As a 'Pakistani' Pilgrim in Aghanistan
Stephen McCutcheon
January 24, 2007
Tuesday 03rd March 2005 - Afghanistan Part I
The Afghanistan embassy wasn’t far from the tourist Inn where I was staying in Peshawar. I’d been told visas were easily issued and they were, more or less. After the High Commissioner had quizzed me about why I wanted to go, the embassy sent me on a whole heap of errands. They first needed a bank draft for $30 US of course, so it was off to the Union Bank who sent me to the money changer, then back to the bank, then to the bank officer, visa officer who told me to come back at 1pm. The visa was ready the same day.
Just on the Pakistan/Afghan border splitting the mountainous Suliaman range the Khyber pass is one of the most exciting and historical passes in the world. It’s been the most important invasion route from Central Asia to India for thousands of years for the conquering armies of Alexander the Great, the Persians and Moguls in their conquest of the subcontinent. During the entire 19th Century the Khyber Pass was the main invasion route for the then powerful Russian Empire that was threatening British India. Afghanistan played a major part in the Great Game that acted as a ‘buffer’ state between the two empires and Britain actually invaded Afghanistan twice when they thought it was coming under Russian influence. The Khyber Pass lies in Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas – a lawless region which is only governed marginally by Pakistan and ruled mainly by tribal law. Many Al-Queda fighters took shelter here after the December 2001 bombings of Torra Borra in Afghanistan. The region is also quite unstable on the Afghan side due to the poppy eradication scheme sponsored by the US.
Although no foreigner has ever been killed, the Pakistan Government “requires you to take a permit and an armed escort (which wasn’t the kind of escort I had been hoping for), for travel to the Khyber Pass. Foreigners are also ‘encouraged’ to take a hired car provided of course by the Pakistan Tourism Agency since this is the “only way to the top.”
After some investigation I found out that Pakistan doesn’t require you to have an armed escort if you are returning from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Not only that after having lunch with a government official (working with the tourism dept), you can get away without taking an armed guard if you’re going all the way into Afghanistan and not sight seeing at the top. I would still need a permit though. There was also a local bus service from the Rose hotel on Khyber Bazaar. So on Saturday 26th February with permit in hand I jumped on a crowded wagon bound for Afghanistan. I was dressed in full Shalwar Kameej with a Chitralee hat, video camera stuffed in an old rucksack I’d just bought for 3 quid from the bazaar and my cameras, clothing etc... were in a tacky Chinese bag from Lahore. The same official I’d spoken with the day before had advised me not to speak all the way to the border. I didn’t need any further encouragement as I sat at the back of the Toyota Hilux.
Schwar Kamij (Pakistan national dress) = full long sleeved cotton shirt from neck to knee covering loose fitting bottoms.
We set out on a clear patch of dual carriageway heading out of Peshawar which quickly deteriorated into bumpy gravelly road till the border. After passing through the relaxing environment of ‘Smuggler’s Bazaar,’ we approached the checkpoint at Jamud Fort where Pakistan ends and the tribal region began. The guard just glanced in at the windows and waved at the driver as we passed through and under the stone archway welcoming you to the “Khyber Pass.” The road stretching ahead was suddenly dominated by the Suliaman Ranges that had formed the remote NW border of the British Empire for 150 yrs. The area is still wild, arms are everywhere and people seem pretty much to do as they want. I am not sure if they seemed wilder just because I expected them to be. The road soon began winding its way over the mountains towards the Pakistan border at Torkamabad. Everywhere I looked were monuments to war, whether British Forts or the gravestones of British Army Officers who’d died in previous Afghan wars – Afghanistan eventually won it’s independence from Britain in 1919. Although I did look, I missed the giant fortified home of Ayub Afridi, a drug smuggler so rich he’s reputed to have offered to pay off Pakistan’s foreign debt if charges against him are lifted. He’s Pakistan’s most famous drugs baron and is apparently on the CIA’s most wanted list.
