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Interview of Kabul Press with M. Amin Wahidi Director and producer of THE PERSIAN DINNER (movie) 2015

Editorial Staff — 2015-06-13T13:10:38Z

Kabul Press is the official media partner of the independent movie, THE PERSIAN DINNER 2015. THE PERSIAN DINNER will be released in September in Italy. It is the debut feature film by the Hazara film director Amin Wahidi. Before this film, Amin Wahidi has made five short films including L'OSPITE/THE GUEST that won VENICE CITY AWARD 2014 last year during Venice International Film Festival.

Kabul Press^? did this interview with Amin Wahidi on his new film in Italy THE PERSIAN DINNER 2015.

Kabul Press: With your new film THE PERSIAN DINNER, what message do you want to transform to the viewers?
Amin Wahidi: Well, first of all, thanks a lot for this interview. In Dari we have a good proverb that says, “A perfume scents by itself and doesn't need perfumer's explanation”, so the same case is with a piece of art or literary work. Based on this saying, I believe if there is a message, my film itself should transform, so I don't want to say about it now. I also consider myself a story teller, so, I don't make a lot of efforts on how strongly transform messages through my films, but I do my best to tell a story and let the viewers have the space of thinking about it, even after they leave the movie theatre.
So, saying this, I would only recommend the Kabul Press readers to watch THE PERSIAN DINNER when it will be released in the movie theatres.

Kabul Press: So you mean, you are not a film director who uses symbols and metaphors in his works?
Amin Wahidi: Not really, or at least, not in my last two works. In a couple of my first short films, I was very precise and did all the shootings frame by frame by the help of storyboard, it was from 2003- 2007 but then I discovered a new style of making films, where one can leave a lot of space and freedom for improvisation and for what really happens on real time on the set. Thus now I have totally changed my point of view about cinema and way of making films. Also because, the language of films nowadays are much more different than a few years back, therefore the style of how to make films influences the language of a film.

And since I discovered myself, not to be a filmmaker of millimeteric frame by frame accuracy, I find myself easier when there is improvisation that relies on what is going on at that moment on the set, because as a person I am a bit disordered when doing my things and most of the time when filming I enjoy letting things in disorder or letting things go the way they go. Partly, may be, doing independent films has forced me becoming this way. Because when you do independent films, you are supposed to be very creative, active, a quick decision maker, which sometimes can have negative effects as well on the final result of your product. Mostly I use the real locations as the sets of my short films, this way; the result is very realistic as well as economic.

Kabul Press: Could you tell us, what exactly is The Persian Dinner about?
Amin Wahidi: Well, The Persian Dinner is a film about social classes, integration, racism, friendship, Expo, corruption, love, hate, betrayal and more than all, it is about the clashes between the old and the new generation of Italian society, nowadays.

Kabul Press: Could you explain it better, the influences of independent films on director's creativity?
Amin Wahidi: Well, the short films I made so far are all low-budget ones, which are mostly auto-financed or are made by the help of my friends. In this case, you have to be very fast, clever, full of contacts and creative. For instance, first, if you don't have enough equipments, you just borrow them from your friends and add their names in the credit titles of the film, then you do your best, not to pay for locations to reduce the costs, and if you do find actors who take part in the film without being paid, then it is fantastic. In the case of THE PERSIAN DINNER, most of the actors are professionals but none are paid, because they liked the project and took part in it on honorary basis for which I am grateful.

Then remain only transportation expenses, and the meal which is usually sandwiches on the set, and a place to stay.
For costumes as well, we did our best to utilize the actor's own costumes, this way, you save a lot on costs. And if you find people who work with you on honorary basis for post production as well, then, your film is a really very low budget.

Kabul Press: What is in THE PERSIAN DINNER that makes it unique?
Amin Wahidi: Well, good question! First, it is the story of THE PERSIAN DINNER that makes it unique, because it is very simple story at the same time, it has its complexity. Then the cast is extraordinary and the crew is exceptional. So, there was a lot of positive energy behind this project and obviously the final outcome is wonderful. The way, we've shot it, with a documentary style of camera on shoulder, we take the viewers into the core of the story and as closest as possible with the characters of the film so that they feel themselves within what is happening there; in other words, with the style of shooting, we let the viewers participate very intimately in what is going on in the story, whether there are tensions or relaxation and happiness. I could consider it a kind of neo-realism work as well in which everything is taking place in real places and real time, only the difference that we have professional actors. The overall rhythm of the film is very dynamic. I think it'll be a heart-throbbing film. It is a social drama.

The story takes place, just in less than twenty four hours and the story line is simple; triangle of a family relationship; a father, a son and a grandmother as a main thread of storyline. While there are a couple of other triangles of relationships that help the story go on. The location is a social center in Milan.
Kabul Press: What is the duration of THE PERSIAN DINNER and how long did it take you to shoot it?

Amin Wahidi: It is a feature length film, actually my first feature film and the running time is 105 minutes. Being an independent low-budget film, the project faced with a lot of problems and it took us about eight months to complete the shootings. We did not shoot continuously though; we had to have breaks in the middle because of production problems. But we all were strong to confront the problems. We continued on and went ahead until the end and finally soon we'll be ready to be screened.

Kabul Press: What about theatrical release of your film?
Amin Wahidi: For the moment, our first intention is sending THE PERSIAN DINNER, to different International Film Festivals, but we do not have a theatrical or Home Video distributor yet. Lately we have been contacted by a couple of Independent movie theatres in Milan, who were interested to screen our film, and we are looking forward to see what we can do. However, the premiere of the film will be in September. So, the festivals can also help us find interested theatrical or Home Video distributors.

Kabul Press: What other projects do you have after THE PERSIAN DINNER?
Amin Wahidi: Well, even if THE PERSIAN DINNER is still in post-production these days, I have a couple of other parallel projects as well. My next work after THE PERSIAN DINNER is a feature documentary tilted MANU ON THE ROAD. This film is about a brilliant female singer/songwriter MANUELA PELLEGATTA in Milan who is struggling for the release of her first studio album. I am following her artistic carrier during the year 2015. She is a unique talent and has a magical voice and has to be introduced to the entire world. The production of this feature documentary will be finished by the end of this year.

Then there is another feature docu-fiction titled TWELVE BICYCLES that will be shot between Italy and Sweden in 2017. It is too early now to talk about it.

Beside films, my other important projects are literary works such as novels novellas and short story collections. I have a novel, a novella and a couple of short story collections under work and hopefully by the end of 2016 I will be able to publish them if I find the interested publishers.

Kabul Press: Anything you would like to say to the viewers of your film/films?
Amin Wahidi: Well, I would just like to invite them to watch our film when we will be released in the movie theatres of Milan or elsewhere. It is very important to support independent filmmakers who in spite of many difficulties make films for their heart, for the people and not only for income.
And it is them, who will judge the film after they watched it.
Kabul Press: Which are the production houses that produced THE PERSIAN DINNER?
Amin Wahidi: Deedenow Cinema Production Afghanistan, Hazara People International Network, Remspot and Ri-Make. It is a co-production between Afghanistan and Italy.

Kabul Press: As the last question, why do you think your previous film, L'OSPITE/THE GUEST won the Venice City Award in 2014?
Amin Wahidi: Well, may be because, it was a film that could relate a strong story in a short time. It is a social drama that depicts the refugee problems in Italy. This short film is dedicated to the asylum seekers and the victim of mistreatments with refugees and the people who are drowned in the Mediterranean Sea while coming to Italy. Especially this year, as everyone knows, about one thousand people are being drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, so, L'OSPITE/THE GUEST is just a small tribute to all those victims. Therefore it caught the attention of the jury to assign this award to this short film.

Kabul Press: Thank you very much for your time.
Amin Wahidi: Thanks for your interview.

Exclusive Interview with Bashir Bakhtiari, famous Hazara Caricaturist, filmmaker and journalist

Mohammad Amin Wahidi — 2009-05-15T10:57:10Z

Bashir Bakhtiari, working under the pen name of Baache Azr,a is a pioneer Afghan journalist filmmaker who is better known among Hazara artists for the cartoons and other graphic work he creates.

