Afghans seems to stem not from resentment about lack of international aid and support, but from a perception of its misuse. The real question is not whether things have not improved for some people, but whether the reconstruction of the last five years could have been delivered better.
“Few expected the international community to fix all these problems in five years,” says Fariba Nawa, an Afghan American, in a critique of the reconstruction process that she did for CorpWatch, a US watchdog body. “But taxpayers do expect their aid money to be spent responsibly,” she adds. According to Senlis Council, a think-tank, “Afghans perceive that their government is accountable to international donors and not to the Afghans themselves.”
Focus on poverty relief and development could have created a solid foundation on which to rebuild Afghanistan, it says. Instead, $ 82.5 million was spent on military operations as opposed to $ 7.3 billion on development (since 2002). Even money spent on reconstruction has been “mismanaged, misused and wasted”, says Nawa, “International and national aid agencies have designed a system that in effect funnels money back to the wealthy donor countries without providing sustainable development in poor states.”
The effort is on having projects up and running rather than on the sustainability of projects or community engagement. An example was the pressure on deadlines before the presidential elections in both the US and Afghanistan. Since Afghanistan was to be presented as a success story, it was imperative to have achievements in numbers. But it is not just roads, school buildings and ill thought-out income generation projects that have paid the price for the short-sightedness. There has been little effort to build and strengthen the institutions of State.
The international community has reposed its faith on the instrument of the presidency alone, often strengthening it at the cost of other institutions. This was best illustrated during the parliamentary elections. A Brussels-based think tank, International Crisis Group, wrote: “The Single Non-Transferable Voting (SNTV) system used in the 2005 legislative election all but excluded political parties vital for the development of a robust democracy. Karzai has done all he can to marginalise these parties, leaving him isolated and dependent on unstable alliances in a fragmented body.”
Efforts on the security front have been equally myopic. Though billions have been spent on military expenditure, little has gone into rebuilding and stabilising institutions of security within the country — the police, the judiciary and the Afghan National Army.
Warlords, often with records of abuse of human rights to match the Taliban’s excesses, have been co-opted in the hope that they will deliver quick results against the war on terror, at the cost of stabilisation of the country.
The result is a slow unravelling of faith, bringing the country once again to a dangerous brink where it could pose a serious threat to the world.
(Aunohita Mojumdar is a freelance journalist currently based in Kabul)
In the shadow of the Buddhas
Asia Times, Oct 4, 2006
In the shadow of the Buddhas
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Dead monuments mean more in Afganistan's Bamiyan province than living people.
The Taliban's destruction of the two giant Buddhas in 2001 put Bamiyan squarely on the map of international public consciousness. With widespread outrage at the annihilation of the colossal, centuries-old structures, money has since poured in for the preservation of the site, and the fragments of the Buddhas are being collected and preserved. While that effort is creditable, what
is unfortunate is the continuing neglect of the people of the area. The inhabitants, whose ancestors built and preserved the
structures, are today one of the most neglected communities in all Afghanistan.
In 2003 "the cultural landscape and archeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley" were officially inscribed on the World Heritage list on an emergency basis. The stabilization of the crumbling "great cliff" where the Buddhas were situated, the preservation of the niches with their imprints of the Buddhas, collection of the fragments, preventing theft and preserving the cave paintings were identified as priorities to prevent further destruction through man and natural causes.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines "cultural landscapes" as those that "represent the combined works of nature and man". The historic system of irrigation, which has created an intricate pattern of green and yellow terraces, fields on the floor of the Bamiyan Valley, and the "vernacular" architecture using traditional designs and materials were also considered to be part of the unique heritage. The holistic appreciation of the entire area with all its components will certainly make the World Heritage Site much more complete, and a master plan has been prepared to look into all the issues.
However, five years after the ouster of the Taliban and three and a half years after the declaration of the World Heritage Site, the people of Bamiyan still feel neglected and ignored.
The reasons for this are several. The Bamiyan area in the central highlands of the country is home to the Hazaras, the ethnic group that is the lowest in the social order of Afghanistan. The Hazaras are Shi'ites, a religious minority in Afghanistan. The descendents of Mongol or Turkic groups who settled there; they are also racially distinct and have been severely segregated by the other communities.
The Bamiyan area saw horrific massacres of the Hazara population after it fell to the Taliban. Angered by the resistance, including an attack by the Hizb-e-Wahadat that represents the Hazara community, the Taliban massacred 200 ordinary people in Yakawlang in early 2001. Estimates also suggest that a scorch-and-burn policy in several villages left at least 1,000 Hazaras dead, with four mass graves discovered in Bamiyan town alone. Traditionally Hazaras were forced to do menial jobs, while the dominant positions were held by the Pashtun and Tajik communities.
It is a dominance that the people of Bamiyan feel continues to dominate decision-making, denying them the benefits of aid and development. "People at the decision-making level are not so keen to support Bamiyan," said Amir Fuladi, an adviser to the governor of Bamiyan, Habiba Sarobi.
Afghanistan's first and only female governor, Sarobi is more reticent. She does not agree that there is discrimination against the Hazara community, but agrees that if the neglect continues, such accusations may indeed appear to be true.