After two hours we reached the last Pakistan outpost before the Afghan border at Torkhamabad. I didn’t really know what to expect. The place was a mad blend of shepherds, smugglers (sorry… lorry drivers), and mean looking tribal men all milling around doing something. The main street of Torkham runs all the way into Afghanistan and is lined by bakeries, vegetable shops, grocery stores and customs offices. Although I’d sat quietly on the bus those 2 hrs my cover was blown when a small boy came to offer to carry my bags and a former passenger said “he’s foreign, no Pashto.” Not wanting to argue I agreed to the urchin putting my bags on his wooden ‘trolley,’ and we set off to customs which was an indiscreet building set away from the main road. Compared to the hub-bub of the 19th commerce outside the customs cabin was like a stock exchange. Flat screen computers glared in the dark (after another power cut), and illuminated digital cameras swayed like poppies on poles on desks. One custom’s official demanded to know where my guard was to which I replied “Yes I’m going to Afghanistan” and he didn’t raise the issue further. The kid was still waiting outside and we soon left customs and crossed the border into Afghanistan. He must have been the coolest kid I’d ever met and should have had a fat cigar in his mouse and a busty woman on his arm for the mature way he tried to act.
I didn’t actually realize that we’d crossed the border at first. The is no gate apart from a few policeman loafing around checking the odd passport when they aren’t on a ‘break.’ However Toyota drivers were soon jumping around shouting “hello, hello, you want ride, only $10.” Bugsy Mallone had started shouting down the street “an angreji is coming” acting as a magnet to every bored looking Toyota driver for a mile down the road so I surprisingly took my leave of him.
From the border I caught a bus straight to Kabul. I( was sat in the middle so that I could keep my ‘camera bag’ under my sear. My pleasurable cultured companions on this voyage were quiet hashish addicted uncertain man on my left, dirty drug baron on my right and his equally druggy mate by the window. Drug baron was the most civilized of the group as he continued hawking and spitting on the bus floor for much of the journey. Then a beggar boy made the wise decision of selling drug baron and his mate sugar cane sticks, which he then proceeded to chomp through like a cow and spit the remains in a heap on the floor – nice. Then all three had a good old hashish session by breaking off tiny pieces from a huge wad they each had in their pockets. As they popped them into their mouths, they slid slowly back in the chairs as their eyes glazed over.
For me, the Khyber Pass was only as significant as its history. Geographically it was nice to look at but absolutely nothing compared to the road from Torkham to Kabul. The first city before Kabul was Jalalabad, a dusty city that was conquered several times by the British during the Great deteriorated into a track. But one of the things I really noticed was the devastation. People crept along in the shadows between ruin after ruin and what homes did remain were like castles. Afghanistan is suffering a drought in many parts of the country and there was no sign of greenery anywhere.
You no problems in Afghanistan.”
For the first two and a half hours I sat quietly not wanting to draw undue attention to myself on the road to Kabul. I mean after all… this is Afghanistan. But then after a while drug baron was soon staring at me hard and kept asking me in Urdu where I was from. In the end I just told him and he said “you no problems in Afghanistan.” In fact the whole bus was more or less Pashtuns traveling from Pakistan on business and I needn’t have had any worries. Drug lord was a soap importer/exporter and also sometimes guided Japanese tourists into Afghanistan.
The Afghan national dish is called ‘Kabuli Palau,’ a mixture of Palau rice, carrots and raisins with the leg of a whole cow inside – an exciting surprise for any vegetarian. The restaurant we stopped in for lunch was a dusty log cabin in a small village a few hours from Kabul. Afghans traditionally sit cross-legged on the floor eating with their right hand. Rice is served with a good old cup of meat juice and a ‘salad’ of meat balls, beans and gravy. As one local wandered in with a rooster under his arm, one of the restaurant’s slightly strange staff started plucking it on the back and clucking at it…
The road to Kabul then became one of the most impressive, marvelous journeys I’d ever been on. Kabul river gorge cuts through the remaining mountains to Kabul where the road is simply and engineering marvel. Originally built by the Mogul Emperor Sher Shah Suri in the 16th Century the road still commands respect. It hugs the sheer sides of precipice cliffs that disappear up hideously vaulted peaks that just high above the road. They are so high, you can’t see them even if you strain to look from the bus’ window. For whole sections the road just appears to be part of the cliff. Giant buttressing walls descend below the road to the tiny ribbon of a river and huge concrete structures with 3m thick walls cover stretches of roadway. Each structure has already been almost lost to avalanches of scree threatening to engulf the road.
