I, like Dan Smock, am rather appalled by this series of tweets from a journalist named Steve Clemons (really, just go to his twitter feed and read all of them), who just happened to be in Kabul during the attack on the British Council early Friday morning. Dan does a good job of explaining what's wrong with most of Mr. Clemons' tweets, but he nicely overlooked the one that gets me the most, allowing me to take the ball and run with it.
At 11:49am Friday morning Kabul time, before the fighting at the British Council had even finished, we get this lovely tweet from Mr. Clemons: "Despite bombs & bullets, hope Afghans have great holiday today on National Independence Day. Despite drama had excellent trip to #Kabul." Good lord. Let me start by saying that any time you can make the U.S. Embassy look like it has its finger on the pulse of the city, you are doing something spectacularly oblivious.
But really, this doozy of a tweet from Mr. Clemons embodies much of what is most harmful about the way that the West views Afghanistan and its people. Only someone who comes in on what Dan so aptly terms a "whirlwind parachute tour" could write the above sentences. It all comes down to how you view attacks like Friday's and, more relevantly, Afghans' responses to them. Mr. Clemons tweeted this morning about how impressed he was with the resolve, courage, strength, and determination of the Afghans he was with as the attack was unfolding. He wrote about how they stayed cool under fire, while he was cowering in fear (I'm paraphrasing, but you get the idea). All of these things are true. Afghans who still live in-country have to be all of those things, because these attacks do happen, and you have to figure out how to cope with them.
But Mr. Clemons, like so many Westerners before him, is content to simply dust himself off and move on afterwards. And this is the appalling part. You have just witnessed a terrible event, Mr. Clemons. You have been shot at for doing nothing wrong--stupid, yes, but not wrong--and in so doing, you have gotten a surprisingly good glimpse into the life of far too many Afghans. Innocent Afghans are being targeted and killed by the Taliban with increasing frequency, and most of them weren't even stupid enough to stand on rooftops with bullets flying around them. The fact that the overwhelming majority of Afghans manage to remain friendly and hospitable in spite of this madness might seem amazing...until you consider that, well, it's their homeland, and where else would they go?
But back to Mr. Clemons. Having experienced first-hand how horrifically random the Taliban can be, what is his reaction? A desire to come back and do what he can to make things better? Articulate musings on the terror faced by everyday Afghans? Humility and a promise to reconsider his previous opinions about the war? No, no, and no. Instead, he basically says "have a nice time dodging the bombs, guys, and enjoy your holiday!" While jumping on his plane out of the country. With cool pictures of bullets to prove his bad-ass nature to the folks back home. Sigh.
I don't know what Mr. Clemons' intentions were, and I do not want to make it sound like I expect every first-time visitor to Afghanistan to be able to get their bearings immediately. I've also never been shot at, thankfully, and inshallah I won't ever be in Mr. Clemons' position, so take that for what it is worth, too. But even so, with his series of tweets and pictures, Mr. Clemons has reinforced the perception that Afghanistan is less a real country than some kind of twisted, dystopian safari. You hire your guides, go travel around, maybe get scared by a brush with some big, scary animal, and then find a cool souvenir or take some sweet pictures to show everyone back in the States. You speak glowingly about your guides and the natives while you're over there, particularly their ability to persevere under such awful conditions, and then tell them how much you hope they have good lives on your way up the jetway into your modern plane home.
Well, guess what? Afghanistan is real. The war is real. And it's hell for Kabulis, for Kandaharis, for every Afghan. And they can't escape it. Not like we can.
So no, Mr. Clemons, the Afghans won't just "have a great holiday today." Stay a bit longer next time, and you might even figure out why.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Narchitecture
Kabul, in general, does not have terribly interesting architecture. Most of the buildings are the same shade of gray, because if there is one thing Kabul has a lot of, it is concrete.* The Afghan cultural desire for privacy, coupled with those annoying IEDs, leads just about everyone to build blast/privacy (depending on your point of view) walls in front of their houses, which further obscures most buildings, since Afghans don't usually build much higher than two stories.
And then there are the twin neighborhoods of Sherpur and Wazir Akbar Khan (often referred to jointly as "Wazir"), which are the Kabul equivalents of Central Park West or Beacon Hill. Wazir is where many of the richest people in Kabul (and therefore in Afghanistan) live, which means that many of the houses in the area, regardless of who currently occupies them, have been built by Afghan drug lords, and therefore have earned the moniker "poppy palaces."
