Final Thoughts from Kabul

In many ways, Afghanistan is an international relations/ development wonk’s juiciest wet dream. This place has it all: raging insurgency with quasi-religious bent; grinding poverty and despairing human development indicators; an economy riddled with corruption, propped up by illicit narcotics, which further fuels the insurgency; a complex patchwork of tribal identities and ancient suspicions; instability on its borders; all staged on a vast, stunning landscape.

To those who are intellectually drawn to the most acute challenges the world faces, Afghanistan offers an experimental lab, a playground where diplomats, donors, military strategists and NGOs can run riot with new ideas for how to deal with the problems that this country faces. But Afghanistan’s challenges are like a knot - many strands of gnarled old rope tangled together. Everyone wants to tug at a different strand of the knot; and with each tug, rather than loosening, the knot tightens further.

The problems facing this country are profound and complex. That may appear to be an obvious statement, but the tone of debate on Afghanistan in the British and American media does not always reflect this. Pundits and politicians often believe that there is a “solution”, and that politicians simply don’t have the courage to take tough decisions. A wave of British deaths in Helmand this week has brought about a fresh round of soul searching about our involvement. The leader of Britain’s Liberal Democrats broke the cross-party consensus and said that the lives of British troops are being ‘thrown away’, and that Britain ‘must do things differently’. I don’t really know what this means, because the debate is mired in generality without anyone considering specifics. Some people want more troops, some people want less. Some people want more money, others less. Others want the focus to shift from this priority to that priority. To support Karzai, to dump Karzai. The list is almost endless. It is as if our rational notions of perpetual human progress cannot comprehend the fact there may be no obvious solution to the problem we have found ourselves in.

In his novel ‘The Quiet American’, Graham Greene writes about the US’ involvement in Vietnam in the 1950s, and describes how the innocence, naiveté and idealism of a young ambitious American wreaks disaster and chaos on the country he is purporting to ‘help’. Greene describes innocence as being “like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.” The parallels with Afghanistan are painfully obvious.

I leave Afghanistan less hopeful about its future than when I arrived. I do not question the sincerity of the international community’s desire to help Afghanistan – one’s sense of humanity cannot fail to be moved when one sees or hears of the violence and suffering that Afghans have endured in the past few decades. But sincere intentions are not enough, and are potentially dangerous. I fully acknowledge that I am complicit in this industry of good intentions – arriving for short stint brimming with enthusiasm, ideas, and most of all – innocence.

I cannot offer a grand solution to Afghanistan’s woes. But from what I have seen, the component most lacking in the current approachis humility. The humility to accept the complexity of the situation; the humility to accept the limitations of our influence and power here; and the humility to embrace the fact that our vision for success now differs considerably from the one we originally envisaged. Most of all, the humility to accept that although we can support them, Afghans have to ultimately untie this knot for themselves.

Yours humbly,

Y