From Peshawar to Kabul
Adnan R. Khan is a journalist I met several years ago here in Istanbul (maybe even many years ago? I hate to think it, but it's possible). He's one of those people who ends up in the mental category, "I wonder what happened to him?"
Thanks to Facebook, I now know the answer. He's written about his most recent trip from Kabul to Peshawar in in Macleans. The piece seems to me worthy of attention:
Ten years later, things have changed dramatically. It’s not a transformation many people are talking about, especially considering the recent spate of bad news flowing out of Afghanistan. But the headlines—Quran burnings and violent protests, a murderous rampage carried out by a supposedly unhinged soldier—mask something arguably more monumental: Afghanistan is making progress, while Pakistan is not.
I’ve made the road trip from Kabul to Peshawar and back again dozens of times over the past 10 years. Over that period, I’ve watched the Afghan leg of the trip evolve from a mine-riddled wasteland into a thriving agricultural oasis. Despite the war that is never too distant, the road from Kabul to Towr Kham has remained relatively safe, giving Afghans the peace they so desperately need to rebuild their lives.
The results have been nothing short of remarkable. Travelling this route, with its roadside fish restaurants and teahouses overlooking the lush Kabul River valley, one is transported back to a time when the famed hippie route to India was still alive and well. The hippies are nowhere to be seen now but it’s easy to imagine why they loved coming through here: it exudes an aura of inner peace and vitality.
He's right to say that this isn't the image that's been making the headlines. Yet it should be, shouldn't it?
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Comments:
Apr '11
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
Thanks for this story. Over the years I have often wondered if any actual good ever came from the work we did ten years ago. The daily headlines were not encouraging. I've forwarded this story to a former colleague, now with the UN in Sudan, figuring he'd enjoy it if for no other reason than he once had to take one of those jitney-buses from Peshawar down to Islamabad. It was a ride he never forgot.
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
From this piece, it's impossible to say whether this is a consequence or despite that work--or whether it has nothing to do with it. But I find it astonishing that so few journalists are doing what he's doing. Or to be more precise, that so few Western media outlets are publishing this kind of journalism.
Oct '10
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
I also have made the trip between Kabul and Peshawar dozens of times. I had offices in both cities from 1998 to 2005. It is indeed remarkable how things have changed. When the Taliban were in charge nothing, but absolutely nothing, improved. All the progress has happened since 2001. Most people think of Afghanistan as the bombed out Kabul pictures that the evening news ran for years.
I took this picture in the Istollif Valley, in April 2004. This is only 50 km or so from Kabul.
My guess is that once the US pulls completely out, the Taliban will take power again, and the beauty and progress will end.
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
There are two parts to this story, as he's telling it. There's the progress in Afghanistan and the destabilization of Pakistan. If I'm correctly understanding his point, he's suggesting the first was purchased at the expense of the second.
Does that seem correct to you?
Oct '10
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
Purchased in the sense of US aid being applied, yes. Remember that the Taliban are actually a creation of the Pakistani Pashtun people and started in Quetta, in Baluchistan, Pakistan. The Pakistani ISI, their military intelligence, fanned the flames and financed the effort. Although a democratic [sic] government, Pakistan has heavy Islamist power and the Taliban is their problem now. They started it to keep Afghanistan unstable after the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989. Then the war between the Mujaheddin warlords, including the Taliban faction who took power in 1996.
The Pakistani plan worked, but as with many clever ideas for destabilizing a neighboring country, it planted the seeds in it's own soil as well.
Pakistan will be a real problem in the future, but Afghanistan will not improve once the US pulls out.
Apr '11
Re: From Peshawar to Kabul
Claire Berlinski, Ed.
From this piece, it's impossible to say whether this is a consequence or despite that work--or whether it has nothing to do with it. But I find it astonishing that so few journalists are doing what he's doing. Or to be more precise, that so few Western media outlets are publishing this kind of journalism.
Well, here's what I know. When the UN ended the Herc operation in June of 2002, one million of the three million people who'd fled Afghanistan during the Russian War had already returned. This caused something of a "mini-recession" in Peshawar as the Afghani rug dealers packed up and went home to Kandahar. So I'd like to think the improvement described on the Afghan side of the border was a kind of positive side-effect of that return.
Following Raycon's photographic lead: Most people have seen pictures of the Bamiyan and the rubble of the big Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban. But if you turn around and look the other way, this is what Bamiyan looks like.