Bamiyan pays a high price for the neglect. The central highlands are geographically isolated. Being in the middle of the country, the province has no revenue from border trade. There are no industries in the area, which is almost completely dependent on agriculture and animal herding.
"The province is isolated and there is no road accessibility," said Fuladi. "The entire province does not have one meter of asphalt road."
The roads connecting Bamiyan to the capital Kabul are little more than broad dirt tracks, potholed and bumpy. What could be a distance of two to three hours takes anything from eight to 12 hours, provided the vehicle is a four-wheel-drive well equipped with spare tires. Flights to Bamiyan, even if they were affordable, are only provided by the UN or by Paktec, which serves non-governmental organizations. There are no flights for ordinary travelers.
With no local industry and bad roads, getting materials to Bamiyan is extremely difficult, said Fuladi, pointing out that in this area, at an altitude of 2,500 meters, even the construction season is extremely short - five months. The lack of road connectivity also prevents any significant revenue generation from the agricultural produce and animal husbandry as nothing can be exported out of the province.
Asked to list her priorities for the province, Sarobi said: "Roads, roads and roads." She compared the province's situation with the millions being spent on road building in the south and wonders why nothing reaches her area. After three years of promises to the people of the province, President Hamid Karzai inaugurated a road-building project three weeks ago, but how soon that connectivity is achieved remains to be seen.
The main reason for the neglect, many in the province feel, lies in security. Bamiyan today is one of the most secure areas of the country, and Sarobi and others feel the province is paying a price for this. All attention in the country is focused on the areas now facing insurgency. Even while the international community and the government chant the mantra of how difficult it is to provide development in insecure areas, one sees no signs that areas that are relatively secure are benefiting. Rather than set an example by developing Bamiyan, which could be seen as a model of the stakes of peace, the province is not considered worthy of attention.
"Because we have security here, there is a lack of attention," said Fuladi. "Stability or security has no advantage for us."
But security may deteriorate, he said, if the relations between the government and the community continue to deteriorate as people get more and more angry. "There should be a change of strategy. They should support a stable and safe area so that people feel that peace leads to development."
The amount of corruption and misuse of resources in a stable area is also very little, he says. Pointing out that millions of dollars are being spent on provinces in the south, Fuladi also compares the lack of aid in his area to the aid pouring into the much smaller province of Panjshir, an area that many believe was made into a separate province for political rather than administrative reasons.
"We are thinking of burning down some paper schools as a symbolic protest," said Abdullah Barat, a founding member of the Bamiyan Preservation Association for Cultural Heritage, in a cynical reference to the burning down of schools in the southern provinces.
Though there is no indigenous base for the Taliban in Bamiyan, what is dangerously missing from the area is a stake in peace. Though the area may not create new Taliban forces, there is also likely to be less resistance to anti-government forces than before. The area has actually seen demobilization and disarmament as opposed to other areas such as Panjshir that merely claim to have demobilized, and people in Bamiyan would not be able to put up stiff resistance. Moreover, what is currently merely the anger of the disgruntled may in future turn into support for any instability. Anti-government elements who choose to operate in the area may not find the people unwilling hosts.
Bamiyan has also seen a sharp drop in cultivation of opium poppies. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Bamiyan has seen a reduction in the area under poppy cultivation from 803 hectares in 2004 to 17 hectares this year.
Advocating solutions for decreasing poppy cultivation, which has risen by 60% in the country this year, UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa says in a recent report that "drug and integrity" conditions have to be inserted into aid programs. "The more vigorously district and provincial leaders commit themselves to activity free of opium, the more they deserve generous development assistance," he said.
But sentiments such as these are mere rhetoric to the people of Bamiyan, who see no such linkages in their area. "The message here is: no poppy, no money," said an international worker in the province.
Referring to the province's lack of leverage at the political level, Fuladi said bitterly: "It doesn't really matter [to others] whether Bamiyan is a hell or a heaven. It is so isolated."
The neglect is especially unfortunate since the area is also the most liberal area in the country in terms of its attitude toward woman. Women move relatively freely, wearing colorful clothes rather than the burqa, engaging in work openly. Yet the area gets no credit for this even though the issue of gender justice is one of the main issues that occupy the international community's agenda - at least on paper.
"We have peace. No narcotics. Bamiyan can also be an example of the success of women's rights if I can succeed. Why don't they support me?" wonders Governor Sarobi, saying much of the talk about women's rights is just lip service.
It is not just neglect that makes the tale of Bamiyan a poignant one. The designation of the area as a world heritage site has meant that even normal development, construction of buildings and markets, is at a standstill since there is no room for "unplanned" development. The designation of the entire area as a cultural and historical landscape has meant that all growth must now devolve on the adoption of the master plan. However, as yet there is no coordination, planning or funding for the master plan and even the perimeter boundary of the heritage site is yet to be finalized.
Protection of the vernacular architecture, the beautiful terraced fields and of course the area around the Buddhas has meant that people will have to wait for permissions before building or altering anything. Is Bamiyan being held hostage to its heritage? Sarobi admits that this is a widespread feeling among people in her province and an issue she plans to raise at the next meeting of the international coordination committee on Bamiyan.
