Hope remains fragile in Afghanistan

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Winter is upon Afghanistan, which moans people are trying to stave off the bitter cold.

But in a cruel and, some would say, characteristic Afghan irony, winter's harshness may bring a few months of calm and reprieve from what has been a difficult, tense year of violence, bombings and renewed international concerns about this tough, war-battered but still profoundly beautiful country.

I recently returned to Afghanistan for my third visit after a five-year absence and six years after my initial trip in the summer of 2001, when a Danish colleague and I reported on what was then the prominent humanitarian story of the moment--a crippling drought during what proved to be the last months of Taliban rule.

My visit roughly a year after Sept. 11 saw clear changes. Before, even speaking to women was to invite unwelcome risk for all parties, and it was a relief, a year later, to interview women without fear.

Yet despite the welcome, hopeful and humane changes--for women and for young people in particular--Afghanistan still seemed like a tired, unsettled and inchoate place in 2002. It was an open question which way the balance would tilt.

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In rereading what I wrote for NCR in 2002, I am struck by a passage in which I quoted a human rights activist who noted that the country's infrastructure remained depleted and in serious disrepair.

I also noted that the "civil society and central government remain fragile ... threatened by both a lack of strong international support and the continued strength of local warlords and religious fundamentalist."

Unfortunately, that sentence could well have been penned this year: Afghanistan's central government remains weak, and local warlords have, if anything, gained even more power since 2002.

In a recent report, the United Nations Development Program said that while "Afghanistan has made great strides in raising its level of economic prosperity, along with access to health care and education, the needs of many remain unfulfilled." The U.N. report said Afghanistan's "human development index"--which measures such benchmarks as health and education--was the lowest among its neighbors, including Pakistan, and placed the country 174th out of 178 countries. Only four countries in sub-Saharan Africa had lower indicators than Afghanistan.

Taliban find new strength

Moreover, there is a something of an addendum: Fueled by drug money and growing dissatisfaction among rural people about continuing poverty and local corruption, as well as the U.S. and NATO military presence, the Taliban are finding renewed strength. Their growing power as an insurgent force is causing an increased sense of insecurity throughout Afghanistan, though some would say the country's insecurity is a byproduct of being caught in the cross hairs of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

One doesn't have to spend much time in Afghanistan before the mantra of "insecurity, insecurity, insecurity" makes itself felt.

This is not merely the concern of humanitarian workers who must now determine new strategies to move assistance from Point A to Point B, or who, in some cases, have had to abandon projects in rural areas because of threats by the Taliban. (Schools that educate girls have been a particular target.) Their agencies have also found their medical clinics just yards from NATO bombardments.

Rahima Khorosh, who teaches at a Kabul rehabilitation center for children who are recovering from experiences of trauma and violence, told me of three suicide bombings that rocked Kabul in September, one of which killed the daughter of a neighbor. What does this type of violence mean for her own life?

"I don't know what will happen to me when I take my [15-minute] walk to the center," she said of her own fears.

The children in her class spoke less about day-to-day fears and more of their hopes for their country--not merely that Afghanistan might someday have more books and parks (Kabul is notably bereft of greenery and park land) but might also be a place "without war, with peace," "with reconstruction and peace."

Hope hangs by a thread

The hope that life in Afghanistan will improve, however, often hangs by a thread.

At a meeting at the center that had been arranged for me to meet children and parents, one mother suddenly cut through the niceties of polite talk and bitterly declared, "We hate this country and want to leave. There are no jobs here."

The outburst was striking not only because such displays of raw emotion are, in my experience in Afghanistan, rare around foreign visitors. It also pointed to something I sensed from almost the beginning of my recent visit: growing economic inequality was becoming strikingly evident, at least in Kabul.

The streets of Afghanistan's capital city are displaying a wider variety of consumer goods--some of them decidedly high-end--and storefronts are showing surer, and welcome, signs of the pride of ownership.