If you want to see Kabul, you must climb a hill. You will be spoilt for choice though. There’s the Bibi Mahro, or Swimming Pool Hill, named after the Olympic-sized water-body built by the Russians that sits atop it. TV Tower hill is named for the cluster of iron broadcast giants that adorn its proud peaks. There are several others too; Nadir Shah Hill, Marshaal Hill, Tajbek Hill and, of course, Wazir Akbar Khan. During the day, you can see people streaming up and down the hill-paths into the settlements that dot the elevated landscape. The lights from the many houses on the hillside twinkle like stars and staring at it for any length of time, you get the feeling the Milky Way has descended from the heavens and settled here, on these hillsides, at the edge of chaos.
But the sound of helicopter rotors cuts through the calm; a US military chopper heading to Camp Eggers or a transport landing at ISAF Headquarters. From the hills, you can see the low-flying aircraft pass right at eye-level. Higher up, a surveillance blimp hovers above the city- Big Brother hanging out in the night sky. During the day, this unmarked white dirigible is clearly visible and, I’m told, an easy target. According to locals, these blimps don’t have an easy time outside the capital. In the more remote parts of the country, insurgents and coalition forces play a comic game of Tom and Jerry: one party sends up the airship, the other side uses AK-47s to shoot holes in its helium-filled mass and brings it down. Grumbling engineers repair the blimp and send it up again, only to have it brought down a few hours later. It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world, they say, outside the walls of the capital.
Kabul is definitely an island. While it is a medium-sized metropolis teeming with life, it is in no way representative of life in Afghanistan. White people, who equate travelling to Afghanistan with travelling to this city, miss this key point: Kabul is as different from the rest of the country as New York City is from, say, Little Rock, Arkansas. You cannot extrapolate or generalize about Afghanistan based on what you observe in Kabul; it’s just not a kosher comparison. Kabul is a modern city, whereas Afghanistan, much to the chagrin of post-modernists and the grins of orientalists, is still struggling to make its way out of the Bronze Age. But the people of Afghanistan are a different breed altogether. Resilient, friendly and extremely good-looking, the average Afghan looks ready to grace the cover of a fashion magazine, irrespective of gender. The women are beautiful, the men even more so.
Most Afghans I met were not especially privileged- some were career journalists from the provinces, others were urbanized. But they were all very articulate about what they thought the problem was and how it could be fixed. The upcoming elections especially, serve as a key rallying point for most young Afghans. There was a clear desire for a change of leadership, but still healthy cynicism about what that would actually translate to.
Walking around the city, I was taken aback by the overwhelming amount of security personnel, barbed wire, sentry posts, check points and blast walls that dominated the cityscape. Any map of the city, including Google’s geographic masterpiece, is rendered outdated. Here, roads are closed, entrances and exits changed and landmarks ‘developed’ faster than you can say “rehabilitation and reconstruction.” All thanks to an ever-present threat of reprisal from elements too varied to be grouped under any one term: terrorist, Taliban, militant. Everyone’s motivation is different, but somehow, at the end of the day, linked to the presence of foreign troops on their soil.
Still, Thursday’s brazen attack on the Kabul Serena – one of the most exclusive hotels in the city and a favourite for expats– was an indication that there is still a lot to be done before life in Afghanistan can “return to normal.” The Taliban denounce all forms of celebration of Nauroze as “pagan” and had already vowed that they would not stand for any. Earlier that day, an audacious attack on security forces rocked nearby Jalalabad and put a damper on Nauroze festivities in the area. So I was cautious, expecting things to remain somber after the attacks and stayed indoors for most of New Year’s Day. The locals though, did not and were out in full force. Shahr-e-Nau, the city’s central avenue, was teeming with the young and old, flocking to food stalls, shops and parks by the droves. There was no indication that anything was amiss. It was a city celebrating, it didn’t matter what the occasion was. I guess they were just happy that there was finally something to be happy about.
But for me, it offered a viable point of comparison. We in Pakistan too, have been at the receiving end of terrorists, separatists and sundry troublemakers. While we have not been burdened by the presence of an occupying force (although it may look and feel that way in parts of AJK, KPK, FATA and Balochistan), Pakistanis haven’t ever had to contend with the on-ground presence of a force as voluminous as ISAF. We do not (yet) live under the thumb of a foreign force and no matter how you dress it up, the plain fact of the matter is that people, no matter who they are, will resent the presence of an “other country” on their sovereign territory.
Often we are too pre-occupied with the bigger picture and forget that there is a very important variable that is left out of all strategic analyses of the greater game in the region: the human element. Looking at things from a distance offers a dispassionate but very shallow view. Each individual’s own motivations and convictions might be perfectly rational, but when we look at things from a distance, it seems like a glorified ant colony where everyone’s pretty much following the same pattern. Maybe that’s the point we’ve been missing all along. It’s fine to look at Kabul from a hill if you’re a tourist, but to make any sort of informed judgment about what the future holds, you need to climb down and mingle with the living, breathing heart of Afghanistan.
The writer is a former journalist currently working in the development sector.
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