Before discussing the downright objectionable design choices that go into these monstrosities, it is worthwhile to say a bit about just how wealthy these...businessmen really are. According to the 2010 UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey, the national average price for one kilogram of dry opium in 2010 was $169, and the national average yield for opium was about 29.2 kg per hectare.** So an average hectare of land (that's about two and a half acres, for the non-metric folks) produced $4,934.80 in opium revenue for its owner in 2010. In that same year, the per capita GDP in Afghanistan was about $900. A farmer growing opium on a single hectare took in revenue equivalent to over five times the per capita GDP. And the drug lords who live in Wazir are probably bringing in revenue from thousands of hectares each. In a city where locally-grown food costs a few dollars a day, these guys are more or less rolling in cash.
Unfortunately for the eyes of those of us with Western architectural sensibilities, the drug lords seem to be substantially less adept at designing buildings than they are at running drugs. The sense you get driving through Wazir is that the builders of these houses cut out a lot of pictures of Western buildings, stuck them on a wall, and then threw darts at them to pick the different sections of the house. It's like architectural Mad Libs. The only way one could come up with houses like these is if, every time one had to make a design choice, one picked the most incongruous thing one could think of, super-sized it, and then added it.
Unfortunately, I did not bring back pictures of many of my favorite houses--drug lords tend to frown upon people snapping photos of their homes, and most of the time I went by the places I was bouncing around in the back seat of a car anyway. So I cannot bedazzle you with the giant Roman colonnade in front of one house, or the masterful clapboard-shingle-and-poured-concrete siding a few houses down. These pictures, though, give you a pretty good idea of the latest fads in Afghan home-building.
Because, really, when you're the kind of person with a lot of enemies, all of whom probably have large quantities of explosives on hand, there's nothing like a house with huge panes of glass facing the street.
*Some of the many things that Kabul does not have a lot of: wood, stone, marble, or money to buy the previous three things
**Damn you, metric system.
And then there are the twin neighborhoods of Sherpur and Wazir Akbar Khan (often referred to jointly as "Wazir"), which are the Kabul equivalents of Central Park West or Beacon Hill. Wazir is where many of the richest people in Kabul (and therefore in Afghanistan) live, which means that many of the houses in the area, regardless of who currently occupies them, have been built by Afghan drug lords, and therefore have earned the moniker "poppy palaces."
Before discussing the downright objectionable design choices that go into these monstrosities, it is worthwhile to say a bit about just how wealthy these...businessmen really are. According to the 2010 UNODC Afghanistan Opium Survey, the national average price for one kilogram of dry opium in 2010 was $169, and the national average yield for opium was about 29.2 kg per hectare.** So an average hectare of land (that's about two and a half acres, for the non-metric folks) produced $4,934.80 in opium revenue for its owner in 2010. In that same year, the per capita GDP in Afghanistan was about $900. A farmer growing opium on a single hectare took in revenue equivalent to over five times the per capita GDP. And the drug lords who live in Wazir are probably bringing in revenue from thousands of hectares each. In a city where locally-grown food costs a few dollars a day, these guys are more or less rolling in cash.
Unfortunately for the eyes of those of us with Western architectural sensibilities, the drug lords seem to be substantially less adept at designing buildings than they are at running drugs. The sense you get driving through Wazir is that the builders of these houses cut out a lot of pictures of Western buildings, stuck them on a wall, and then threw darts at them to pick the different sections of the house. It's like architectural Mad Libs. The only way one could come up with houses like these is if, every time one had to make a design choice, one picked the most incongruous thing one could think of, super-sized it, and then added it.
Unfortunately, I did not bring back pictures of many of my favorite houses--drug lords tend to frown upon people snapping photos of their homes, and most of the time I went by the places I was bouncing around in the back seat of a car anyway. So I cannot bedazzle you with the giant Roman colonnade in front of one house, or the masterful clapboard-shingle-and-poured-concrete siding a few houses down. These pictures, though, give you a pretty good idea of the latest fads in Afghan home-building.
Because, really, when you're the kind of person with a lot of enemies, all of whom probably have large quantities of explosives on hand, there's nothing like a house with huge panes of glass facing the street.
*Some of the many things that Kabul does not have a lot of: wood, stone, marble, or money to buy the previous three things
**Damn you, metric system.
Monday, August 8, 2011
The Funny-Sounding Germans
(N.B.: I've decided to resume posting here on an as-often-as-I-can basis, despite not being in Afghanistan for the moment. Please try to contain your glee)
Warning: Afghan geography ahead. Please consult this map liberally, and try to ignore the fact that no two people transliterate from Dari or Pashto the same way.
