Friday, April 13, 2007

Kabul by day, Kabul by night

Salam to all, I am writing this posting on this Friday 13, sitting on the comfy couches of L’Atmosphere, a French club with a swimming pool, a bar, and a restaurant where I would advise the Steaks with Roquefort Sauce right after a carpaccio, not forgetting the chocolate fondant with pomegranate seeds, all washed off with one hell of a red wine… where am I? In Kabul of course! This is part of my answer to the questions I have been getting frequently. How’s life in Kabul? Not too dangerous? Not too constraining? First of all please note we are in an Islamic republic, and like all identical religious regimes (Iran, Pakistan…) in capital and in the main cities, two worlds collide, the one of expats, bi nationals, dignitaries, and certain adventurous locals, with the one of average afghans, less glossy, much more exposed, and of course much more dangerous in those recent afghan years marked by an impressive deterioration of security. The more religious it is, the more hypocrite it is (nothing new of course) since authorities do close their eyes, too busy looking for wallets and other bakchichs surrounded by grey areas, legal blur, and populist demagogy provoking from time to time prohibition style raids, less the Hollywood glamour.

When you’re an expat, all tastes and wallets can be accommodated. May everyone be assured, we‘re not missing anything and specially not food or alcohol, all of that in the most secure environments. It becomes a little bit more complicated when we want to discover the other world, the real one, the one of afghan people. Welcome to the reality of tight security (which I have to monitor) controlled risks (or not) and all kind of assessments every time we go out of our green zone. We’re banned form walking outside of a small perimeter, banned from driving, accompanied movements most of the time with national staff. Always be discreet, no NGO visibility over here, the contrary actually with a low profile policy to blend as much as we can. The cultural barrier is also quite impressive as you can imagine, regarding women first of all, but also regarding a strange type of Islam rather difficult to perceive, somewhere between politeness towards expats, proper zealousness, and disillusion towards the west which, once again, only portrays its most mercantile and less ideological side, a side regularly denatured by ignorance, anger and other extremist manipulations.

So past the usual salamaleks, the couple of outings to popular restaurants with the staff, and the cups of tea exchanged at the office, what is left? Expatriates, my biggest deception since arriving in afghan territory. The readers of my French blog often
Saw me doing the apology of those friends and arms companion circles, as rich as strong and sincere. What about Kabul? Sadly all the contrary L First chock, the average experience and age.

Arriving in such a battled context, I was expecting to meet people with a certain experience, who would have been through other difficult destinations, and mostly older people (more mature that is) How wrong was I! With a rough 25 years of age and consequent reasoning, the level of debates is alarmingly low. Add to that an impressive naivety, shining through admiration for “this great country of warriors and wonderful landscapes) forgetting all realism and/or social, historical, and cultural barriers. The humanitarian world has always partially been populated by people escaping something and looking for something else, but a culture medium for growing youngsters doing their semester abroad in Afghanistan, this leaves me jaw dropped.

Another choc, the community circles reigning in the expatriate world, and more specifically in the French one. If getting together with compatriots has always been a joy, augmented with a good wine bottle, some genuine food, and all kind of pretexts used to do the apology of the French way of life (and bashing of the English in rugby hehehe) here the situation is closer to a linguistic and cultural ghetto. My humanitarian experience has always been rich thanks to the melting pot of nationalities I have come across, so what a deception to fall in such a monochrome universe! Annoying clichés surface again, along with stupid prejudice sometimes even flirting with intolerance, but the worse bit? Other nationalities do the same…who to blame then?

Of course we’ve organized resistance, undermined though by end of assignments of valorous warriors, but the fight goes on. In the end is this situation really bad? This little resistance group has an undeniable advantage of clearing a lot of free time, then available to be enjoyed in many ways, but this will be the topic of my next posting.

A military vocabulary adapted to the situation, but why? Because we are in a country engaged in an active war (a novelty for me) and I am discovering a new part of the NGO world, our friends the campaigning military men, in charge of war but also of winning “hearts and minds” the infamous motto common to all Einsteins in battle gear. The name of foreign troops in Afghanistan, ISAF (International Security and Assistance Forces) sums up the confusion we pay the price for as NGOs. For the I the S and the F no problem, but isn’t strange that assistance, usually reserved to NGOs, be part of their mandate. Yes we are “facing competition” from our friends the army men…and what does it give? A real mess as dangerous for the quality of Aid provided as for our own security. Big up to the men in green. My disgust of the uniform may come today from more complex elements, but is still as alive as ever. More explanations? To be followed in the next episode….to keep you hanging on to this blog ;-)

Saturday, April 7, 2007

Little interview

Salam to all,

Following the kidnapping of 2 french aid workers, and while we slowly dig the increasing insecurity sadly promised to us in Afghanistan this year, find a little interview I did with the french news site lemonde.fr. In french of course (sorry guys...) Thanks Marion ;-)

http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3216,36-892470@51-799721,0.html