There is no tangible benefit to the people yet, admits UNESCO expert Junko Okahashi, assistant program specialist for the Asia and Pacific World Heritage Center, who flew into Bamiyan for a week, though she said it is not too late and that things have to start now.
It is not that there are no non-governmental or UN organizations working in Bamiyan. There were at least 40 by the last count. However, their efforts are piecemeal, uncoordinated and, indeed, in some cases, counterproductive. In the absence of basic infrastructure, the outcome of these projects, however beneficial, has a limited impact.
The issue is not whether the people come first or the monuments. It would be tragic to see further deterioration of great historical heritage, which once lost cannot be retrieved. A successful implementation of the "master plan" is expected to change the fortunes of the locals - eventually. The concern is whether the current efforts at preservation can be combined with community-oriented programs that engage the community in this heritage, building stakes in the local community simultaneously.
"People have no sense of ownership right now," said Fuladi. While the living wait, the international community and organizations pore over the pieces of monuments.
(Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.)
In the shadow of the Buddhas
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Dead monuments mean more in Afganistan's Bamiyan province than living people.
The Taliban's destruction of the two giant Buddhas in 2001 put Bamiyan squarely on the map of international public consciousness. With widespread outrage at the annihilation of the colossal, centuries-old structures, money has since poured in for the preservation of the site, and the fragments of the Buddhas are being collected and preserved. While that effort is creditable, what
is unfortunate is the continuing neglect of the people of the area. The inhabitants, whose ancestors built and preserved the
structures, are today one of the most neglected communities in all Afghanistan.
In 2003 "the cultural landscape and archeological remains of the Bamiyan Valley" were officially inscribed on the World Heritage list on an emergency basis. The stabilization of the crumbling "great cliff" where the Buddhas were situated, the preservation of the niches with their imprints of the Buddhas, collection of the fragments, preventing theft and preserving the cave paintings were identified as priorities to prevent further destruction through man and natural causes.
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defines "cultural landscapes" as those that "represent the combined works of nature and man". The historic system of irrigation, which has created an intricate pattern of green and yellow terraces, fields on the floor of the Bamiyan Valley, and the "vernacular" architecture using traditional designs and materials were also considered to be part of the unique heritage. The holistic appreciation of the entire area with all its components will certainly make the World Heritage Site much more complete, and a master plan has been prepared to look into all the issues.
However, five years after the ouster of the Taliban and three and a half years after the declaration of the World Heritage Site, the people of Bamiyan still feel neglected and ignored.
The reasons for this are several. The Bamiyan area in the central highlands of the country is home to the Hazaras, the ethnic group that is the lowest in the social order of Afghanistan. The Hazaras are Shi'ites, a religious minority in Afghanistan. The descendents of Mongol or Turkic groups who settled there; they are also racially distinct and have been severely segregated by the other communities.
The Bamiyan area saw horrific massacres of the Hazara population after it fell to the Taliban. Angered by the resistance, including an attack by the Hizb-e-Wahadat that represents the Hazara community, the Taliban massacred 200 ordinary people in Yakawlang in early 2001. Estimates also suggest that a scorch-and-burn policy in several villages left at least 1,000 Hazaras dead, with four mass graves discovered in Bamiyan town alone. Traditionally Hazaras were forced to do menial jobs, while the dominant positions were held by the Pashtun and Tajik communities.
It is a dominance that the people of Bamiyan feel continues to dominate decision-making, denying them the benefits of aid and development. "People at the decision-making level are not so keen to support Bamiyan," said Amir Fuladi, an adviser to the governor of Bamiyan, Habiba Sarobi.
Afghanistan's first and only female governor, Sarobi is more reticent. She does not agree that there is discrimination against the Hazara community, but agrees that if the neglect continues, such accusations may indeed appear to be true.
Bamiyan pays a high price for the neglect. The central highlands are geographically isolated. Being in the middle of the country, the province has no revenue from border trade. There are no industries in the area, which is almost completely dependent on agriculture and animal herding.
"The province is isolated and there is no road accessibility," said Fuladi. "The entire province does not have one meter of asphalt road."
The roads connecting Bamiyan to the capital Kabul are little more than broad dirt tracks, potholed and bumpy. What could be a distance of two to three hours takes anything from eight to 12 hours, provided the vehicle is a four-wheel-drive well equipped with spare tires. Flights to Bamiyan, even if they were affordable, are only provided by the UN or by Paktec, which serves non-governmental organizations. There are no flights for ordinary travelers.
With no local industry and bad roads, getting materials to Bamiyan is extremely difficult, said Fuladi, pointing out that in this area, at an altitude of 2,500 meters, even the construction season is extremely short - five months. The lack of road connectivity also prevents any significant revenue generation from the agricultural produce and animal husbandry as nothing can be exported out of the province.
Asked to list her priorities for the province, Sarobi said: "Roads, roads and roads." She compared the province's situation with the millions being spent on road building in the south and wonders why nothing reaches her area. After three years of promises to the people of the province, President Hamid Karzai inaugurated a road-building project three weeks ago, but how soon that connectivity is achieved remains to be seen.