His work as a journalist was done mostly in the past, although he still cooperates with some western free media. His filmmaking activities are not being covered by the media as well as they should, but his notable cartoons and cartoons are being published on many different sites seen by Afghans around the world.

Bakhtiari draws cartoons that make a statement as precise as hitting a dart right on the bulls eye, because he has a strong affinity and common bond with his audience.

His drawings are simple, but at the same time full of meaning. They are barely explained by words, but are worth a thousand words. People laugh and cry at the same time when they go the depth of his works. One is amazed how tenderly he depicts what you haven't been able to see yourself.

Bashir Bakhtiari is unique due to his social background plus his glittering career and experience. He has been an artist, a journalist of the people who came from the people.

Like many other Afghan artists and journalists, Bakhtiari had to flee his country due to threats to harm him, and the insecurity that breeds. He now lives in New Zealand, but still can tell the story of Afghanistan's problems, as if he still lived there.

This exclusive interview, by correspondent Amin Wahidi was made online in Dari for the Dari version of Kabul Press^?. Translation by Amin Wahidi.

Amin Wahidi: Mr. Bakhtiari, first of all thank you very much for sharing with us your valuable time. My first question is: As a caricaturist and graphic designer, what responsibilities do you feel to a country like Afghanistan?

Bashir Bakhtiari: You are welcome. In a country with a sick social infrastructure where ethnic fascism has a very strong role, where the motto of students could be condemning the universities, in a country where a gorilla becomes the minister of information and culture, in a country where suicide bombings become a part of the religious culture, in a country, where senior politicians including the president provide nothing but lies and discrimination, there are two ways for an artist to choose, whether to ignore the corruption and prejudice quietly, or spend your whole life in prison.

Amin Wahidi: How do you compare the language of written text with a drawn cartoon?

Bashir Bakhtiari: I think cartoons are the clear imaginary words of a long boring text that are written in a specific language. Sometimes a cartoon or caricature can have meanings equal to thousands of words while being sketched only with a few simple lines. The language of caricature is not confined to specific languages or cultures and it is generous enough to transcend language differences. It is the common language of all nations and all cultures and stronger than the written text of any pen.

Amin Wahidi: Tell me about your filmmaking and other graphic design work.

Bashir Bakhtiari: My graphic works have been as full of shortcomings as my cartoons, unfortunately. However, I have been working on graphic works, modern design, animation cartoons, and digital films. I have designed hundreds of logos, posters, billboards, book covers. I still work with some western journals.

And about film: I did not make many features or short films, but rather a lot of documentaries. During the Russian occupation and then during the civil war, I made more than 200 documentary films, and I have the honor of being the first and the last journalist filmmaker, who made documentary films of Mujahedeen operations in Kabul during the Russian occupation.

Later, I worked with Tolo TV for about ten months on entertainment programs and partly in the news department. But since I didn't like the work environment at Tolo TV, I resigned. Over the last two years, I have worked on TV commercials and advertising videos that are the mostly aired on TV channels in Kabul. I have been out of country for two years, but they still air my work.

Amin Wahidi: It would be nice to hear about the role of cartoon in the society and in the Afghan press.

Bashir Bakhtiari: Unfortunately, as with many other things in our country, cartoons have not found the place in the society they deserve. While technology is very advanced today, we have many caricaturists who still follow traditions that are fifty years old. Conservativism is an obstacle. I speak of the artists who think working with computers is against Islamic rules. There are still people who avoid adding pictures to their journals. It may be different now, but up to last year the Anes Daily paper had no images. Seeing all this I think the modern caricaturists have the right to feel oppressed in this country.

Amin Wahidi: What inspires you most when drawing cartoons?

Bashir Bakhtiari: Well, mostly I don't pay attention to the issues that are already spoken about, within the society. I mean, I want to present through my cartoons what has not been said yet or what has not been discussed within the society yet. I want to get the attention of people on those issues not seen easily today but will become big obstacles tomorrow. My motto has always been “if you have ability, demonstrate it today otherwise, tomorrow it will be very late.”

For instance, if I draw cartoons on Karzai's hand in drug business or Assadullah Khaled's real face as a spy for Pakistan, or Shaikh Asif Mohseni's role as a religious dealer and IRI Agent in Afghanistan, or the Pashtoonization process by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, for me it means that I got to know about these things later than everyone else, because the people are already aware of all these things.

Amin Wahidi: You maintain specific characteristics for the characters you draw, would you explain why?

Bashir Bakhtiari: Yeah, actually the specific characters of a caricaturist are the signatures that introduce him. Caricaturists, who have created specific characters in their works do not need to sign their works with their pen names anymore.

As you see in the cartoons I drew, mostly I use tools as personages in them, but in the cartoons, I selected the characters for the personages from the people I have lived with a long time. Some viewers have criticized me saying that my characters reflect only one specific ethnicity, but that is not correct.

That truth is that, when I drew a character with an eye out of its socket, a peaked nose and a big, untidy turban on the head, it usually a Taliban soldier. A Taliban as a suicide attacker, as a looter and a killer can not be drawn nicer than this; it is reality. This symbol of fierceness is always drawn with a husky body but bent and obedient, attending to orders, bare feet, a religious scroll in green “as a defender” on the shoulder, a dirty waist jacket, long, bushy beard, and glaring eyes! That is what a Taliban is like, no more than this.

People were assaulted by them in the past, and they were looted by them. This is the truth, and the world needs to know this side of the coin, not the false history of the Taliban as religious students and protectors of the faithful. Let the people know that the truth is not what is being written about many of the heroes of Afghanistan. Let the people also know what the British, the Russians, the Pakistani's and then the Americans did to people under the shadow of these characters. The people should know about more of the Mullah Trojans who are the real threats to the future of Afghanistan.

Amin Wahidi: Have you ever been faced with a violent reaction from viewers of your work?

Bakhtiari: Only once, when I drew a cartoon of Shaikh Ibrahimi, a special representative of Ayatullah Khamenayee in Afghanistan, the Iranian Intelligence interrogated me.

Amin Wahidi: Some people think that cartoons are drawn to make others laugh, what are your opinions on other aspects of cartoons?

Bakhtiari: I should say a cartoon is more serious than only making fun of someone and making people laugh. Cartoons are drawn to tell a harsh truth, rather than just poke a little fun at someone.

A cartoon is not what most of our people think. I think a good cartoon never makes people laugh but it has an awareness and message for them.

Amin Wahidi: What role does a cartoon play in public enlightenment?

Bashir Bakhtiari: First it is important to know in which society we live and how it values cartoons. You know that the art of cartooning can have a big role in advanced countries. It could bring the prime minister to court in a country like Germany or in Cuba it could lead the revolution, or it could predict the terror of Reagan. It could increase the national revenue in Mexico, or it could cause a heart attack for Japanese prime minister. But in countries like Afghanistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, where religion is a tool of pressure, drawing cartoons is the primary way to face imprisonment, beatings by the police, and finally execution. But in general the cartoon is a strong and flexible medium that can play a leading role in the society.

It can motivate or destroy the mentality of the society depending on how it is used.

Amin Wahidi: Of other cartoonists, whose cartoons do you like personally?

Bashir Bakhtiari: Unfortunately among our Afghans, I don't really see any cartoonists who have been following it seriously, almost every one is moving around the zero point and no further than that.

What most of our cartoons present to society, are similar to the already chewed morsels that are given back to the society. I mean the caricaturists repeat what they hear from the people and rarely do new things with their own creativity.

There are many reasons, unfortunately, first there are no new things to say, there is lack of concentration on the issues and then lack of support of the artist community. Only in the far off the region there are many great masters in this field whose works are really appreciable and each has many things to say; Aiden Aghdashlo, Zolat Kofesky, Kozobokeen, Arth, Bartak and others. But in the near region, Chinese, Iranian, Turkish and Bahrainian Caricaturists are very famous world wide.