The snow capped mountains that followed us from Peshawar continued until we reached the rocky plain of Kabul. My first impression was of a giant fortified workshop. It was grey and drizzling and locals were hunkered down wound broken cars and bits of airplane. Welcome to the ‘Ariana Graveyard,’ so called because of the damage caused to Bagram airport during the ’91 to ’96 Mujaheddin wars.
I didn’t get much chance to see the city that first ay as I was intent on finding a hotel. It wasn’t something I’d been looking forward to and this turned out to be correct. Kabul has a reputation as an expensive city for travelers and almost every hotel I checked turned out to be over $20. Nothing was priced in Afghanis since foreigners here apparently can’t cope with the conversion. I tried numerous tactics to get a room by pretending to be a prestigious freelance travel writer and even a Pakistan Pilgrim – which almost worked in one Pakistani run hotel until the owner interrupted the conversation with suspicious questions. Eventually, I persuaded the ‘Park’ to give me a room for $12.50 a night which is still incredible - even since that day the best I could find was a room for $10 at the Pappa Salis in Shahre Nau. My first impression of Kabul that night was of a hectic people in a city making a fresh beginning which I’d still hold true.
My first day in Kabul had a beautifully clear blue sky and the surrounding mountains stood crisp against it. Behind the hotel medieval homes ascended up
TV tower hill which is one of the most exciting things in Kabul. Never in a million years would I have expected such tradition in the capital city of a country. Twenty three years of war has stymied progress to the extent that lots of things have never changed.
Just before dawn the cockerels hadn’t begun their annoying crowing and it was bloody cold. Kabul was just beginning to stir beneath me in their incredibly old style mud-brick homes that tippling into each other down the hillside. Donkeys were still slumbering in their yards as I clambered up slippy mud alleyways clutching at handholds in the frozen snow. Many of the homes just seem to grow out of the mountain and the giant boulders that litter the colony forming a choppy series of steps into the city.
I eventually burst out of soil city into the blinding light of a clear day. The roosters were now in full swing (wish I had my shotgun), and strangely European children were playing around. I’d somehow got myself stranded in the middle of a snowfield, but the view of the fresh face of Kabul was amazing. Kabul is really just a large castle-like construction site surrounded by piercing white mountains. They are the Hindu Kush and Kabul was breathtaking. Afghanistan has that same bleak feeling here that Tibet had. Both countries share a mountainous and dry climate and are famous for mineral exports. The city itself is a bit of a mess. Although not as bad as it used to be, whole sections are still laid to waste after over twenty years of fighting. Broad muddy avenues are lined by squat buildings that look almost Soviet. The whole city is set out like a grid sprawling itself along the Kabul river to settle in several hollows between the nearby mountains. Yet beneath the surface the place pulses with a new life. Imported cars clog the roads more and more every year. Businesses now operate everywhere, cinemas have reopened (after the Taliban blew half of them up) and culture is once again alive. Construction is going up slowly but it doesn’t seem much after nearly 4 years of freedom. The people have to develop before the country can.
The past…
Kabul has long been “the crossroads of Asia” as most books term it. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and the Mogul empire all dominated Afghanistan over the past 2000 years. After two wars with Britain in the 19th Century the country won it’s independence in 1919 when Britain bombarded Jalalabad and Kabul from the air. Zahir then remained king from the thirties until 1973. However from 1978 Afghanistan remained in an almost total state of permanent war. In 1980 the Soviets attacked with 100,000 troops stationed in the country at the height of the war. After they left in 1989 the Mujaheddin alliance broke down and bitter infighting began for control of Kabul.
A ‘talib’ is a religious student and in 1994 the ‘Taliban’ emerged as a united force. They quickly swept to power across much of the country surprising even their chief backers, Pakistan (who provided many of their fighters). The Taliban’s popularity quickly waned though as their sole purpose emerged to dominate the country under a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Although the ‘Lion of Panjshir,’ Ahmed Shah Masud was the Taliban’s greatest enemy during most of their reign, it was of course the Americans who toppled them in just over a month in operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in 2001. During their reign of terror the Taliban instituted draconian law:
Taliban law:
Watch TV – you will be shot
Women - completely banned from anything or anywhere full stop
Nail Polish – God forbid!
And of course make sure you are never caught with an item made from human hair!