The main reason for the neglect, many in the province feel, lies in security. Bamiyan today is one of the most secure areas of the country, and Sarobi and others feel the province is paying a price for this. All attention in the country is focused on the areas now facing insurgency. Even while the international community and the government chant the mantra of how difficult it is to provide development in insecure areas, one sees no signs that areas that are relatively secure are benefiting. Rather than set an example by developing Bamiyan, which could be seen as a model of the stakes of peace, the province is not considered worthy of attention.
"Because we have security here, there is a lack of attention," said Fuladi. "Stability or security has no advantage for us."
But security may deteriorate, he said, if the relations between the government and the community continue to deteriorate as people get more and more angry. "There should be a change of strategy. They should support a stable and safe area so that people feel that peace leads to development."
The amount of corruption and misuse of resources in a stable area is also very little, he says. Pointing out that millions of dollars are being spent on provinces in the south, Fuladi also compares the lack of aid in his area to the aid pouring into the much smaller province of Panjshir, an area that many believe was made into a separate province for political rather than administrative reasons.
"We are thinking of burning down some paper schools as a symbolic protest," said Abdullah Barat, a founding member of the Bamiyan Preservation Association for Cultural Heritage, in a cynical reference to the burning down of schools in the southern provinces.
Though there is no indigenous base for the Taliban in Bamiyan, what is dangerously missing from the area is a stake in peace. Though the area may not create new Taliban forces, there is also likely to be less resistance to anti-government forces than before. The area has actually seen demobilization and disarmament as opposed to other areas such as Panjshir that merely claim to have demobilized, and people in Bamiyan would not be able to put up stiff resistance. Moreover, what is currently merely the anger of the disgruntled may in future turn into support for any instability. Anti-government elements who choose to operate in the area may not find the people unwilling hosts.
Bamiyan has also seen a sharp drop in cultivation of opium poppies. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Bamiyan has seen a reduction in the area under poppy cultivation from 803 hectares in 2004 to 17 hectares this year.
Advocating solutions for decreasing poppy cultivation, which has risen by 60% in the country this year, UNODC chief Antonio Maria Costa says in a recent report that "drug and integrity" conditions have to be inserted into aid programs. "The more vigorously district and provincial leaders commit themselves to activity free of opium, the more they deserve generous development assistance," he said.
But sentiments such as these are mere rhetoric to the people of Bamiyan, who see no such linkages in their area. "The message here is: no poppy, no money," said an international worker in the province.
Referring to the province's lack of leverage at the political level, Fuladi said bitterly: "It doesn't really matter [to others] whether Bamiyan is a hell or a heaven. It is so isolated."
The neglect is especially unfortunate since the area is also the most liberal area in the country in terms of its attitude toward woman. Women move relatively freely, wearing colorful clothes rather than the burqa, engaging in work openly. Yet the area gets no credit for this even though the issue of gender justice is one of the main issues that occupy the international community's agenda - at least on paper.
"We have peace. No narcotics. Bamiyan can also be an example of the success of women's rights if I can succeed. Why don't they support me?" wonders Governor Sarobi, saying much of the talk about women's rights is just lip service.
It is not just neglect that makes the tale of Bamiyan a poignant one. The designation of the area as a world heritage site has meant that even normal development, construction of buildings and markets, is at a standstill since there is no room for "unplanned" development. The designation of the entire area as a cultural and historical landscape has meant that all growth must now devolve on the adoption of the master plan. However, as yet there is no coordination, planning or funding for the master plan and even the perimeter boundary of the heritage site is yet to be finalized.
Protection of the vernacular architecture, the beautiful terraced fields and of course the area around the Buddhas has meant that people will have to wait for permissions before building or altering anything. Is Bamiyan being held hostage to its heritage? Sarobi admits that this is a widespread feeling among people in her province and an issue she plans to raise at the next meeting of the international coordination committee on Bamiyan.
There is no tangible benefit to the people yet, admits UNESCO expert Junko Okahashi, assistant program specialist for the Asia and Pacific World Heritage Center, who flew into Bamiyan for a week, though she said it is not too late and that things have to start now.
It is not that there are no non-governmental or UN organizations working in Bamiyan. There were at least 40 by the last count. However, their efforts are piecemeal, uncoordinated and, indeed, in some cases, counterproductive. In the absence of basic infrastructure, the outcome of these projects, however beneficial, has a limited impact.
The issue is not whether the people come first or the monuments. It would be tragic to see further deterioration of great historical heritage, which once lost cannot be retrieved. A successful implementation of the "master plan" is expected to change the fortunes of the locals - eventually. The concern is whether the current efforts at preservation can be combined with community-oriented programs that engage the community in this heritage, building stakes in the local community simultaneously.
"People have no sense of ownership right now," said Fuladi. While the living wait, the international community and organizations pore over the pieces of monuments.
(Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.)