Amin Wahidi: Do you laugh when you draw your cartoons or not?

Bashir Bakhtiari: I don't think I have ever worked on a funny cartoon, because my cartoons do not make people laugh. The main core of my works are always, mixed with questions and pain and pain never makes people laugh.

Cartoons are the form of saying what I want to say to my viewers.

Amin Wahidi: What do you enjoy more; when your cartoon makes viewers laugh or when it makes them angry?

Bashir Bakhtiari: My main goal in drawing cartoons is to deliver to others the realities and the harsh truths I feel. I enjoy it most when I feel that I have delivered my message through the cartoon I drew. My only satisfactory is my ability to deliver to the people what I have in my heart to say in the form of cartoon.

Amin Wahidi: Mr. Bakhtiari, thank you very much indeed.

Bashir Bakhtiari: You are very welcome.

Budd MacKenzie, an American helping Afghans peacefully

Nathan Hartle — 2009-01-25T16:59:54Z

By Nathan Hartle

When Budd MacKenzie visits Lalander, a poverty-stricken Afghan village near the capital city of Kabul, the six-foot tall American has no shortage of friends. “I've always been treated very hospitably,” he says. “They will welcome you in, they invite you to dinner, they get upset with you if you don't eat enough.”

Located in the Char-Asiab Valley just south of the capital, this village of a few hundred families has been ravaged by decades of war. Nevertheless, it is home to some of the friendliest people the well-traveled MacKenzie has met anywhere in the world. “They're incredibly open as a people… I've never really experienced any hostility from Afghans.”

From his home in Lafayette, California, MacKenzie has been leading the charge to help villages like Lalander recover from the violence and poverty that have long plagued their nation. His nonprofit organization, Trust in Education, has raised funds for the construction of a school and the organization of numerous other aid programs in this and nearby villages. Their goal is to restore the people of Lalander's long-lost quality of life and get the village back on its feet.

How long will such a project take?

“Years,” MacKenzie confidently states. Rebuilding a shattered way of life, he insists, is a long process requiring determination and patience. He believes that Americans “tend to be short-distance runners” when it comes to giving humanitarian aid and rebuilding countries damaged by war. “We have a tendency to be sort of quick fixers, looking for quick solutions.”

Trust in Education, he says, will keep working on behalf of Lalander and its neighboring villages until they “reach the point where they can support themselves.” Only by sticking around for the long haul, he believes, can the greatest difference be made.

Investing in Education

MacKenzie's organization, and this unusual take on humanitarian work, originated at a public forum on the Iraq War held in Lafayette in March 2003. After this discussion, MacKenzie and a handful of friends decided to organize a humanitarian project to “make a difference” in areas affected by recent armed conflicts. Afghanistan, which had been torn apart by decades of war, was a natural place to focus their efforts. “We also recognized that given [the United States'] other commitments, including the war in Iraq, Afghanistan's needs would receive less and less attention,” MacKenzie writes on his website.

An April 2003 cover story in Parade magazine gave him the inspiration he needed. The article featured Greg Mortenson, the famous humanitarian whose work building schools in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan has been credited by many with building support for the US and helping to undermine the Taliban's hold on that region.

Moved by Mortenson's example, MacKenzie and a small circle of friends founded Trust in Education in May 2003 in the hopes of raising funds for this and other humanitarian efforts. He contacted Mortenson and asked him to pick out an Afghan village that needed a school. Trust in Education's first project would be raising the money to construct and maintain this facility.

Mortenson picked Lalander, a community of a few thousand people located approximately twenty-five kilometers south of Kabul. The village had been used by militant Mujahadeen rebels as a base for launching rocket attacks into Kabul during the Soviet Union's occupation of the country. The people of Lalander found themselves caught in the crossfire as violent retaliations by the Soviets leveled much of the town.

“The Russians came out and destroyed the homes, destroyed the aqueduct systems, and planted land mines,” MacKenzie says.

It took MacKenzie and his supporters six months to raise the $60000 necessary to construct the school. Though it involved just a few people at first, the fundraising grew into a community effort. “Neighbors and friends started doing fundraising efforts, and then school children got involved,” he says. “It was all grassroots, just individuals that decided to contribute.”

Soon after construction was completed, MacKenzie made his first visit to Afghanistan to see the completed facility. It would be the first of many trips this longtime attorney and businessman would make to the country that would come to mean so much to him. He found a beautiful country scarred by many conflicts, and hospitable people that nonetheless live in fear.

“My sense is that it's difficult for them to speak openly…They don't like to talk about politics or government or any of that openly, and so you almost have to have them alone to get their opinions on things like that. They're fearful of what somebody might hear or somebody might tell somebody.”

The resurgent Taliban are an ever-present danger to Lalander. Coming into town periodically from across the nearby border with Pakistan, the group attempts to control the populace through intimidation and threats of violence. Many families are unwilling to send their daughters to the school for fear that the Taliban will learn of this and disapprove. To counter this, the school has begun to hold special classes in private residences.

Encouraged by the success of the school construction project and with a growing affection for his new friends in Lalander, MacKenzie began to raise funds for a wide array of projects there. While the construction of a school had been a profound event for the village, he felt that more was needed to fully restore the community's vitality.

Broadening Horizons

MacKenzie continued to raise money on the home front, embarking on what was to become a continuing campaign of fundraising and education in the US. He has been a guest speaker in numerous schools and rotary clubs, gathering donations while teaching audiences about the many problems facing Afghans.

He decided to focus the efforts of Trust in Education in Lalander and the surrounding area indefinitely, devoting his resources to tackling the issues of a single community. This set him apart from many of his peers in the field of humanitarian aid. Many such organizations focus on improving a single aspect of life for the largest number of people possible; in Greg Mortenson's case, this means building schools in each village he works in.

While recognizing the contributions that have been made working in this way, MacKenzie felt that he could make the greatest impact by focusing his efforts, for the time being, on a limited geographical area.
“What I kind of learned over the last five years is that in humanitarian aid…we do too much patchwork. One organization will go put a well in one location, and then 400 miles down the road somebody will put in a water system, or somebody 200 miles away will come in with a health clinic,” he laughs.

“My feeling is we ought to pool our resources and go to an area and fix it, and then move on, get out of there. By fixing it I mean enable the Afghans to reach the point where they can support themselves: they can buy their own clothes, they can handle their own health clinics, they can buy their own seeds and fertilizer. I wanted to focus the money that I was able to raise on one village for that reason.”

Trust in Education has tackled its projects with the goal of restoring Lalander's self-sufficiency. While attempting to restore the village's agricultural system, for example, the organization provided not just seeds and fertilizer, but also a new irrigation system to improve productivity, fruit trees to establish orchards, and training seminars to teach residents improved farming skills.

MacKenzie makes a point to keep Lalander's residents intimately involved with the process of reviving their community. He consults them about where the village's problems lie and what sorts of aid he should provide. As he was purchasing and distributing trees for the orchards, it was the local farmers who specifically requested apple and apricot trees. “We provided over 23000 trees. Basically I ask them what they want…We bought them right there locally so we know they grow, and it stimulates the local economy.”

The long-term planning and support demonstrated by these projects is necessary, MacKenzie says, in order to make growing produce a viable financial alternative to the much more immediately profitable farming of opium. It is the same patience and commitment that he believes is needed to rescue the nation of Afghanistan as a whole.

The Big Picture

In the course of his work, MacKenzie has attempted to educate and inspire his fellow Americans to take a greater interest in the plight of Afghanistan and other third world nations. He has encounters a wide range of attitudes toward the subject. Many people wonder why they should donate money to overseas charities at all, given the many problems facing Americans at home.

MacKenzie urges them to keep the issue in perspective, noting that the vast majority of the money given by Americans already goes to domestic causes. “If you took all the humanitarian aid dollars and welfare dollars that are spent in the United States…97 and a half cents of that stays right here in the country. Only two and a half cents goes to the rest of the world…Most people think it's a lot more.”