Afghani people are in many ways a reflection of their environment; harsh, tough and practical. They have an incredible sense of humour that often goes too far, but in this environment there’s no moping around. Everybody is surprisingly mixed. Pashtun people make-up most of the population and come from East and South Afghanistan. They were the ones that principally gave the British trouble in the 19th Century and the ones that formed the basis for the Taliban movement. But Afghanistan is basically bits and pieces of all the surrounding countries even including the Hazaras - who were left over from when Genghis Khan invaded! There is that same feeling of Islamic brotherhood that I felt in Pakistan and Bangladesh. I’ve never really seen a fight in Afghanistan or anywhere in the Subcontinent. People share a common sense of humour and life is fun rather than a chore.
Everybody in Afghanistan eats meat and vegetarians (I’ve yet to meet one!). You can eat meat kebabs from one of a million restaurants outside on the street, or there is rice and meat, meat fat stew, meat soup… oh yes and then my favourite whole roasted sheep’s head.
Begging in India is a gruesome affair. Beggars lie with dismembered limbs hanging off their bodies, Polo victims moan from the side of the street and poor people live everywhere. Yet in Afghanistan begging is giving a new meaning. It’s an art form here. In Islamic society a devout Muslim is supposed to give a portion of his earning as ‘zakat’ to the poor and people make full use of that fact here. Welcome again to the land of “hello dollar.” Women fully clothed in Burqa chase you down the street screeching “Baksheesh, give me baksheesh.” But that’s not where it ends. At traffic lights, restaurants, parks and any public place beggars will approach you. Beggars from dragnets down roads in rich areas of town where they shout through open windows. Beggars even have their own rounds where they call off the street into private restaurants and then make a circuit of all the people inside. Everyone in Afghanistan is in the same boat so nobody really minds as yet and it’s nowhere near as bad as those in beggars in Delhi. Everybody is out to make money. Boys and girls sell a few packets of chewing gum, matches or clean shoes (which is a waste of time on these muddy streets). They will only when they have made a good day’s wage.
For 20 years people don’t work very good. Kabul had a holiday for twenty years.”
Rohid, Esmatullah Restaurant
Kabul is different to the other cities of Afghanistan. It’s always been more of a cosmopolitan place than the rest of the country which is even more traditional. Although change is in the wind, most women still walk in public wearing the full Burqa with only a mesh to see through. Changed is slow and attitudes remain hard to change – even after four years.
The Afghanistan embassy wasn’t far from the tourist Inn where I was staying in Peshawar. I’d been told visas were easily issued and they were, more or less. After the High Commissioner had quizzed me about why I wanted to go, the embassy sent me on a whole heap of errands. They first needed a bank draft for $30 US of course, so it was off to the Union Bank who sent me to the money changer, then back to the bank, then to the bank officer, visa officer who told me to come back at 1pm. The visa was ready the same day.
Just on the Pakistan/Afghan border splitting the mountainous Suliaman range the Khyber pass is one of the most exciting and historical passes in the world. It’s been the most important invasion route from Central Asia to India for thousands of years for the conquering armies of Alexander the Great, the Persians and Moguls in their conquest of the subcontinent. During the entire 19th Century the Khyber Pass was the main invasion route for the then powerful Russian Empire that was threatening British India. Afghanistan played a major part in the Great Game that acted as a ‘buffer’ state between the two empires and Britain actually invaded Afghanistan twice when they thought it was coming under Russian influence. The Khyber Pass lies in Pakistan’s Federally Administrated Tribal Areas – a lawless region which is only governed marginally by Pakistan and ruled mainly by tribal law. Many Al-Queda fighters took shelter here after the December 2001 bombings of Torra Borra in Afghanistan. The region is also quite unstable on the Afghan side due to the poppy eradication scheme sponsored by the US.
Although no foreigner has ever been killed, the Pakistan Government “requires you to take a permit and an armed escort (which wasn’t the kind of escort I had been hoping for), for travel to the Khyber Pass. Foreigners are also ‘encouraged’ to take a hired car provided of course by the Pakistan Tourism Agency since this is the “only way to the top.”
After some investigation I found out that Pakistan doesn’t require you to have an armed escort if you are returning from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Not only that after having lunch with a government official (working with the tourism dept), you can get away without taking an armed guard if you’re going all the way into Afghanistan and not sight seeing at the top. I would still need a permit though. There was also a local bus service from the Rose hotel on Khyber Bazaar. So on Saturday 26th February with permit in hand I jumped on a crowded wagon bound for Afghanistan. I was dressed in full Shalwar Kameej with a Chitralee hat, video camera stuffed in an old rucksack I’d just bought for 3 quid from the bazaar and my cameras, clothing etc... were in a tacky Chinese bag from Lahore. The same official I’d spoken with the day before had advised me not to speak all the way to the border. I didn’t need any further encouragement as I sat at the back of the Toyota Hilux.