Bodhi's Third Avatar
Outlook Magazine| Oct 02, 2006
EXCLUSIVE: afghanistan archaeology
Bodhi's Third Avatar
Archaeologists believe they have found the site of a giant reclining Buddha at Bamiyan
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Five years ago, this wide, green valley surrounded by towering cliffs in the heart of Afghanistan was the country's Ground Zero. This was where the giant Buddhas carved into the cliff face were blown up by the Taliban, just six months before 9/11. Today, new hope and excitement grips Bamiyan as a team of archaeologists believes it has found the site of a third giant Buddha which may still be intact, buried out of sight for centuries.
The third Buddha was described in detail by the Chinese monk Hiuen Tsang, who visited Bamiyan on his way to India in 630 AD. The monk's record of his travels is the first documented account of Bamiyan and its Buddhas. He describes not only the standing images (destroyed in 2001) but also a much larger reclining Buddha which he saw in a thriving monastery in the valley. The man was not given to flights of fantasy—his records are so precise they have often helped archaeologists in their quest to uncover the past. About Bamiyan, he wrote of "a reclining figure of the Buddha about to enter Nirvana, more than one thousand chi (300 metres) in length, in a temple two or three li (about 2 km) to the east of the royal palace".
Afghan archaeologist Dr Zemaryalai Tarzi, who heads the French Archaeological Mission in Bamiyan, says his team recently uncovered part of the Eastern Monastery, the location of the "reclining Buddha". The site is just in front of the great cliff, to the east of the now-empty niche where the smaller of the standing Buddhas used to be. "We believe we've found the monastery," says Tarzi, who's worked on excavations here since the '70s, when he was director of Afghanistan's Institute of Archaeology.
Tarzi's current endeavour began in '01. "We have found lots of things at this site, including five stupas and more than 30 heads of Buddha modelled in clay, which still have remains of the polychromatic painting on their faces," he reveals. Uncovering this site took months of painstaking digging through layers of history. "Below the surface are layers of the Ghorid, Ghaznavid and pre-Islamic Turkic periods, and below that is the Buddhist monastery," explained Tarzi at his camp in the ruined village of Tulvara. Bone fragments and pieces of clay statuary lay in heaps at the camp. Bamiyan's Buddhist past is said to date to the Kushana and Hepthalite Hun empire, spanning from the 1st to 6th centuries AD.
The excavation site is closely guarded and visitors are not allowed. Photographs were not permitted either, though a brief look inside reveals the remains of solid structures, steps, a paved courtyard and, most exciting of all, a pair of giant feet. They may have been part of a large statue, or just a symbolic representation of the feet of the Buddha—it is hard to tell, for the excavation is not complete. Tarzi took some persuading to agree to speak to Outlook, because exclusive rights to the story of the new excavations have been sold to National Geographic, presumably to fund the excavations. With winter approaching in the Bamiyan valley (height: 2,500 metres), excavations have been suspended and will now resume only next summer.
Bamiyan, which means "place of shining light", gets its name from the light bouncing off the cliffs of conglomerate rock, layered in shades of purple and brown. Now an isolated region a bone-rattling 8-10 hours' drive from Kabul, Bamiyan was once at the crossroads of many civilisations, a prosperous valley along the Silk Road with the two huge Buddhas, one of them 55 metres and the other 38 metres tall, hewn out of the cliffs and standing sentinel over caravans of traders, pilgrims, scholars and soldiers. Built in the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, the two Buddhas were left untouched for over 1,500 years, even by the marauding armies of Genghis Khan, Mahmud Ghazni and Nadir Shah.Aurangzeb did, however, have a bash at them, but his artillery only succeeded in damaging the foot of one of the Buddhas.
Today the empty niches still inspire awe, with the outline of the smaller Buddha clearly visible. Opinion is still divided on whether the Buddhas should be rebuilt. Today, it would be impossible to carve them out of the same cliff face; and to build new images and instal them there would not recreate the aura and magnificence of the originals. "They just would not have the same feeling," says Afghan deputy minister of culture, Omar Sultan. A proposal to recreate the images using laser beams, as has been suggested for the Twin Towers site in New York, is being given serious consideration.
For now, the most urgent task is to consolidate the fragile, crumbling cliffs, further weakened by the dynamiting carried out by the Taliban. The last restoration was done in the '60s and '70s by the Archaeological Survey of India, which had repaired and strengthened the Buddhas, the cliff face, cornices and balconies. Today, Georgios Toubekis, an architect with ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), has the task of collecting and preserving the fragments of the destroyed Buddhas—some of them as large as boulders—and consolidating the surface of the cliffs, in a major project funded by Japan and Germany.
Bamiyan's cliffs are also honeycombed with caves, many of them with exquisite paintings executed by Indian and Persian artists during the Hepthalite period. Some 80 per cent of these have been destroyed over the centuries through neglect, theft and destruction, but those that remain are now being carefully preserved and protected. The people of Bamiyan are Hazaras, an ethnic and religious minority who are Shias of Mongol-Turkic origin, believed to be descended from the 'hazaar'—the thousand soldiers Genghis Khan left behind here after conquering the region. Among the poorest and most backward communities in Afghanistan, they are counting on the third Buddha to emerge from the sands of time, and usher in a tourism boom that will bring Bamiyan the development and prosperity it so desperately needs.