“I don't want to abandon the United States, and I don't want to minimize the work that needs to be done here…I've been involved in it myself. But I think we need to also have some funds devoted to people beyond our borders.”

In becoming more conscious of the needs of countries like Afghanistan, MacKenzie believes that the US can improve its standing in the world. Being “better international citizens,” he thinks, will help diffuse the tensions that so often result in violence.

“As far as the rest of the world is concerned, they see us as takers, right? We've been taking oil cheaply for a long time. We've provided guns and weaponry to people who provide us with, in their view, cheap oil.” He uses US involvement in Afghanistan as an example of shortsighted foreign policy. By arming the Afghans for their war against the Soviets but not taking the lead in rebuilding the country, he says, the US allowed a chaos to descend that sowed the seeds of modern terrorism.

The situation in Afghanistan is grim, MacKenzie admits. When asked what kind of problems are facing the nation, he can only chuckle and reply, “Where to begin?” In addition to its staggering poverty, political stability in the country remains elusive as the Taliban fights to regain control. These persistent problems threaten the basic freedoms and opportunities that many Afghans yearn for. MacKenzie writes, “The war is being waged on so many fronts that it's easy to be concerned that winning the war is hopeless.”

Despite such fears, he has found himself at the forefront of a growing tide of altruism. Even in the current turbulent economic climate, donations to Trust in Education are growing. Most come from private citizens. “Most of all my support, really, comes from individuals, people who have been giving for a while now, and who give every year. Those are the kind of donors that you like to get…The number of people who are supporting our organization is growing.”

Trust in Education now has a permanent office in Kabul, and has begun to expand its activities to other villages in the Char-Asiab Valley. “I have started to actually move down the road now and started to meet leaders of other villages, who have of course been asking me to come for a long time.” During his most recent visit, he met with the governor of the valley to discuss a possible program of family planning seminars.
Whatever the future holds for Afghanistan, Budd MacKenzie has demonstrated the power of an individual to make a profound impact. He believes that such involvement is a critical component of democracy.

“The war on poverty and the wars being waged for the most fundamental of freedoms will not be one by informed observers sitting in the bleachers,” he writes. “Come on down. It's infinitely more rewarding to be on the field.”

Kabul Press Interviews Sarah Chayse

Robert Maier — 2008-10-02T11:27:03Z

Sarah Chayse is best known in the U.S. for her nearly daily reports on America's government-run National Public Radio network in the late 1990s. Beginning in 1996, she enjoyed reporting on generally calm stories about French food and culture as NPR's Paris reporter. During the Kosovo crises, she became a steady and respected voice on the conflict with nearly daily reports on the horrors there. Her journalism career which began in 1991 took her to Algeria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, and Afghanistan. Growing up in New England, she earned a B.A. in History from Harvard, then served in the Peace Corps in Morocco for a year. She returned to Harvard for an M.A. in History and Middle Eastern Studies.

Taliban Times

Following the terrorist acts on 9/11/2001, Sarah was moved to become more involved in global events, and asked NPR for a transfer to the Taliban-dominated city of Quetta, Pakistan to cover the inevitable attack on Afghanistan by the Western coalition. While there, she became disturbed by continuing stories of Afghan civilian casualties from American bombing. However, higher-ups at NPR wanted her to ignore negative events that might push back against American patriotic fervor.

As the Taliban collapsed, Sarah got into Kandahar, and filed her first story on the unique subject of how the local warlords, with U.S. complicity, were dividing up control of the region. The story of this crucial action, which would set Afghanistan on a dire course over the next seven years was cut by NPR as irrelevant to the main media narrative that stressed finding Osama bin Laden. Sara left NPR and it's three-minute sound bites, but followed this story, which is outlined in great detail in her 2006 book, “The Punishment of Virtue.”

Hoping to do more for the Afghan people, Sarah became the Field Director of “Afghans for a Civil Society,” a non-profit group founded by Qayum Karzai, President Karzai's older brother. It turned out that ACS was not much more than window dressing to mask the on-going power struggle that pitted old guard warlords against the village elders. The warlords were supported by the U.S. army, because they seemed to have a durable command and control structure and hordes of disciplined armed men. They pledged their loyalty to the naïve American military, spouting support of democratic ideals, but it was all a con.

According to Sarah, the warlords skimmed relief supplies meant for villagers; corruption, nepotism, cronyism ruled the day. Local people watched in disbelief as the Americans turned over the Afghan government to the same criminals who had abused them during the decade of civil war that had led to the Taliban in the first place. Sarah tried persistently to steer the government away from the warlords, through meetings with President Karzai, his family and other Afghan government representatives, through high-level U.S. military commanders, local civilian leaders, and the ACS, but with little result.

Sarah's attempts to influence Afghanistan's political future towards real democracy hit rock bottom, with the assassination in June, 2005 of her friend and supporter, Muhammad Akrem Khakrezwal. Akrem, Kandahar's Chief of Police, was passed over by Karzai's government for the governorship of Kandahar province in favor of the warlord Gul Agha Shirzai. The villagers and business people supported Akrem as an honest, hard-working leader, but he did not have the connections with the Karzai regime, and the U.S. military was either complicit or disinterested.

According to Chayse's instincts and research, Akrem was such a thorn in the side of Shirzai, that the warlord finally dispatched him with an IED planted outside a Kandahari mosque. The murder was officially blamed on an Arab suicide bomber, thus implicating al-Qaeda and bin Laden, and deflecting speculation that it could have been an Afghan-on-Afghan act— with far reaching connections, perhaps even to the presidential palace in Kabul.

Afghan Soap Entrepreneur

Chayse then made another great turn in her path from journalist and political activist. She became an entrepreneur. Specifically, she developed Arghand, a cooperative that manufactures soap and other skin care products from Kandahar-grown flowers, herbs and fruits. In the rich agricultural land, it makes sense as an alternative to the opium crop that enriches an international drug mafia, and nothing for Afghan farmers and their families. Afghanistan has very few exports, and these sorts of high-valued products could have a world-wide demand both from their unique qualities and origin.

The Arghand villagers suggested using their fruits in a product that could enter the global marketplace and Sarah's Western worldliness helped them develop a business plan. Unfortunately, though millions of dollars were being spent on multinational efforts to develop Afghanistan's economy, adequate funding for Arghand's small cooperative venture was repeatedly turned down by Afghan and international interests. Nevertheless, they persisted, and through a variety of grants and donations, and despite all the turmoil around Kandahar, its products are available in about fifty retail stores scattered across the U.S. and Canada. Demand exceeds the quantity of goods available, and capital for expansion is scarce.

This is the case with several other Afghan cooperatives I have found. Billions of international development dollars have been spent in Afghanistan on military, shoddy buildings, and “expert” studies. But these small coops cannot attract sufficient financing for their proven products, which could easily provide hundreds of jobs and skill-building opportunities for comparatively tiny investments.

Sarah chronicles the difficulties of engineering a co-op on its website, http://www.arghand.org/notes.htm. Obstacles presented are heart-breaking— mainly by roadblocks foisted by the Afghan national government. Lack of reliable electricity is a key element in the failure of Afghan development.

Consider this: Hurricane Ike wiped out electricity to more than 3 million homes and businesses in the Houston area recently. For sure, lights will be going on again in days, and you couldn't imagine it taking more than a few months for 95% of the power to be restored. In contrast, the Kabul, a city of around a million receives only 3-4 hours a day of electricity—at best—seven years after the West's entry.

As the Taliban become stronger in Afghanistan's rural areas, life in Kandahar becomes more difficult. Coop workers are afraid to harvest their natural ingredients, and fear coming to the factory. They have seen a continuous downhill slide in security since December, 2001 when the Taliban were chased from Kandahar. Sarah can see the pessimism written in their faces, though their chatter is still optimistic. They have seen too many bad ends in the past thirty years; too many promises broken and hopes dashed.