Schwar Kamij (Pakistan national dress) = full long sleeved cotton shirt from neck to knee covering loose fitting bottoms.
We set out on a clear patch of dual carriageway heading out of Peshawar which quickly deteriorated into bumpy gravelly road till the border. After passing through the relaxing environment of ‘Smuggler’s Bazaar,’ we approached the checkpoint at Jamud Fort where Pakistan ends and the tribal region began. The guard just glanced in at the windows and waved at the driver as we passed through and under the stone archway welcoming you to the “Khyber Pass.” The road stretching ahead was suddenly dominated by the Suliaman Ranges that had formed the remote NW border of the British Empire for 150 yrs. The area is still wild, arms are everywhere and people seem pretty much to do as they want. I am not sure if they seemed wilder just because I expected them to be. The road soon began winding its way over the mountains towards the Pakistan border at Torkamabad. Everywhere I looked were monuments to war, whether British Forts or the gravestones of British Army Officers who’d died in previous Afghan wars – Afghanistan eventually won it’s independence from Britain in 1919. Although I did look, I missed the giant fortified home of Ayub Afridi, a drug smuggler so rich he’s reputed to have offered to pay off Pakistan’s foreign debt if charges against him are lifted. He’s Pakistan’s most famous drugs baron and is apparently on the CIA’s most wanted list.
After two hours we reached the last Pakistan outpost before the Afghan border at Torkhamabad. I didn’t really know what to expect. The place was a mad blend of shepherds, smugglers (sorry… lorry drivers), and mean looking tribal men all milling around doing something. The main street of Torkham runs all the way into Afghanistan and is lined by bakeries, vegetable shops, grocery stores and customs offices. Although I’d sat quietly on the bus those 2 hrs my cover was blown when a small boy came to offer to carry my bags and a former passenger said “he’s foreign, no Pashto.” Not wanting to argue I agreed to the urchin putting my bags on his wooden ‘trolley,’ and we set off to customs which was an indiscreet building set away from the main road. Compared to the hub-bub of the 19th commerce outside the customs cabin was like a stock exchange. Flat screen computers glared in the dark (after another power cut), and illuminated digital cameras swayed like poppies on poles on desks. One custom’s official demanded to know where my guard was to which I replied “Yes I’m going to Afghanistan” and he didn’t raise the issue further. The kid was still waiting outside and we soon left customs and crossed the border into Afghanistan. He must have been the coolest kid I’d ever met and should have had a fat cigar in his mouse and a busty woman on his arm for the mature way he tried to act.
I didn’t actually realize that we’d crossed the border at first. The is no gate apart from a few policeman loafing around checking the odd passport when they aren’t on a ‘break.’ However Toyota drivers were soon jumping around shouting “hello, hello, you want ride, only $10.” Bugsy Mallone had started shouting down the street “an angreji is coming” acting as a magnet to every bored looking Toyota driver for a mile down the road so I surprisingly took my leave of him.
From the border I caught a bus straight to Kabul. I( was sat in the middle so that I could keep my ‘camera bag’ under my sear. My pleasurable cultured companions on this voyage were quiet hashish addicted uncertain man on my left, dirty drug baron on my right and his equally druggy mate by the window. Drug baron was the most civilized of the group as he continued hawking and spitting on the bus floor for much of the journey. Then a beggar boy made the wise decision of selling drug baron and his mate sugar cane sticks, which he then proceeded to chomp through like a cow and spit the remains in a heap on the floor – nice. Then all three had a good old hashish session by breaking off tiny pieces from a huge wad they each had in their pockets. As they popped them into their mouths, they slid slowly back in the chairs as their eyes glazed over.
For me, the Khyber Pass was only as significant as its history. Geographically it was nice to look at but absolutely nothing compared to the road from Torkham to Kabul. The first city before Kabul was Jalalabad, a dusty city that was conquered several times by the British during the Great deteriorated into a track. But one of the things I really noticed was the devastation. People crept along in the shadows between ruin after ruin and what homes did remain were like castles. Afghanistan is suffering a drought in many parts of the country and there was no sign of greenery anywhere.