EXCLUSIVE: afghanistan archaeology
Bodhi's Third Avatar
Archaeologists believe they have found the site of a giant reclining Buddha at Bamiyan
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Five years ago, this wide, green valley surrounded by towering cliffs in the heart of Afghanistan was the country's Ground Zero. This was where the giant Buddhas carved into the cliff face were blown up by the Taliban, just six months before 9/11. Today, new hope and excitement grips Bamiyan as a team of archaeologists believes it has found the site of a third giant Buddha which may still be intact, buried out of sight for centuries.
The third Buddha was described in detail by the Chinese monk Hiuen Tsang, who visited Bamiyan on his way to India in 630 AD. The monk's record of his travels is the first documented account of Bamiyan and its Buddhas. He describes not only the standing images (destroyed in 2001) but also a much larger reclining Buddha which he saw in a thriving monastery in the valley. The man was not given to flights of fantasy—his records are so precise they have often helped archaeologists in their quest to uncover the past. About Bamiyan, he wrote of "a reclining figure of the Buddha about to enter Nirvana, more than one thousand chi (300 metres) in length, in a temple two or three li (about 2 km) to the east of the royal palace".
Afghan archaeologist Dr Zemaryalai Tarzi, who heads the French Archaeological Mission in Bamiyan, says his team recently uncovered part of the Eastern Monastery, the location of the "reclining Buddha". The site is just in front of the great cliff, to the east of the now-empty niche where the smaller of the standing Buddhas used to be. "We believe we've found the monastery," says Tarzi, who's worked on excavations here since the '70s, when he was director of Afghanistan's Institute of Archaeology.
Tarzi's current endeavour began in '01. "We have found lots of things at this site, including five stupas and more than 30 heads of Buddha modelled in clay, which still have remains of the polychromatic painting on their faces," he reveals. Uncovering this site took months of painstaking digging through layers of history. "Below the surface are layers of the Ghorid, Ghaznavid and pre-Islamic Turkic periods, and below that is the Buddhist monastery," explained Tarzi at his camp in the ruined village of Tulvara. Bone fragments and pieces of clay statuary lay in heaps at the camp. Bamiyan's Buddhist past is said to date to the Kushana and Hepthalite Hun empire, spanning from the 1st to 6th centuries AD.
The excavation site is closely guarded and visitors are not allowed. Photographs were not permitted either, though a brief look inside reveals the remains of solid structures, steps, a paved courtyard and, most exciting of all, a pair of giant feet. They may have been part of a large statue, or just a symbolic representation of the feet of the Buddha—it is hard to tell, for the excavation is not complete. Tarzi took some persuading to agree to speak to Outlook, because exclusive rights to the story of the new excavations have been sold to National Geographic, presumably to fund the excavations. With winter approaching in the Bamiyan valley (height: 2,500 metres), excavations have been suspended and will now resume only next summer.
Bamiyan, which means "place of shining light", gets its name from the light bouncing off the cliffs of conglomerate rock, layered in shades of purple and brown. Now an isolated region a bone-rattling 8-10 hours' drive from Kabul, Bamiyan was once at the crossroads of many civilisations, a prosperous valley along the Silk Road with the two huge Buddhas, one of them 55 metres and the other 38 metres tall, hewn out of the cliffs and standing sentinel over caravans of traders, pilgrims, scholars and soldiers. Built in the 3rd and 5th centuries AD, the two Buddhas were left untouched for over 1,500 years, even by the marauding armies of Genghis Khan, Mahmud Ghazni and Nadir Shah.Aurangzeb did, however, have a bash at them, but his artillery only succeeded in damaging the foot of one of the Buddhas.
Today the empty niches still inspire awe, with the outline of the smaller Buddha clearly visible. Opinion is still divided on whether the Buddhas should be rebuilt. Today, it would be impossible to carve them out of the same cliff face; and to build new images and instal them there would not recreate the aura and magnificence of the originals. "They just would not have the same feeling," says Afghan deputy minister of culture, Omar Sultan. A proposal to recreate the images using laser beams, as has been suggested for the Twin Towers site in New York, is being given serious consideration.
For now, the most urgent task is to consolidate the fragile, crumbling cliffs, further weakened by the dynamiting carried out by the Taliban. The last restoration was done in the '60s and '70s by the Archaeological Survey of India, which had repaired and strengthened the Buddhas, the cliff face, cornices and balconies. Today, Georgios Toubekis, an architect with ICOMOS (International Council on Monuments and Sites), has the task of collecting and preserving the fragments of the destroyed Buddhas—some of them as large as boulders—and consolidating the surface of the cliffs, in a major project funded by Japan and Germany.
Bamiyan's cliffs are also honeycombed with caves, many of them with exquisite paintings executed by Indian and Persian artists during the Hepthalite period. Some 80 per cent of these have been destroyed over the centuries through neglect, theft and destruction, but those that remain are now being carefully preserved and protected. The people of Bamiyan are Hazaras, an ethnic and religious minority who are Shias of Mongol-Turkic origin, believed to be descended from the 'hazaar'—the thousand soldiers Genghis Khan left behind here after conquering the region. Among the poorest and most backward communities in Afghanistan, they are counting on the third Buddha to emerge from the sands of time, and usher in a tourism boom that will bring Bamiyan the development and prosperity it so desperately needs.