Sarah's most recent entry into her “Notes from the Field” was written in March of this year, just before the Taliban managed to re-capture Kandahar from the weak Afghan army post there. A big push by NATO troops forced the Taliban out, but the Taliban's message was clear. They were there, and they could come and go as they pleased. Cooperation with the coalition would be severely punished, when its troops finally abandoned the area for good.

Sarah did spend some time in Paris in early summer—she still attends conferences, speaking and consulting engagements, but is back in Kandahar now. When her book was published in 2006, she was interviewed dozens of times by big Western media. For the most part, she, as well as most of Afghanistan's problems has been swept aside by Iraq, American economic problems, and the elections.

Thanks to Obama's repeated promises to take Afghanistan off the back burner and the U.S. military's new commitment to send thousands of Marines for an Afghan surge, Afghanistan may attract more attention, and promoting a just and effective government will also emerge as an important goal.

On the Future of Afghanistan

To catch up with Sarah's most recent activities, I asked her by e-mail in late August to update her thoughts about Afghanistan's future.

What do you think about the resignation of Pakistan's Musharraf?

I live in Afghanistan. At best I am an observer from afar of Pakistani developments, and one thing I have learned in this part of the world is that politics is local. If you're not there, you probably don't know all that much about what is going on.

With that caveat, I would offer the following personal and unsubstantiated reflections. The resignation of Pervez Musharraf could be a very hopeful sign. A sign that at last, after years of military dictatorship, the diverse, vibrant, culturally rich population of Pakistan is at last getting the say it deserves in its future. That would be good news for the entire region.

Based on observation of recent history, however, I think it is hard to imagine the Pakistani military, led by the ISI, giving up its stranglehold on power without a fight. I have begun to wonder if Musharraf was "pushed under the bus" to allow the military establishment to retain de facto power in Pakistan and over the Taliban it created. In any case, I think that if all goes well, Pakistan is in the paroxysm of a profound social and political transformation, one that will be worked through in a matter of years, not months.

Which leaves the issue of the Taliban. The Taliban were initially a creature of the ISI. The "resurgent" Taliban, who have been active in the Afghan south, are also a creature of the ISI. In some other areas, such as Waziristan, Taliban whom the ISI cultivated or allowed to flourish, have turned around to bite the hand that fed them. It amuses me to hear some Pakistanis imply that the anti-Taliban fight is an "American conflict,"

When the Taliban were created in the first place by members of the Pakistani government for cynical manipulation in regional conflicts, to whit, Afghanistan and Kashmir. You reap what you sow.

When you left Kandahar for Paris recently, was that because of the fighting?

No. I have never left Kandahar in response to an event on the ground here. I have numerous obligations outside of Afghanistan, especially participating in cultural training for incoming NATO officers. I also do some public speaking in the U.S. and Canada, fund-raising and consciousness-raising for Arghand, etc. So my schedule involves a lot of travel in and out of Afghanistan.

Is there any Afghan or US money to support Arghand?

We do receive generous support from private individuals and foundations in the U.S. and Canada, and have received one grant via the USAID funded alternative livelihoods program and one from the Canadian international development agency. A list of our Benefactors, in kind as well as in cash, is posted on our website, www.arghand.org.
(ed. Note: Arghand is supported substantially by Massachusetts based Arghand Trust, Inc., a U.S. registered 501-(c) 3 U.S. public charity. It accepts gifts in cash and in-kind. Gifts can be made on-line via Paypal from a link on the website.)

I know there is greater demand for your products than supply. Why is that?

Demand is high because our products are excellent. It causes me no shame to toot our horn, because it's really true. Our soaps are the most aesthetically beautiful, silky- lathered, skin-softening soaps on the Western market. Most of our inquiries from new retailers come because their customers, who received Arghand soaps as gifts, asked them to carry them. We do essentially no marketing, no advertising. That's the demand side. On the supply side, we have numerous difficulties impeding expansion. The first is electricity. Any one place in Kandahar only receives a couple of hours of electricity per day: 4-6, maximum. For the past week, those have been coming at night.

Valiant Arghand members have been running our seed oil press till 3 and 4 in the morning. This restricts our supply of raw materials, and thus production. Secondly, we need a larger facility. But we can no longer purchase relatively inexpensive land on the outskirts of town or in neighboring villages, because of the security situation.

It is too dangerous to transport 14 members of a manufacturing cooperative to a specific place at a specific time each day, they would become a target. So we have to buy land in town, at literally ten times the price — at best. 4000 square meters becomes a $200,000 prospect, money we don't have to spend. Finally, indeed the security situation makes it very difficult to bring on new members without sliding into nepotism, something I ban at Arghand. For example, our across the street neighbor wanted us to hire his son. All my guys like the fellow. Only his father has started asking strange questions like, do they eat at the same table with me. (presumably because food eaten with me would become ritually unclean as I am a foreign female.) He cheers the Taliban on, and sometimes has them over as guests in his house. His son is not someone we want to bring on board, in these circumstances. So expansion is a very slow process.

If there isn't an immediate, urgent, and energetic switch of priorities toward demanding — in the name of the Afghan people — a significant improvement in the behavior of government officials, it is a lost cause. If the government of the United States treated its citizens the way the Afghan government treats its citizens, I guarantee there would be violent opposition in America. You and I would probably join it.

Is there anyone who can put things back together?

There are no magic bullets or magic individuals. What is needed is a coordinated demand by all the international actors — military and civilian acting in concert and bolstering the silent scream of the Afghan citizens — for a radical improvement in the standards of governance throughout the Afghan administration.

I saw something today where U.S. Ambassador Brown told Karzai to crack down on corruption.

Generalized exhortations like that amount only to lip-service. In the southern region, the ISAF campaign plan states that governance is the first line of operation. Yet the Canadian 2-star general who is in command of the southern zone has only met with a governor on two or three occasions in the 7 months, so far, of his tour. What message does that send? Military and civilian officials should be reaching out to the people to hear their legitimate grievances with the government, and then taking up these issues, on a concrete, case-by-case, and persistent basis, and obtaining redress for the citizens. That doesn't mean governing in place of Afghans. It means holding Afghan officials to decent standards of behavior that their population demands, rather than signing a blank check to them as we have thus far. We have not brought democracy to Afghanistan. We are obstructing democracy by blindly supporting a government that harbors a cancer of corruption, cronyism, money-grubbing and contempt for its own citizens.

Will the Marines save the day?

The problems I have described above are primarily political problems. There are aspects of the marines' history that indicate they once had the know-how, on a local level, to participate positively in the creation of safe and responsive social structures. The combined action platoons in Viet Nam come to mind.

I recently spent a week on Okinawa briefing the 3rd Marine Division. What troubled me was almost no one there had even studied the pacs. That is, this thread in marine history has been lost, as the marines have more often been trained and used as a "blunt instrument" since then. We need more combat power in Afghanistan, there is no doubt of that whatsoever. But we need very intelligent and sensitive combat power. And for the marines to make a really positive difference, they are going to have to unlearn a lot of their recent training, and learn the complexities of fighting a war in amongst their potential friends and allies.

And even at that, there needs to be an insertion of military leverage into the political scene — on behalf of Afghan citizens, not on behalf of "our" concerns. That is, a corrupt and predatory governor can make all the right noises on the anti-Taliban fight, and we have the tendency to throw our arms around him, not realizing he is creating three times as many Taliban as he helps us fight by his depredations against the population. We've got to start seeing through this. And civilian actors have to realize that without the military conveying the anti-corruption message by their side, it is not going to be heard by Afghan officials. Civilians have got to understand that this is truly an integrated battle space.

Are there any hopeful signs?

Hopeful signs for me are that American officers, from battalion commanders right down to lieutenants whom I have met, are extremely committed to getting this right. They have learned a lot in the past six years of brutal rotations to Afghanistan and Iraq and back again, and, though they may not intuitively grasp some of crucial points, they are very streamlined and energetic about changing their approach when they hear a good argument to do so. Much more so now then when we first arrived in 2002. I just hope it's not too late.

Final note:

More information and links to articles about Sarah Chaise can be found on http://sarahchayes.net/ and www.arghand.org. Especially interesting is her “Comprehensive Action Plan for Afghanistan,” that is brief, but insightful.