You no problems in Afghanistan.”
For the first two and a half hours I sat quietly not wanting to draw undue attention to myself on the road to Kabul. I mean after all… this is Afghanistan. But then after a while drug baron was soon staring at me hard and kept asking me in Urdu where I was from. In the end I just told him and he said “you no problems in Afghanistan.” In fact the whole bus was more or less Pashtuns traveling from Pakistan on business and I needn’t have had any worries. Drug lord was a soap importer/exporter and also sometimes guided Japanese tourists into Afghanistan.
The Afghan national dish is called ‘Kabuli Palau,’ a mixture of Palau rice, carrots and raisins with the leg of a whole cow inside – an exciting surprise for any vegetarian. The restaurant we stopped in for lunch was a dusty log cabin in a small village a few hours from Kabul. Afghans traditionally sit cross-legged on the floor eating with their right hand. Rice is served with a good old cup of meat juice and a ‘salad’ of meat balls, beans and gravy. As one local wandered in with a rooster under his arm, one of the restaurant’s slightly strange staff started plucking it on the back and clucking at it…
The road to Kabul then became one of the most impressive, marvelous journeys I’d ever been on. Kabul river gorge cuts through the remaining mountains to Kabul where the road is simply and engineering marvel. Originally built by the Mogul Emperor Sher Shah Suri in the 16th Century the road still commands respect. It hugs the sheer sides of precipice cliffs that disappear up hideously vaulted peaks that just high above the road. They are so high, you can’t see them even if you strain to look from the bus’ window. For whole sections the road just appears to be part of the cliff. Giant buttressing walls descend below the road to the tiny ribbon of a river and huge concrete structures with 3m thick walls cover stretches of roadway. Each structure has already been almost lost to avalanches of scree threatening to engulf the road.
The snow capped mountains that followed us from Peshawar continued until we reached the rocky plain of Kabul. My first impression was of a giant fortified workshop. It was grey and drizzling and locals were hunkered down wound broken cars and bits of airplane. Welcome to the ‘Ariana Graveyard,’ so called because of the damage caused to Bagram airport during the ’91 to ’96 Mujaheddin wars.
I didn’t get much chance to see the city that first ay as I was intent on finding a hotel. It wasn’t something I’d been looking forward to and this turned out to be correct. Kabul has a reputation as an expensive city for travelers and almost every hotel I checked turned out to be over $20. Nothing was priced in Afghanis since foreigners here apparently can’t cope with the conversion. I tried numerous tactics to get a room by pretending to be a prestigious freelance travel writer and even a Pakistan Pilgrim – which almost worked in one Pakistani run hotel until the owner interrupted the conversation with suspicious questions. Eventually, I persuaded the ‘Park’ to give me a room for $12.50 a night which is still incredible - even since that day the best I could find was a room for $10 at the Pappa Salis in Shahre Nau. My first impression of Kabul that night was of a hectic people in a city making a fresh beginning which I’d still hold true.
My first day in Kabul had a beautifully clear blue sky and the surrounding mountains stood crisp against it. Behind the hotel medieval homes ascended up
TV tower hill which is one of the most exciting things in Kabul. Never in a million years would I have expected such tradition in the capital city of a country. Twenty three years of war has stymied progress to the extent that lots of things have never changed.
Just before dawn the cockerels hadn’t begun their annoying crowing and it was bloody cold. Kabul was just beginning to stir beneath me in their incredibly old style mud-brick homes that tippling into each other down the hillside. Donkeys were still slumbering in their yards as I clambered up slippy mud alleyways clutching at handholds in the frozen snow. Many of the homes just seem to grow out of the mountain and the giant boulders that litter the colony forming a choppy series of steps into the city.
