Small Steps

Over the years, whilst I've always had some semblance of a plan, I have allowed myself to become slightly more open to the unexpected. One has to. It is a response mechanism, though in truth, I'm not sure how good I am at it. And always, Allah is my guide, to whom I am forever grateful for all the beautiful things I am able to see, learn about and share.

So here I am, working towards the establishment of a school. There are lots of strategic variables here that one has to be aware of and how these should be managed. Again, since this is Afghanistan, and since we are in a politically and socially sensitive situation, I choose my words and actions with care. 

There are delays - expect them - and there will be compromises along the way - expect them too, but the idea is that once the teachers are hired, I will support either by distance or by being on the ground, so there is always the probability of return visits. The vision is a good foundation to build on - and the encouragement from senior Afghans (in government and at all levels) and other influential voices, so far has been a blessing. Ameen. Afghanistan's schools need good civic education, creativity and the need to produce critical thinkers who will lead this country tomorrow. It is a long term vision and there will be challenges ahead, but it is a blessing to be part of this project and my contribution is just one small aspect of what many aspire to and dream about. 

I share a photo taken on my trusted mobile phone of the building that will be the school. Something tells me that I may be slightly overcome with emotion, when the school finally opens.

Road to Jalalabad II

The 40-mile stretch, a breathtaking chasm of mountains and cliffs between Kabul and Jalalabad, claims so many lives so regularly that most people stopped counting long ago. Cars flip and flatten. Trucks soar to the valley floor. Buses collide.

On paper, the government of Afghanistan requires that drivers pass a test to get a license, but few people here seem to have one.Then there are the cars themselves, battered Toyota taxis and even Ladas from bygone Soviet days. A typical Afghan car has bald tires and squeaky brakes—not exactly ideal for zigging and zagging through the mountains.

The mayhem unfolds on one of the most bewitching stretches of scenery on all the earth. The gorge, in some places no more than a few hundred yards wide, is framed by vertical rock cliffs that soar more than 2,000 feet above the Kabul River below.

Over the centuries, countless invading forces passed through or near the gorge on their way to the Khyber Pass. Among them were a group of 17,000 British troops and civilians, who were massacred as they beat a retreat from Kabul at the end of the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1842. Dr. William Brydon, who rode into Jalalabad on a horse, was the only European to survive.

The Kabul-to-Jalalabad road was paved for the first time by the West German government in 1960. In the 1980s, it was obliterated during the insurrection against the Soviet invasion. In the decade that followed, when the Taliban and other armed groups fought to control the country, the road was blasted and the craters were so large that taxis would disappear for minutes at a time, only to reappear as they struggled to climb out.

It was a tough road, and it had its own dangers — stretches of roadway often collapsed or washed away — but speed was not among them. That changed in 2006, when a European Union-backed project finally smoothed the road all the way through. Now Afghans could finally drive as fast as they wanted.

The cars zoom at astonishing speeds and most of the time they make it. But perhaps the gravest threat, apart from speed of the cars, is the slowness of the trucks. The massive tractor-trailers that move cargo in and out of Pakistan are often overloaded by thousands of pounds. They cannot move fast; if they are climbing one of the gorge’s thousand-foot hills, they cannot move at all. They get stuck. They fall back. They fall over.

“The fighting with the Taliban lasts only for a day or two, but the crashes are every day,” said Juma Gul, who owns a fabric shop in Sarobi that looks directly out onto the highway. “It’s a kind of theatre. Sometimes, a car will fly by in the air.”

Edited from this article from the New York Times.

Road to Jalalabad I

We are all on a journey of some description and since arriving in Afghanistan, it has been a series of conversations; sitting in on meetings, chairing meetings, having social discussions, writing reports and working on the project that I am here to support. It continues to be an incredible experience and one that has allowed me to learn as much as has allowed me to share.