Purchase Sarah Chayse's book, "The Punishment of Virtue by clicking the link to Amazon.com on our front page.

Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 3

Robert Maier — 2008-05-19T18:08:00Z

Most Americans and other English speakers do not have access to eyewitness accounts of events in Afghanistan. They get breaking news reports from big media that focus on bombings and violence— and not the realities behind the headlines. This series aims to generate discussion and help reveal effective solutions in Afghanistan's search for justice, freedom of expression, and human rights.

The first interview is with Rosemary Stasek.

Rosemary is a Californian who has lived most of the past six years in Kabul. She zips through the streets in her little Corolla, avoiding SUV convoys that elbow their way through Kabul traffic—calling them “bullet magnets.” She usually refuses to wear a head scarf or stop at the questionable “official checkpoints” that dot Kabul's streets, and declares that for its size, Kabul is one of the safest cities in the world.

As founder and chair of the non-profit organization, A Little Help, Rosemary is passionately involved with improving conditions for women in Afghanistan through government and NGO project management, fund-raising, and consulting services for other organizations. Her projects have channeled hundreds of thousands of dollars to successful programs in women's prisons, maternity hospitals, and girls' education. Rosemary lives in a small house in downtown Kabul, and has a good feel for the pulse of life there. Her astute commentary on Afghan government agencies, the UN, and the American military and aid presence are compelling and compassionate, and reflect the thoughts of her many Afghan friends and colleagues.

This is the first in a three-part series of interviews with Rosemary that will discuss both problems and possible solutions. Her responses have been slightly edited.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

What should the US be doing in Afghanistan?

The problem with the US work in Afghanistan is that it can be completely out of touch about the situation in Afghanistan. The entire US Embassy should be picked up and moved to Cleveland. It will save taxpayers money, and get no less work done than it does already.

These people get flown into the embassy. They're there for six, nine, twelve months. They get flown out, and they've never left the embassy. They have absolutely no contact with anyone in this country. They see nothing, they accomplish nothing, and they're just an enormous drain of resources that could be going to things that could actually do something.

The new U.S. Embassy opened in Kabul in March, 2008

USAID is so ineffective and such an enormous waste of American taxpayer dollars over here. It's the same thing: all the money that comes over here gets sucked into the embassy, and gets sucked into USAID, and accomplishes almost nothing, and certainly nothing useful. The amount of money that's getting poured into southern Afghanistan in alternative livelihood projects and counter-narcotics projects, its just not accomplishing anything.

They love to build schools, they love to build things. Yes, this country needs a lot of new buildings, but it doesn't help to build a school or a hospital if there are no teachers and no doctors. And these quick, easy things are what the US likes to do. They like to come in and build schools, and hospitals, or send international consultants over for 6 months to write a report. But they don't do anything. What is needed is teacher training; medical training.

Outside of Kabul, in areas where it is safe, in areas where there are people who want to see some benefit coming from their government or the international community there's not much aid being sent. It's the areas in the South, where the insurgency is the most dangerous, there's lots of aid on the books. But the money that's being poured into these areas doesn't necessarily have the most effective benefit, because there's already plenty of drug money down there.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

They have money to go to Pakistan to get medical care. The money isn't going where it's needed. It's going to an audience that it's not having any effect on. And it's all being orchestrated by a bunch of people who never leave the US embassy compound and they have no idea, if you dropped them 3 blocks away from the embassy, where in the world they were. They could be on the moon.

In Army bases, like Camp Eggers (a U.S. military base in Kabul near the U.S. Embassy—ed.) they're practically as locked down as the embassy folks, and they've got weapons.

At the Cigar Club in Camp Eggers, military contractors are admitted in casual wear.

The United Nations

The U.N. is out there. You have U.N. folks all around the country. Every once in a while they pull them in, then they go back out. They have a wider coverage, because there's a lot more Afghans who work for the U.N. There's a much smaller number of Afghans who work for USAID.

The issue with the U.N. is that every agency has its own little mandate. For example, there are three different UN airlines. Wouldn't one be enough? So every UN agency tends to do its own thing. There's a lot of overlap. There's a lot of rivalry. All of that kind of thing that comes with a bureaucracy where everyone competes against everyone else.
It was a big loss for Afghanistan to not get Paddy Ashdown.

(Mr. Ashdown, born and raised in India, was a former marine and former leader of the Liberal Democratic Party in the UK, served in the powerful position of the United Nations High Representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina from 2002 to 2005, and was supported by the United States for the Afghan job. It is rumored that Afghan president Hamid Karzai rejected Ashdown because he might take a firmer than desired hand in managing Afghan policy—ed).

Now he might not have been able to accomplish more than anyone else, but I think he would have come in with at least the ability in the beginning to knock some heads. There's nobody at the U.N. now with that ability. And everybody there is off doing their own thing; every individual agency.

There's no coordination between aid groups. USAID is off doing its own thing, all the military units are off doing their own thing. There was a story the other day that the Marines down in Kandahar can't get off the base there. They're stuck in Kandahar because the 36 different countries can't get their act together to decide on what the marines are supposed to be doing. So, it's not only in the civilian arena with development projects, but also in the military area. These marines just sit around doing nothing. A Marine was quoted in a story describing it like a vacation in the desert.

Do you have any fear speaking out about what you see in Afghanistan?

No, not really. Most of my speaking out happens in the international press, and the average Afghan doesn't have much exposure to the international press. And what I say to you, I say to everybody here. I'm in the Afghan ministries every single day, and what I'm saying is mild. When I start ranting and raving about roadblocks, corruption, and stuff, I'm milk toast compared to what the Afghans are ranting and raving about to me, so there's nothing I'm saying that the average Afghan isn't saying every day to me and everyone else who will listen. This is not radical incendiary talk. This is what an Afghan will tell you.

You said Jason Elliot's book (“An Unexpected Light” NY Times bestseller about his travels in Afghanistan in the 1970s-90s- ed.) was an inspiration.

I've never met him, but you know a friend of mine just recently just gave me the hardest time about that. I had read the book after I came back from my very first trip. So number one it was a powerful time for me, having just visited Afghanistan— which still guides my life— just wanting to be here. And it was really funny because I said it was one of the best books I've ever read, and how it impacted me.

Another friend of mine had written a book, “Kabul in Winter” (by Ann Jones, 2006, which chronicles her experience with feminist issues while in Afghanistan from 2002-2005-ed.) said 'oh what a crock he was.' She said,

“Do you remember that part about how he showed up in this house in the middle of the night, and out of nowhere they served him dinner? Didn't he realize that there were women in the back room who had to get up out of bed and go do all these things and cook that dinner for him, and he never saw them and he never knew they existed?"

Over and over and over again, you have to remind yourself that men don't see women here. Afghan men don' t see them, because just culturally they're trained to not see them. But international men don't “see them” because they don't see them. I'm always beating my friends over the head saying you don't know what it's like for women. All you see is this from a men's perspective. You don't understand how these things affect women. And I do think Jason Elliot suffered from that. He really didn't have the opportunity to see women here, and understand what things were like for them.

How long will you stay in Afghanistan?

My pat answer is always I'll stay as long as I can stay. Obviously, after a while, you just run out of energy. In just a couple weeks, I'll hit my 6 year mark, and I don't know if it gets easier, the longer you stay, or harder. I think there'll come a time when I'll either be tired, or the security gets so bad that I can't do the things I really want to do. But at the moment I don't have any plans or wouldn't say that if something particularly bad happens, then that'll be the last straw.

Do you wear a headscarf?

I never wear a headscarf in Kabul. I'm driving a car, so who am I kidding? I wear a scarf around my neck just for decorative purposes. But generally in Kabul I don't wear one. Outside of Kabul, I generally do. Just because it's not my ‘hood. I'm a visitor there, I'm there trying to accomplish things, I'm not there to piss people off. So I wear the headscarf.