The Return of Big Brother
The Hindu, August 13
DEBATE
The return of Big Brother
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
THE spectre of the Taliban police flailing whips on the streets to enforce their laws is a common image associated with their rule in Afghanistan. Under the Taliban, the Department of Vice and Virtue issued edicts which banned girls going to school, women revealing any part of their body including ankles, men shaving or cutting beards, kite flying, music, amongst others. Four and a half years after the Taliban, the Department of Vice and Virtue is back, under the Hamid Karzai government. The move, passed by the cabinet, now awaits a nod from Parliament.
The step has sparked some consternation amongst human rights activists and organisations both within and outside the country, which have expressed fears about the purposes and powers of the body. Human Rights Watch said the department could be used to silence critical voices and further limit women's and girls' access to work, healthcare and education. It called on the international community to make a clear commitment to Afghanistan's long term security and reconstruction and to avoid a return to repressive past practices. Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission also expressed concern over the department, saying there were no clear terms of reference for the body.
No cause for alarm?
The Ministry of Haj and Auqaf, which will oversee the department, however says there is no cause for alarm or worry and that there will be no departure from functions already being carried out by the government. The department would not resemble its namesake under the Taliban in any way, the Ministry has stated, saying the Taliban had abused and misused religion.
In fact, the Department of Vice and Virtue did not emerge with the Taliban. Instituted by the mujahideen who came to power after fighting the Soviets, the department was elevated to the level of a full ministry under the Taliban. Moreover, the department was never abolished by the current government after it came to power, but in fact lay dormant until now.
The recent move, says Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Haj and Auqaf, Moulvi Mohammed Qasim, has been undertaken only to streamline and coordinate and unify the activities of three existing departments: one under the Ministry of Information and Culture which preaches Islamic values through programmes and publications in the electronic and print media, thse second under the Ministry of Haj which is in charge of Islamic preaching and the third under the Supreme Court which is supposed to ensure accountability to the principles of Islam.
According to Moulvi Qasim, the powers and purposes of the reactivated department will be very limited. The department will not have its own enforcement agency or police, but will only spread the message of Islamic principles and morality in society, mainly through public preaching. The government currently employs the preachers in mosques and the new move will strengthen their role and provide uniform guidelines on how and what to preach he said, adding, "all religions — Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism preach the holy word and the principles of religion".
`Rising immorality'
The department, the Minister said in an exclusive interview, was set up by President Karzai on the urging of people from rural areas as well as the Ulema Councils of the various provinces. "We ourselves felt immorality in society was on the increase. More and more sex workers were being arrested and alcohol was being seized by the Interior Ministry police. This is worrying and we are concerned about the people."
A task force under the Ministry of Interior already exists to "combat immorality". Set up in January 2005, the task force has since cracked down on alcohol consumption and prostitution, carrying out raids and affecting arrests. Both prostitution and alcohol are banned under Afghanistan's Constitution. However, a unwritten code "allows" foreigners to consume alcohol and it is served in restaurants frequented by them. In recent months however, alcohol, or at least beer, is also being sold openly in street corners.
In February this year the Upper House of Afghanistan's Parliament expressed grave concern at what it called rampant moral vices in Afghanistan — the widespread use of alcohol, prostitution and other social and moral evils.
Moulvi Qasim fights shy of saying whether Western lifestyles are the reason for the reactivation of the department. While stating that all foreigners are bound by the laws of the land, he however insists that the department's activities will have an impact on Afghans "so that they do not accept anything that is against the culture of Afghanistan."
Key players in the international community have been cautious in their response to the move to reactivate the Department of Vice and Virtue. The UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) emphasised that any new body must have effective safeguards to prevent misuse of powers. Welcoming the Government's assurances, the U.N. body said "we await further information on this issue, particularly more transparency on the question of why this body is needed and how it will be used."
The E.U. came up with a similar response with E.U. special representative Frances Vendrell saying he did not want to pass judgement on the department until he had seen what the department was going to be, while emphasising the need for it to be consistent with the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
While the E.U. and U.N. have been cautious, there are those in the international community who actually feel that the move to set up the department is a good one as it would deflect the pressure from conservative sections of the community. An aid worker who has spent more than a decade working on and in Afghanistan wondered what the fuss was all about. The expatriate lifestyles, he said, had created some consternation and the pendulum was now swinging back. The aid worker, who did not want to be named, said the current government had always had to "walk the tightrope between the turban and the Armani suit" and this move (to reactivate the Department of Vice and Virtue) might be an instrument that would help it do that, acting as a pressure valve for conservative opinions and pressures.
Deputy Minister Qasim denies that the move was meant to address concerns about the current government's un-Islamic character but admitted that it would help improve the government's image. "The government will be strengthened if people see the government working to spread the message of Islam and morality. That will improve the picture of the government in the eyes of the people."
