SFC J, Army LTC L, Obaidulla our interpretor, and
I were in the lead vehicle. Air Force LTC F, Navy Seabee CE1 G, and infantryman
SGT B were in the second.
We knew we’d have a problem following our route inside
Kabul, as part of it had been announced to close for ANA parade practice. Units from
all over the country would be practicing for a large parade later this month, on
April 28th, in honor of Islamic Independence Day (or Victory of the
Muslim Nation, depending on your source).
We’d hope to bluff our way past the guards at the entrance to the closed off
street, but it didn’t work, and Obai, our interpreter, took us another way.
Good luck for me, as the detour was through a market area that even at seven
in the morning was packed with people. All we could do was crawl along, giving
me plenty of time to absorb the sights.
Kabul, the nation’s capital,
sprawls throughout a valley. It’s an ancient city, a potentially beautiful
city, that in some ways still exists in the 15th century as much as
in the 21st. Pushcarts
and donkeys are common, sharing the roads
with buses, trucks, and taxis speeding by.
The
relatively few apartment buildings look decades old, of gray Soviet influence,
and dilapidated. The tallest building is the government Communications
Building, at 18 stories, and the elevators don’t work.
Most
of the city has no electric power, sewage, or running water. I haven’t seen
a working traffic light. There is no postal service, which is good, as the
streets don’t have names and the houses don’t have numbers. War damage is
still evident, notably at the King’s Palace, though I’ve read that far more
damage in Kabul
was caused in the 1990s by Afghans fighting each other for power than was
ever caused by the Russians.
As it appears today,
March 2005
Close-up of corner
That
said, I have a lot of optimism for this country. My impressions of the Afghan
people are of course superficial, based on only six months and of mostly those
who work near or with Americans.
Still,
some things are obvious. They’re hard workers and remarkable entrepreneurs. They will open a shop anywhere
there’s a few square feet of available space. Kabul’s streets have hundreds of rusting CONEXes (steel shipping containers) where
one can find something to buy or get repaired. Though unheated and without electricity,
the CONEXes are a bit higher up than the many pushcarts at the bottom of the
economic ladder, and have two important advantages aside from their low cost: they can be securely
locked at night, and they can be picked up and moved somewhere else if a
city official or landowner demands it.
Kabul, though not as devastated in
war as was
Seoul
, can remind one of that city, and
Afghanistan
can easily – or not so easily -- give hope it will also succeed as has Korea
and its bright, industrious people.
Of
course,
Korea
has but one language while Afghanistan
has 47, of which two (Pashto and Dari) predominate. Literacy in
Korea
has always approached 100% while in Afghanistan it is 32%. Though
Korea’s women were important to their country’s rebuilding,
working in shops, factories and even on construction crews, almost none of Afghanistan’s women are permitted to work outside the home.
Koreans are a homogenous
people. Just two names, Kim and Lee, make up 36% of all surnames in
Korea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_name).
Meanwhile
Afghanistan
is made up at least seven ethnic groups (http://www.afghan-network.net/Ethnic-Groups)
who have always competed -- recently, to the death -- for their slice of the
too-small Afghan pie.
Finally,
Korea evolved into a democracy after decades of military rule, often autocratic but
generally in the interest of their people.
Afghanistan
is a new democracy. President Karzai was elected just a half year ago, in late
2004. National assembly elections are scheduled for later this year. This country has a
fragile democracy, and some a little more cynical than me would say that puts it kindly.
Update, 4 January 2015. I watch 60
Minutes, learning that Kabul has been transformed since 2005.
Kabul, Afghanistan
CBS News
Gen. John Campbell: This is a perspective people don't get. Kabul at night
here. The lights.
Lara Logan: When I came into Kabul for the first time with the Afghan forces,
when they took the city from the Taliban in 2001, there wasn't a single light --
Gen. John Campbell: Just take a look at the highway lights.