One of the things that has struck me most in the conversations I've had with people in the U.S. since returning from Afghanistan two and a half months ago is the degree to which most people do not understand the composition of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). This is likely because Americans heard (and gave) so much grief about how the Iraq War was America's personal crusade against [fill in the blank] that they have simply assumed that the war in Afghanistan is the same scenario. After all, they both started shortly after September 11, 2001, right? And they are both wars in Muslim countries, right? And we are, to use one of my favorite military/journalistic euphemisms, "bogged down" in both places, right?
Well, yes to all three of those (admittedly rhetorical) questions. But that does not mean that the wars are being fought the same way. Many, if not most, Americans seem to have forgotten that ISAF is a truly multi-national coalition. And despite the fact that ISAF's commander, Gen. John R. Allen, is an American, that does not mean that ISAF is a monolithic, and monolithically American, entity, especially from the point of view of the average Afghan.
For an Afghan, the most visible unit of international military presence in his country is the Provincial Reconstruction Team, or PRT. Most, but not all, of the provinces in Afghanistan have a PRT, which are grouped into sixregional commands (RCs): RC-North in Mazar-e-Sharif Province, RC-West in Herat Province, RC-Southwest in Helmand Province, RC-South in Kandahar Province, RC-East in Kabul Province, and RC-Capital in Kabul city. As the name suggests, the goal of the PRTs is to support reconstruction work in their respective provinces. This being Afghanistan, however, many PRTs in practice function as military command centers just as much as they do city planners. Tellingly, there has traditionally only been one PRT with a civilian commander: the PRT in Panjshir, which is by far the safest province in Afghanistan. More importantly for the average Afghan, the PRT serves as the place where he can communicate with the international military forces active in his province on his own terms. Personnel from the PRT attend meetings of development councils, advise Afghan political assemblies, and coordinate operations with the Afghan police and army. Each PRT has significant latitude to conduct operations within its jurisdiction as it sees fit.
So what kind of faces do Afghans see at these PRTs? Not just Americans, not by any stretch of the imagination. The US does command a dozen or so PRTs, and no other ISAF country commands more than one; we also command the two largest and most strategically important RCs, RC-South and RC-East. But RC-West, for example, is commanded by the Italians (it also serves as the PRT for Herat Province). RC-North, in Kunduz Province, is led by Germans, and RC-Southwest is British territory. On the PRT level, there is even more variety. As a few examples, there are Lithuanians commanding the PRT in Ghor, Spaniards in Badghis, Koreans in Parwan, Turks in Wardak, Kiwis in Bamiyan, and Hungarians in Baghlan.
The major effect of all of this, of course, is that Afghans' experiences with the foreign militaries in their country really do vary dramatically from place to place. They are not always interacting with Americans, nor always even with Europeans, so they cannot paint the troops with such broad brushes. Instead, the catch-all word used is kharijan--"foreigners" (literally, "people from outside"). When Afghans want to be critical of overarching principles or themes of the war, they cannot always point the finger back at America, or at any other single country. The simple fact that Afghans encounter a whole range of nationalities at the various PRTs makes it more difficult for them to cast blame reflexively. Which can only be a good thing, for everyone involved.
Of course, this plethora of different countries also produces some comic moments, one of which produced the post's title. Let me conclude with two of my favorites:
1. The Italian PRT in Herat is said to have some of the best food, and the best atmosphere, of any restaurant in the country. In true Italian style, the Italian PRT contains what very reliable sources say is a spot-on replica of a traditional Italian trattoria, of the sort that would not look out of place in a small Tuscan village. They also are said to import wine and other staples of Italian cuisine directly from Italy on a near-daily basis. You have to love the Italians.
2.While Afghans are generally an extremely savvy and street-smart people, they sometimes have trouble differentiating the various countries of the world. This is apparently a particular problem in Kunduz Province, which has a large detachment of German troops supported by some Belgians (as well as other nations). According to a colleague who has spent significant time in Kunduz, most locals there have a devil of a time differentiating the Germans and the Belgians. Most Afghans actually have a relatively good knowledge of Germany, as Germany contains a sizable Afghan expatriate population. But most rural Afghans have never encountered Belgium, which, inconveniently enough, has a flag that is easily confused with the German flag (most Afghans identify foreign troops by the flags on their vehicles or the flag patches on their uniforms). The confusion was summed up by one resident of Kunduz, who, in a move that would make most of Belgium seethe, told my colleague during an interview that there were two different foreign forces in his area: "the Germans, and the funny-sounding Germans."
Next time: Narc-itecture!
Warning: Afghan geography ahead. Please consult this map liberally, and try to ignore the fact that no two people transliterate from Dari or Pashto the same way.