This is Afghanistan. Security is on everyone's agenda and means that it is wise to be low key. When the reasons for being here were discussed with the British Ambassador, William Patey, the message was about stark warnings regarding travel and the millions being poured into education in the country. Said with a confidence that I respect, but one that generates other sets of questions about how and why - which incidentally, I did put to him. I got some slightly  vague answer that I'm still not sure of.

The education statistics paint a picture that shows ongoing needs and even here in Kabul, children begging, selling bits of bread on the street and picking through rubbish heaps shows how very far from the ideal that we are.

I took the road to Jalalabad the day before yesterday and stayed overnight at a very fine guest house. The reason for the journey was not about comforting day trips, but a chance to explore what will be the setting up of a school. The road to Jalalabad is precarious because of the driving and the insurgency and the trip was not announced early, as per local sensibility regarding security. Scenery along the mountain passes is breathtaking. The map at the head of this posting and this slide-show are from the New York Times. I share below a snapshot or two of the journey.

More on the school project in another posting.

Tor_Khan تور خان

Part 2: John Mohammed - Across Borders

Continued from previous posting. Despite the descent into chaos, John Mohammed has decided to fight for his adopted culture.

"I saw the rural, religious Pashtun way of life I had come to love so much being diluted, contaminated and poisoned, in particular by arrivals from the Middle East," he says. "The way they practise Islam is very different to the tribal areas. They use money and influence to impose their own set of values." 

Peaceful Islam

In the early 1990s, John Mohammed joined the BBC World Service Pashto service and helped to set up New Home New Life, a now Iconic Afghan radio soap opera, known as The Archers of Afghanistan. Six years ago, he set up a radio station which broadcasts across the Afghan-Pakistan border and which tries to promote tribal traditions along with peace and reconciliation.

More recently, John has switched his attentions back to Afghanistan and is spearheading the formation of a new Islamic university in the predominantly Pashtun city of Jalalabad.

"It makes perfect sense. There is currently nowhere in Afghanistan where a young man can do higher Islamic studies. They go to Pakistan, where as we know some of them have become radicalised," he says, emphasising that his university will give a platform to moderates.

But this promotion of peaceful Islam has set him on a collision course with militants. His beloved Pakistan has now become too unsafe for him.

"Swat is a militarised zone and people I see as foreigners there now treat me like I'm the foreigner, even though I lived there for 40 years. It's hard to work out who is who any more - who is Taliban, who is criminal. The waters are very muddy."

Download the podcast from the BBC telling this remarkable story.

Badshah Khan: A Torch for Peace

Yesterday evening, I saw the film The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, A Torch for Peace, which played at the Marina Mall as part of the Middle East Film Festival, Abu Dhabi 2009. The film is an amazing documentary on the life of the Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a towering giant of heart and stature who was, is and will always remain a Pashtoon King of Peace, known as Badshah/Bacha Khan. He was a key figure in the Free India movement and this of course, invited the wrath of the British, even towards his peaceful cause.

As a Pashtoon, Bacha Khan showed the people that he loved a very different way - he challenged the opinion that Pashtoons could only be known for the gun and as a result could only remain backward. Bacha Khan was a good friend of Mahatma Gandhi and, like Gandhi, managed to mobilise the masses to resist injustice through peace. His movement of Khudai Khidmatgars (Allah's helpers) were taught to stand on their feet and bring about a positive change in themselves and their society through peace and social work. In the film, his daughter talks about his 'love for the poor people'.

Peace: Long live the King

His peace movement invited trouble and for a third of his time on earth, Bacha Khan was prisoner of conscience - in 1962 he was named by Amnesty International as Prisoner of the Year - overall for every three days of his life, he spent one day in British or Pakistani jails, often in solitary confinement. He continually challenged the validity of the British laid-down borders and later found sanctuary in Afghanistan - a natural home for the Pashtoons, travelling extensively and asking to be buried in Jalalabad when he was dying. When Bacha Khan's family said it would be difficult to arrange visas to cross the border, his reply to his family was "One day all this will be one".