I eventually burst out of soil city into the blinding light of a clear day. The roosters were now in full swing (wish I had my shotgun), and strangely European children were playing around. I’d somehow got myself stranded in the middle of a snowfield, but the view of the fresh face of Kabul was amazing. Kabul is really just a large castle-like construction site surrounded by piercing white mountains. They are the Hindu Kush and Kabul was breathtaking. Afghanistan has that same bleak feeling here that Tibet had. Both countries share a mountainous and dry climate and are famous for mineral exports. The city itself is a bit of a mess. Although not as bad as it used to be, whole sections are still laid to waste after over twenty years of fighting. Broad muddy avenues are lined by squat buildings that look almost Soviet. The whole city is set out like a grid sprawling itself along the Kabul river to settle in several hollows between the nearby mountains. Yet beneath the surface the place pulses with a new life. Imported cars clog the roads more and more every year. Businesses now operate everywhere, cinemas have reopened (after the Taliban blew half of them up) and culture is once again alive. Construction is going up slowly but it doesn’t seem much after nearly 4 years of freedom. The people have to develop before the country can.
The past…
Kabul has long been “the crossroads of Asia” as most books term it. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan and the Mogul empire all dominated Afghanistan over the past 2000 years. After two wars with Britain in the 19th Century the country won it’s independence in 1919 when Britain bombarded Jalalabad and Kabul from the air. Zahir then remained king from the thirties until 1973. However from 1978 Afghanistan remained in an almost total state of permanent war. In 1980 the Soviets attacked with 100,000 troops stationed in the country at the height of the war. After they left in 1989 the Mujaheddin alliance broke down and bitter infighting began for control of Kabul.
A ‘talib’ is a religious student and in 1994 the ‘Taliban’ emerged as a united force. They quickly swept to power across much of the country surprising even their chief backers, Pakistan (who provided many of their fighters). The Taliban’s popularity quickly waned though as their sole purpose emerged to dominate the country under a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Although the ‘Lion of Panjshir,’ Ahmed Shah Masud was the Taliban’s greatest enemy during most of their reign, it was of course the Americans who toppled them in just over a month in operation ‘Enduring Freedom’ in 2001. During their reign of terror the Taliban instituted draconian law:
Taliban law:
Watch TV – you will be shot
Women - completely banned from anything or anywhere full stop
Nail Polish – God forbid!
And of course make sure you are never caught with an item made from human hair!
Afghani people are in many ways a reflection of their environment; harsh, tough and practical. They have an incredible sense of humour that often goes too far, but in this environment there’s no moping around. Everybody is surprisingly mixed. Pashtun people make-up most of the population and come from East and South Afghanistan. They were the ones that principally gave the British trouble in the 19th Century and the ones that formed the basis for the Taliban movement. But Afghanistan is basically bits and pieces of all the surrounding countries even including the Hazaras - who were left over from when Genghis Khan invaded! There is that same feeling of Islamic brotherhood that I felt in Pakistan and Bangladesh. I’ve never really seen a fight in Afghanistan or anywhere in the Subcontinent. People share a common sense of humour and life is fun rather than a chore.
Everybody in Afghanistan eats meat and vegetarians (I’ve yet to meet one!). You can eat meat kebabs from one of a million restaurants outside on the street, or there is rice and meat, meat fat stew, meat soup… oh yes and then my favourite whole roasted sheep’s head.
Begging in India is a gruesome affair. Beggars lie with dismembered limbs hanging off their bodies, Polo victims moan from the side of the street and poor people live everywhere. Yet in Afghanistan begging is giving a new meaning. It’s an art form here. In Islamic society a devout Muslim is supposed to give a portion of his earning as ‘zakat’ to the poor and people make full use of that fact here. Welcome again to the land of “hello dollar.” Women fully clothed in Burqa chase you down the street screeching “Baksheesh, give me baksheesh.” But that’s not where it ends. At traffic lights, restaurants, parks and any public place beggars will approach you. Beggars from dragnets down roads in rich areas of town where they shout through open windows. Beggars even have their own rounds where they call off the street into private restaurants and then make a circuit of all the people inside. Everyone in Afghanistan is in the same boat so nobody really minds as yet and it’s nowhere near as bad as those in beggars in Delhi. Everybody is out to make money. Boys and girls sell a few packets of chewing gum, matches or clean shoes (which is a waste of time on these muddy streets). They will only when they have made a good day’s wage.
For 20 years people don’t work very good. Kabul had a holiday for twenty years.”
Rohid, Esmatullah Restaurant
Kabul is different to the other cities of Afghanistan. It’s always been more of a cosmopolitan place than the rest of the country which is even more traditional. Although change is in the wind, most women still walk in public wearing the full Burqa with only a mesh to see through. Changed is slow and attitudes remain hard to change – even after four years.