An Afghan youth who is critical of the international community's role in his country however felt the government had probably backed down from what it may have planned earlier following international pressure. "I see nothing new in this move. Maybe they got scared and diluted their earlier plans."
DEBATE
The return of Big Brother
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
THE spectre of the Taliban police flailing whips on the streets to enforce their laws is a common image associated with their rule in Afghanistan. Under the Taliban, the Department of Vice and Virtue issued edicts which banned girls going to school, women revealing any part of their body including ankles, men shaving or cutting beards, kite flying, music, amongst others. Four and a half years after the Taliban, the Department of Vice and Virtue is back, under the Hamid Karzai government. The move, passed by the cabinet, now awaits a nod from Parliament.
The step has sparked some consternation amongst human rights activists and organisations both within and outside the country, which have expressed fears about the purposes and powers of the body. Human Rights Watch said the department could be used to silence critical voices and further limit women's and girls' access to work, healthcare and education. It called on the international community to make a clear commitment to Afghanistan's long term security and reconstruction and to avoid a return to repressive past practices. Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission also expressed concern over the department, saying there were no clear terms of reference for the body.
No cause for alarm?
The Ministry of Haj and Auqaf, which will oversee the department, however says there is no cause for alarm or worry and that there will be no departure from functions already being carried out by the government. The department would not resemble its namesake under the Taliban in any way, the Ministry has stated, saying the Taliban had abused and misused religion.
In fact, the Department of Vice and Virtue did not emerge with the Taliban. Instituted by the mujahideen who came to power after fighting the Soviets, the department was elevated to the level of a full ministry under the Taliban. Moreover, the department was never abolished by the current government after it came to power, but in fact lay dormant until now.
The recent move, says Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Haj and Auqaf, Moulvi Mohammed Qasim, has been undertaken only to streamline and coordinate and unify the activities of three existing departments: one under the Ministry of Information and Culture which preaches Islamic values through programmes and publications in the electronic and print media, thse second under the Ministry of Haj which is in charge of Islamic preaching and the third under the Supreme Court which is supposed to ensure accountability to the principles of Islam.
According to Moulvi Qasim, the powers and purposes of the reactivated department will be very limited. The department will not have its own enforcement agency or police, but will only spread the message of Islamic principles and morality in society, mainly through public preaching. The government currently employs the preachers in mosques and the new move will strengthen their role and provide uniform guidelines on how and what to preach he said, adding, "all religions — Christianity, Judaism and Buddhism preach the holy word and the principles of religion".
`Rising immorality'
The department, the Minister said in an exclusive interview, was set up by President Karzai on the urging of people from rural areas as well as the Ulema Councils of the various provinces. "We ourselves felt immorality in society was on the increase. More and more sex workers were being arrested and alcohol was being seized by the Interior Ministry police. This is worrying and we are concerned about the people."
A task force under the Ministry of Interior already exists to "combat immorality". Set up in January 2005, the task force has since cracked down on alcohol consumption and prostitution, carrying out raids and affecting arrests. Both prostitution and alcohol are banned under Afghanistan's Constitution. However, a unwritten code "allows" foreigners to consume alcohol and it is served in restaurants frequented by them. In recent months however, alcohol, or at least beer, is also being sold openly in street corners.
In February this year the Upper House of Afghanistan's Parliament expressed grave concern at what it called rampant moral vices in Afghanistan — the widespread use of alcohol, prostitution and other social and moral evils.
Moulvi Qasim fights shy of saying whether Western lifestyles are the reason for the reactivation of the department. While stating that all foreigners are bound by the laws of the land, he however insists that the department's activities will have an impact on Afghans "so that they do not accept anything that is against the culture of Afghanistan."
Key players in the international community have been cautious in their response to the move to reactivate the Department of Vice and Virtue. The UNAMA (United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) emphasised that any new body must have effective safeguards to prevent misuse of powers. Welcoming the Government's assurances, the U.N. body said "we await further information on this issue, particularly more transparency on the question of why this body is needed and how it will be used."
The E.U. came up with a similar response with E.U. special representative Frances Vendrell saying he did not want to pass judgement on the department until he had seen what the department was going to be, while emphasising the need for it to be consistent with the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
While the E.U. and U.N. have been cautious, there are those in the international community who actually feel that the move to set up the department is a good one as it would deflect the pressure from conservative sections of the community. An aid worker who has spent more than a decade working on and in Afghanistan wondered what the fuss was all about. The expatriate lifestyles, he said, had created some consternation and the pendulum was now swinging back. The aid worker, who did not want to be named, said the current government had always had to "walk the tightrope between the turban and the Armani suit" and this move (to reactivate the Department of Vice and Virtue) might be an instrument that would help it do that, acting as a pressure valve for conservative opinions and pressures.
Deputy Minister Qasim denies that the move was meant to address concerns about the current government's un-Islamic character but admitted that it would help improve the government's image. "The government will be strengthened if people see the government working to spread the message of Islam and morality. That will improve the picture of the government in the eyes of the people."
An Afghan youth who is critical of the international community's role in his country however felt the government had probably backed down from what it may have planned earlier following international pressure. "I see nothing new in this move. Maybe they got scared and diluted their earlier plans."
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