Friday held the most wonderful coincidence for us. Our guide had been told of some women's conference being held in Kabul that day. Catnip! We headed straight for it first thing in the morning. The Delhi Policy Group was sponsoring a Women's Trialogue, focused on peace and conflict resolution among the women leaders of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Determined to develop mechanisms to build peace with the full participation of women, these dynamic women made my heart both ache and soar.
How many times have you heard that the Indians and Pakistanis don't like each other? Time for some truth in labeling. It turns out that the men with guns in these two countries do not like each other. The two countries are awash in armaments. What else are they going to do with them?!
The women, on the other hand, get along beautifully. And they couldn't hide their enthusiasm for the task at hand: finding a road to peace for all three countries. That's where Richard Holbrook should have been hanging out. He would have learned a lot of useful lessons. But, then, by all accounts, he doesn't talk to the women.
Watching these women work together made me realize that there can be no peace in Afghanistan if women are not at the table in equal force and numbers with the men.
The only tension I noticed was in the insistence of mostly Afghan women to address the Shia Personal Status Law which allows, among other heinous acts, men to rape their wives and take the children if they divorce their wives. The Afghan women just wanted to be heard in their anger and outrage. The Indian leader kept reminding the women that this was a peace conference and there was nothing the women of the other two countries could do about Afghan law or customs. One of the Afghan delegates, Dr. Massouda Jalal, asked if women could contribute to peace without equal rights. A long silence followed.
This extraordinary gathering of women leaders was sponsored by the Heinrich Boll Foundation, a German-based organization named for one of Germany's most famous 20th Century writers. In association with the Green Party, its mission is to promote democracy, civil society, equality and a healthy environment internationally. Why is a German foundation supporting this kind of work and our tax dollars are not?
Dr. Jalal is one of many brave Afghan women we met who, against all odds, is forging a way for women to become engaged in the voting process. She started the Jalal Foundation to teach women in every corner of Afghanistan civic engagement and voting rights. This is the sort of effort our tax money should support yet she receives nothing from any government and runs her operation on a shoe string budget in some of the most dangerous places in Afghanistan--not to be redundant.
We left this inspiring group of women to head for Camp Eggars, an ugly, oppressive-looking, concrete and barbed wire compound in the middle of Kabul, clearly not designed to win friends or influence people in any positive way. I don't know why anyone calls it a military base. It looked like contractor central with a few random soldiers here and there. We entered under the pretext of visiting the camp's bazaar--there really is an Afghan bazaar inside Camp Eggars!
After passing the inspections of at least six "Burham" security guards at the Camp's entrance, we walked through what felt like a bomb-proof rat maze, flashing our passports at various "Blue Hackle" and "Burham" security guards along the way. Once inside, it appeared we had come upon a "Blue Hackle" and "Burhan" security guard convention--too many of them to count, all milling around apparently looking for something to do. Your taxes at work!
The parking lot was loaded with SUV's and huge, menacing MRAPS and Hummers. I could not help but wonder about the collective carbon footprint of these monster gas hogs. Standing next to a monster MRAP, it was pretty clear why the Afghans might not like these things charging around in their already impossible traffic.
Playing cards at the far end of the lot were about ten marines. It didn't take us long to become their new best friends. Guess what they were peeved about. Contractors! What a surprise! For three to four times the pay, contractors do the same or less than the marines. I am just guessing but this sounds like a real morale-crusher to me. I know anecdotes do not prove a thing but I saw significantly more contractors than military personnel. That's a lot of money down the drain. Our money.
We wandered around the surreal bazaar looking for members of the military we could engage. Two particularly interesting ones were women Air Force enlistees who had reenlisted because they had children. "What?" said we! This, they said, is the only way they knew they could guarantee health care for their children and financial support when they went to college. God bless America. My insurance company, Aetna, is so bad it makes joining the military look like a pretty good option!
All of us felt we had unfinished business with the women at the Trialogue so we headed back to the hotel just in time for lunch--not that I was having any of it. There were too many interesting women and too little time before their break was over. And the food was still brown. We left knowing that we would have to return one more time.
The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan was next. Due to the very risky nature of their mission--equal rights for women and peace for Afghanistan are risky business--we not only were unable to meet them at their headquarters, which remains secret, but they did not feel safe giving us their full names. We met them, Weeda, Shaima and Alia, at an orphanage.
Weeda, who was in Kabul during the reign of the Taliban, felt every day may be her last day. Kabul was more modern than the rest of Afghanistan so the Taliban were particularly harsh on the women there. Weeda continued working for RAWA the whole time knowing that were she to be stopped, her bag would be searched and she would be arrested or killed for carrying RAWA information.
Tuesdays were always the worst days for women and the Northern Alliance was worse on them than the Taliban. Presidential Candidate, the Northern Alliance's Abdullah Abdullah, is part of a group that was behind the destruction of Kabul. According to Weeda, he is a very dangerous man, far worse than Karzai. The US, of course, helped fund the Northern Alliance, too. Stop paying attention and that's where your tax money ends up. Is anybody paying attention?