The last time I wore a headscarf in Kabul was three days ago, because I washed my hair, got out of the shower, and the electricity went off; so I tried to start the generator, but the carburetor was flooded. I had to be at a ministry in ten minutes, and since my hair dryer wouldn't work, I put on a head scarf.

Rosemary Stasek continues organizing and managing development and educational projects for NGOs and others in Kabul, including her own 501-c3 foundation, “A Little Help”). Visit the site- http://stasek.com/alittlehelp -for opportunities to help with her work.

Photos # 4 & 5 by Mustafa Kia http://afghanphoto.blogspot.com/

Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 2

Robert Maier — 2008-04-26T07:55:58Z

While Kabulpress.org enjoys huge input from Dari speakers throughout Afghanistan, the English pages have been much smaller. To remedy this situation, we are beginning a series of interviews with English speakers who reside in Afghanistan and can convey keen insights and greater knowledge about the situation in Afghanistan to those outside.

Most Americans and other English speakers do not have access to eyewitnesses who share their cultural perspective. They see primarily breaking news reports from large media organizations that mostly report bombings and violence. Hopefully this series will generate discussion and help reveal effective solutions in Afghanistan's search for justice, freedom of expression, and human rights. By seeing the truth of daily life in Afghanistan, Americans can better judge the effectiveness of their military and aid efforts.

The first interview is with Rosemary Stasek.

Rosemary is a Californian who has lived most of the past six years in Kabul.

As founder and chair of the non-profit organization, A Little Help, Rosemary is passionately involved with improving conditions for women in Afghanistan through government and NGO project management, fund-raising, and consulting services for other organizations. Her projects channel hundreds of thousands of dollars to successful programs in women's prisons, maternity hospitals, and girls' education. Rosemary lives in a small house in downtown Kabul, and has a good feel for the pulse of life there. Her astute commentary on Afghan government agencies, the UN, and the American military and aid presence are compelling and compassionate, and reflect the thoughts of her many Afghan friends and colleagues.

This is the second in a four-part series of interviews with Rosemary. Her responses have been slightly edited.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Would you describe the quality of medical care you've seen?

Again it's becoming a very tiered system in Kabul. There are the public clinics, the public hospitals which have very little equipment or resources. Generally if you're at a public hospital, and if you need medicine, you're sent out to the bazaar to buy your own. If you need an operation, you're send out to the bazaar to buy the equipment- the IV and what ever you might need for your operation. So the public hospitals have almost nothing.

The other thing is that many doctors are paid so little, they just show up at the hospitals for a couple hours a day. They just show up to sign in, put themselves on the tab for their paycheck, and then go off to their private clinics. All over the city, everywhere you see private health clinics. Even with them there is a wide range of quality. There are a lot of Indian sponsored clinics with equipment brought in from India. The doctors come in, moonlighting blatantly in the middle of the day from their government medical posts. Given any financial feasibility it's very common for Afghans to take their family members to Pakistan for medical care.

Out in the villages and rural areas, there's just nothing. There was a story the other day that in Bamian people were being put on donkeys and taking days to get to a hospital. I was up at a clinic, the district hospital there, the only one in the whole province of Chagcharan. It was nothing. I was in the maternity ward, and a woman was brought in, and she had been in labor for three days. They finally threw her into a car at four in the afternoon and it took until four in the morning to get her there. At that point the baby had already died, and she was not doing so well either when I saw her.

There really is a severe lack of facilities and equipment in medicine, but the most severe shortage is in trained personnel. There are so few female doctors to begin with, and outside the city, there are none. So women also have a hard time getting medical attention if their families won't allow them to see a male doctor, even if there happens to be one available. It just goes on and on, the barriers to healthcare, and again, its always worse for women.

What about higher education? Kabul University, for example.

I was just at the new women's dormitory there, supported by USAID. It was opened last year by Laura Bush. It's like a US dorm— laundry, computer room, clean. It's beautiful. The university itself is nothing to write home about, but there are many, many women there. Not as many as the US, but good. You can't pick your field. You are assigned to a course of study based on your test scores. The top scorers go to medicine, next level are engineers, then down from there.

I never see anyone with textbooks there. My assistant is in the Sharia faculty. She's an Islamic law student, and she doesn't have any books. They just photocopy pages of stuff and give it out. I can't see that the quality of the education they're getting is anything substantial. But then again, the University is open, operating, with lots of students, and plenty of young women.

The educational quality depends on the course of study. Far too many of the graduates from the medical school could barely pass a first aid course in the US. On the other hand my assistant works really, really hard; she really studies hard. I think also because culturally, there is a high importance placed on Sharia, the faculty is very motivated, because of the religious factors. So I don't hear her talk about “my teacher didn't show up,” that sort of thing. And not showing up is not just at the university. Teachers don't show up, period, at any level.

What are the Internet and telephone like?

The Internet is available to a very small portion of the Afghan population. In Kabul, there are Internet cafes, and most internationals have Internet. The international restaurants have wi-fi. But from the Afghan perspective other than Internet cafes, which, again girls don't have much access to, there's just not much available.

Internationals have really good internet. There's no shortage, but it's really expensive. I get 128 down and 64 up for $500 a month. It's astounding how much it costs, but you can't live without it as an international.

Wired telephones are pretty rare. The majority of them are in government offices. There's also digital service, and many houses in the center of the city where upper-middle class Afghans live. But cellular is everywhere. Up to last year, there were a few places with no coverage, but I don't know of any without coverage now. There is the issue of the Talibs blowing up cell towers, but I haven't heard of any in the past few weeks. The phones go down all the time; it's just something you learn to live with. Electricity is very unreliable, and that holds back business that depends on computers and Internet. I get electricity 3-4 hours a day, 3-4 days a week. When it's out, I lose the Internet, except if I use my little generator, but it makes a lot of noise.

How is the security situation? Are you ever afraid?

I'm not afraid of the security situation from random crime or violence standpoint. I just go about and do my business. Frankly Kabul is probably the safest city of 4 million people in the world, bottom line.

The international community was really, really rattled after the Serena Hotel attack. And everyone went on lock down and everything just sort of clamped up. But that was the international community. The average Afghan has to go to work. They gotta go do what they gotta do. They can't go into lock down, they have families to feed. And so, you just don't see people in Kabul just going into lock-down mode.

I also think that people who have been here have a different perspective on what violence really is . I spoke to a woman the other day who had lived through it all, through the mujahedeen, the Taliban. I love talking to them because you get these incredible stories. During the mujahedeen, you'd send the kids to school, and you'd go to work, and you wouldn't know, you really wouldn't know whether or not you were going to see your children again, or whether you were going to get home from work. And that was how it was every day.

That is definitely not the feeling of Kabul now. There is frustration, with the criminal element. The criminal element is absolutely targeting Afghans much more than internationals. And they're targeting who they perceive to be successful Afghan businessmen. My next door neighbor was kidnapped and held for a million dollars ransom. And so the security situation has nothing to do with the Taliban or insurgents.

There is almost no random crime in Kabul or Afghanistan. Every criminal incident, every incident of violence, you can really trace it back, it's either a family dispute, a tribal dispute, insurgents targeting officials. There's no random to it. No “I just shot you for your wallet” kind of thing. So it's a very different set of security issues here.

One of the issues in Kabul is the movement of international convoys, whether American military convoy, ISAF convoy, the black-windowed-no- license-plate-whoever-the-hell-they-are-from-US embassy convoy. They're bullet magnets. They're IED magnets. They're actively being targeted. And the danger to Afghans and the danger to me, because I move around the same as everybody else, is collateral damage. The danger is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

They aren't after the average Afghan. They aren't after me and my Corolla. But the problem is that I'm on Jalalbad road going wherever, and one of these black-windowed convoys goes past me, and somebody presses the button, and there I go. So from a security perspective, the biggest danger is if we're in the same space as the targets. I try to avoid them, even if I have to drive way around on side streets to get where I'm going.

What about the HESCO barriers (temporary anti-blast walls) popping up across Kabul?