One of the things that has struck me most in the conversations I've had with people in the U.S. since returning from Afghanistan two and a half months ago is the degree to which most people do not understand the composition of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). This is likely because Americans heard (and gave) so much grief about how the Iraq War was America's personal crusade against [fill in the blank] that they have simply assumed that the war in Afghanistan is the same scenario. After all, they both started shortly after September 11, 2001, right? And they are both wars in Muslim countries, right? And we are, to use one of my favorite military/journalistic euphemisms, "bogged down" in both places, right?
Well, yes to all three of those (admittedly rhetorical) questions. But that does not mean that the wars are being fought the same way. Many, if not most, Americans seem to have forgotten that ISAF is a truly multi-national coalition. And despite the fact that ISAF's commander, Gen. John R. Allen, is an American, that does not mean that ISAF is a monolithic, and monolithically American, entity, especially from the point of view of the average Afghan.
For an Afghan, the most visible unit of international military presence in his country is the Provincial Reconstruction Team, or PRT. Most, but not all, of the provinces in Afghanistan have a PRT, which are grouped into sixregional commands (RCs): RC-North in Mazar-e-Sharif Province, RC-West in Herat Province, RC-Southwest in Helmand Province, RC-South in Kandahar Province, RC-East in Kabul Province, and RC-Capital in Kabul city. As the name suggests, the goal of the PRTs is to support reconstruction work in their respective provinces. This being Afghanistan, however, many PRTs in practice function as military command centers just as much as they do city planners. Tellingly, there has traditionally only been one PRT with a civilian commander: the PRT in Panjshir, which is by far the safest province in Afghanistan. More importantly for the average Afghan, the PRT serves as the place where he can communicate with the international military forces active in his province on his own terms. Personnel from the PRT attend meetings of development councils, advise Afghan political assemblies, and coordinate operations with the Afghan police and army. Each PRT has significant latitude to conduct operations within its jurisdiction as it sees fit.
So what kind of faces do Afghans see at these PRTs? Not just Americans, not by any stretch of the imagination. The US does command a dozen or so PRTs, and no other ISAF country commands more than one; we also command the two largest and most strategically important RCs, RC-South and RC-East. But RC-West, for example, is commanded by the Italians (it also serves as the PRT for Herat Province). RC-North, in Kunduz Province, is led by Germans, and RC-Southwest is British territory. On the PRT level, there is even more variety. As a few examples, there are Lithuanians commanding the PRT in Ghor, Spaniards in Badghis, Koreans in Parwan, Turks in Wardak, Kiwis in Bamiyan, and Hungarians in Baghlan.
The major effect of all of this, of course, is that Afghans' experiences with the foreign militaries in their country really do vary dramatically from place to place. They are not always interacting with Americans, nor always even with Europeans, so they cannot paint the troops with such broad brushes. Instead, the catch-all word used is kharijan--"foreigners" (literally, "people from outside"). When Afghans want to be critical of overarching principles or themes of the war, they cannot always point the finger back at America, or at any other single country. The simple fact that Afghans encounter a whole range of nationalities at the various PRTs makes it more difficult for them to cast blame reflexively. Which can only be a good thing, for everyone involved.
Of course, this plethora of different countries also produces some comic moments, one of which produced the post's title. Let me conclude with two of my favorites:
1. The Italian PRT in Herat is said to have some of the best food, and the best atmosphere, of any restaurant in the country. In true Italian style, the Italian PRT contains what very reliable sources say is a spot-on replica of a traditional Italian trattoria, of the sort that would not look out of place in a small Tuscan village. They also are said to import wine and other staples of Italian cuisine directly from Italy on a near-daily basis. You have to love the Italians.
2.While Afghans are generally an extremely savvy and street-smart people, they sometimes have trouble differentiating the various countries of the world. This is apparently a particular problem in Kunduz Province, which has a large detachment of German troops supported by some Belgians (as well as other nations). According to a colleague who has spent significant time in Kunduz, most locals there have a devil of a time differentiating the Germans and the Belgians. Most Afghans actually have a relatively good knowledge of Germany, as Germany contains a sizable Afghan expatriate population. But most rural Afghans have never encountered Belgium, which, inconveniently enough, has a flag that is easily confused with the German flag (most Afghans identify foreign troops by the flags on their vehicles or the flag patches on their uniforms). The confusion was summed up by one resident of Kunduz, who, in a move that would make most of Belgium seethe, told my colleague during an interview that there were two different foreign forces in his area: "the Germans, and the funny-sounding Germans."
.svg){kind=link}
Next time: Narc-itecture!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)