At first, the Afghan women thought the US was there to help bring freedom to women. As they watched the US fund the worst of the worst, their hopes were dashed. If the US continues to support the Northern Alliance--80% of Parliament is comprised of Northern Alliance and Taliban--they want the US out. Right now, they see no difference between Bush and Obama. The more Americans in Afghanistan, the more Taliban members are recruited.
Alia was in her village in Farah Provence (southwest Afghanistan) in September when the US bombed it after being attacked by the Taliban. By the time the US fired back, the Taliban had fled. One hundred civilians were killed. Many of the wounded were sent to Germany and the US to be treated. Many of the survivors joined the Taliban. As the anger and frustration has increased, so has the incidence of rape. Punishment is rare.
Democracy without justice is meaningless. With the blatantly corrupt agent of the US government, Hamid Karzai, in control, justice and democracy for these women are distant fantasies.
We were not able to spend much time at the orphanage; just long enough to see that the children, though in vary cramped quarters, were being as well cared for as the meager means available to them allowed. I could not help wondering if I would live long enough to see a world where children are universally valued.
The last stop of the day was in a bleak, unmarked building in about as shabby a state as a still standing building could be. The Social Association of Afghan Justice Seekers (something may have been lost in the translation), was formed by a brave young woman after she literally stumbled upon a mass grave. Determined to find out who was responsible, she doggedly searched until she discovered that they were victims of the Northern Alliance who were in power before the Taliban. She was able to locate over 500 family members of the victims who then joined her in a demonstration that stirred up enough dust to bring support to her cause from the UN and the EU. Not much but enough to start a Truth and Reconciliation Project which supports women victims of crime. She's not likely to run out of candidates any time soon.
Three women victims were there to tell us their stories, stories most of us will never have to worry about being part of our biography. One lost her husband to the Northern Alliance and her fifteen year-old son was tortured. Another lost most of her extended family. Another, Sedeqa, was a nineteen year-old woman with a prosthesis in place of her right leg. Though dressed in what could only be called rags, she was so composed and forceful, she oozed dignity. When she was three years old, her home was bombed by the Russians. She was badly wounded and languished for several months superficially treated in a Kabul hospital. Someone from the Red Cross found her and sent her to Germany to recover. After seven months, she returned to her family in Kabul. Before she turned five, her home was bombed again. She lost her mother, two brothers and her leg. Her father and other brother have never been the same and can't earn enough money to feed what remains of their family. Sedeqa says she has no life.
We thanked them all for their time and told them how valuable their stories were to our understanding of the Afghan people. We made sure that they understood that the money we gave them was in gratitude for their contribution to that understanding. You would have thought they had just won the lottery. Two of the women donned their burkhas as they walked down the stairs. Sedeqa did not. I watched as she stood on the side of the road, head held high, then limped away, with the sun going down behind her. She turned her head, smiled and waved good-bye. My heart was broken.
Getting my head wrapped around what followed would have been enough of a challenge without having been so sobered by meeting Sedeqa. Surreal does not begin to describe our dinner venue. General Mohammad Humayoon Fawzi, Deputy Defense Minister, heard about the western women and wanted to show us his largess. Many from the same cast of characters with whom we had been dining the previous several nights were there.
"There" was a scene one simply cannot make up. A long, guard-studded driveway led to the heavily guarded entrance. Kalashnikovs appeared to be the accessory of choice. Once searched--rather amateurishly, I have to add--we walked down a concrete tunnel that opened to something akin to a garden, enclosed for the most part by a baby blue cement wall. Down one side of the wall was a walkway and very long birdcage filled mostly and ironically with doves. Looking at the big, burley, loud General Fawzi, an ethnic Uzbek and reportedly member of the Northern Alliance, doves of peace could not have been more incongruous. I was impressed by how well his payraan (top) tumbaan (pants) matched the baby blue walls.
In one corner of the garden was a fake mountainside with a bubbling stream running down it into a singularly ugly square pool. Maybe the shape was was meant to allow the gold lame-covered divans to fit snugly against it. Behind the divans was a sight that really tested my imagination. Could there be a reasonable explanation for the gargantuan baby blue and white concrete throne, topped with an eagle at least twice my height, eyes aglow, wings spread to their fullest extent? It was breathtaking.
To get into the garden, one had to go back to the other end of the birdcage and around the corner. There stood a little archway that led to a very short path and the biggest, freaking statue of a stag I had ever seen. Lying in repose next to the great horned elk, was his adoring doe, her worshipful gaze shining upward toward her hero. Are there even any elks in Afghanistan?
At least a minute passed before the shock wore off and I realized that the path took a sharp right. From there I was drawn into a space surrounded by a watercourse, elevated on metal poles. As I was still grappling with the eagle and elk stag and doe, the watercourse didn't seem so strange by comparison. The lawn was loaded with interesting characters, many from Karzai's government. Off to the side was a table with every kind of alcohol one would never expect to find in a Muslim country and, in the middle, a table full of Afghan food. Much to my regret, I forgot to bring a Cliff Bar.
Inside, the house was what had to be the planet's most perfect example of money, no taste. Suffice it to say, I am reasonably sure that one of the General's investments is in the production of gold lame fabric. Single-handedly he is keeping the industry afloat. Sunglasses would have been helpful. I was so ready for my dingy Guest House #10 bedroom.