It's absolutely ridiculous. In the last few weeks, there are more and more streets you can't go down, and why not? Because someone just put up a barrier. There's absolutely no control over who's blocking the street, who's putting up HESCOs. You know after the Serena, all these international organizations started putting up these HESCOs that took up half the street. They just went out into the street and threw up a HESCO in front of their house.

And why? Because some goon in coveralls with letters of some security company tell me the street is now blocked off. And why is that? Because his boss who lives on the street said so. It infuriates me, and I'm a foreigner, who can get around in their own car, and isn't afraid of driving past roadblocks.

A member of parliament wants to pass legislation that says you can't block off a street, and you're not allowed to put up HESCOs. I want to go work in his office and help him. Because I have to drive in Kabul too. And yes, I'm a foreigner, but that doesn't mean I have to live my life hiding behind blast walls and inconvenience half the city.

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Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 1

Robert Maier — 2008-04-20T10:34:26Z

Kabulpress.org enjoys huge input from Dari and Farsi speakers around the world, but the English pages have lagged a bit. To address this, we are beginning a series of interviews with English speakers who reside in Afghanistan.

The first interview is with Rosemary Stasek.

Rosemary Graduation2

Photo: Rosemary with graduates of a police women's emergency obstetrics course.

This is the first in a three-part series of interviews with Rosemary that will discuss both problems and possible solutions . Her responses have been slightly edited.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Tell us about the condition of the basic infrastructure like roads, electricity, trash collection, water:

Things have maybe improved a little over the past few years. In some areas things are better, some areas are worse. Some days are better than others. I don't think electricity has become worse, but for some it's better. I get three to four hours a day at my house, three or four days a week. It was never much to start with.

Kabul convoy

Military convoy stuck in Kabul traffic

Traffic is horrible. There is a huge amount of traffic on streets that just can't handle it. It's as bad as its ever been, which is bad. I don't think there has been much improvement in the past two years.

The city has gotten more crowded and more dirty, with more people up living in the hillsides with no electricity and no water. There has been almost no improvement to public infrastructure. You go around the city, and there are shiny new buildings and high-rises, that sort of thing, but those are very isolated improvements which only show a greater contrast with what's average in the city.

There are some NGOs that have organized trash collection. Now you see dumpsters throughout the city. But the problem of trash around the city is huge because of all the new people. What happens is even when the garbage goes in the dumpster, it's just taken right back out so animals can eat through it, and people can scavenge through it. So you have a few work crews collecting garbage and cleaning out the sewer gutters, but then it just gets pulled out again. And the city is so crowded that they just keep everything at bay, not really cleaning the city in a really modern sense.

There are new public toilets all over town, put in by an NGO. They are the composting kind. They look clean and nifty, but I can't say I've ever used one, and they're a big improvement over empty lots, especially for women. It costs just a few pennies to use them, and they seem to be a pretty sustainable idea.

How are conditions with schools?

In Kabul, it's different from rest of country. Schools are up and operating, but there are lots of private schools. The Kabul public schools are so bad, everyone wants to send their kids to private schools. But they are so expensive. I went into one yesterday that was about 20 bucks a month, which for the average Afghan is enormous. They are “international model schools”, and they're springing up all over the place. And there is definitely a market for that. In Kabul the public schools have books. By and large the education system is functional in Kabul.

Boyschool 2

Outside, it's a mess, depending on the area. In the west a little less so, in the south it's really marginal, almost nonexistent in terms of facilities and in terms of girls attending school. The Taliban and various insurgents, whatever their motivation, have really started targeting school buildings, so over a couple of years, close to 500 schools have been damaged or destroyed.

We have drive-by shootings of principals and students. The girls' schools are being targeted. Schools are easy targets, because they are seen as undefended symbols of the government. So if you want to attack the government, attack a school. It's so much harder to attack a roadside checkpoint or a governor's complex.

Girls' schools are practically non-existent in the south, and in the Taliban areas, and schools for boys are marginal there as well right now. Every family is different, and priorities are different for education, depending on whether it's for boys or girls, and it varies by region. In the Hazara area, of the central highlands, there's tremendous support for girls education. But on the other hand, they don't have any resources, and they don't have the schools and teachers they need.

The resources aren't going in because it's a relatively peaceful area. The irony is that the safest areas tend to get the least attention and least amount of aid. There is this huge amount of aid focused on the drug producing areas, the Taliban dominant areas. In the north there is certainly a focus on education, and good support for girls'education. In the south, there are families who want to educate their girls, but the Taliban are putting up night letters saying that if you send your girls to school we're going to kill them, and we're going to burn down the schools. So even families who want to educate their girls, are afraid to send them.

There are areas in the hills where there are no schools. Kids have to carry water up the hills all day long. The community wants schools, but have no money for books, pencils, paper. What is the situation there?
There are schools available for those children, but they are far away. There is no transportation, and it would take a very long walk to get there. And the family may need the kids to haul water because it may be the only way to get water. It's a survival thing. Teacher shortage is an issue too. You can only put up so many buildings, then you run out of teachers.

We hear complaints about the courts and judicial system.

There is absolutely zero sense that the judicial system is even remotely something that you could count on. The government judicial system doesn't exist, in many places outside of Kabul. Disputes are settled through tribal shuras, which are never in the best interest of women. In most rural places, disputes are settled by exchanging women to write a wrong, and the women have nothing to say about it.

There is no sense of justice. It's all a matter of who is going to pay the judge the most to buy the verdict. Even in Kabul people don't put any of their faith in the judicial system at this point.
Government officials are held in pretty low regard.

What about the police?

They are the lowest of the lowest of who is held in esteem in this culture at this time. The Afghan National Police (ANP) are beyond incompetent, corrupt, vicious, incapable. Pick a bad adjective and it describes the ANP. Their purpose appears to be only to shake people down for whatever bribe they can get. A vast number are illiterate. They are poorly trained, their equipment is subpar, and whatever equipment they can get they turn around and sell.

The running joke is that they can't shoot you because they have already sold their ammunition for cigarettes. Their big thing is to stop people at checkpoints to see what they can get from them. The Afghan man who drives my female staff has been stopped several times. I drive myself, and I don't stop, I just run them over, so I don't have that problem, but our driver gets stopped all the time and he has to pay a couple bucks here, a couple there. It's a ridiculous amount just to pass through a checkpoint, especially considering how little Afghans make. They're just seen as the lowest of the low, and they are among the biggest factors that are eroding the credibility of the Afghan government right now.

Bombed convoy

Aftermath of US Embassy convoy bombing last March

Photo: Bombed US Embassy convoy, March 2008

There's now another layer, the guys in the green outfits from the National Security Directorate (NDS), and they're even scarier. They wear the patches and ride around in their new Ford Rangers. They answer to no one really except the president, not that the ANP answers to anybody either, except to their chief who wants a cut of whatever they manage to take in that day.

Is it true you can buy fake police uniforms for $5 in the bazaar?
Every incident you hear of they say, “yeah they were wearing ANP uniforms.” But finding the uniforms in the bazaar? Sure, they're available in the grey market, but mostly it's just an excuse by the Ministry of Interior, which is supposed to control the ANP. They say, oh yes people are making fake uniforms, which is their way of pushing it off when the ANP does something, but 90% of the time they really were the ANP.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Learn more about Rosemary Stasek at www.stasek.com

کابل پرس

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Exclusive Interview with Bashir Bakhtiari, famous Hazara Caricaturist, filmmaker and journalist

Budd MacKenzie, an American helping Afghans peacefully

Table of contents

How long will such a project take?

Investing in Education

Broadening Horizons

The Big Picture

Kabul Press Interviews Sarah Chayse

Table of contents

Taliban Times

Afghan Soap Entrepreneur

On the Future of Afghanistan

Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 3

Table of contents

What should the US be doing in Afghanistan?

The United Nations

Do you have any fear speaking out about what you see in Afghanistan?

How long will you stay in Afghanistan?

Do you wear a headscarf?

Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 2

Interview from Afghanistan: Rosemary Stasek Part 1