Conflict

Today, because we were talking about danger in this area, I asked Esman if he were not a little frightened about traveling to work. After all, he or any of the others working for us could be in danger for working with foreigners. He said that he stopped worrying about that a couple of years ago. If something happens, it happens. I told him that I thought that was a pretty fatalistic way of looking at things, and he said that generally, people here believe that God will take care of everything.

Of course, that’s what I think, too, but something in me stops me from believing that God is really excited about a group of people trying to do harm to others because those others do not appear to be following the faith properly. But then, I guess, many wars have taken place because of someone’s religious faith – or lack of the appropriate one. Somehow, I just don’t think that is what our Creator had in mind.

Esman continued talking about his short history – he is not 30 – and he has never seen peace in his country. Every phase of his life has been marred by conflict of some sort – whether civil war, the invasion of the Russians, the Taliban, or now the Americans’ fight here. He remembers that his family one time sought refuge in Pakistan, and he remembers hiding from gunmen when he was five or six. I cannot imagine how one comes to terms with that kind of fear, how one carries on with anything resembling a normal life, when at a young age, he or she hides from soldiers, or when his or her family must flee for their safety. I believe that those kinds of things would affect a person’s life forever, and yet, he seems to be such a normal young man, albeit, as I have noted before, older than most American men his age. No wonder.

He then gave me a truncated history of this country, and how the county has stayed unsettled for decades. I saw pictures of Afghanistan in the 1950s and 1960s, and though most of the pictures were taken in the city, they reflected a country that looked Western. One picture was of people getting on a city bus. The women were wearing headscarves: not hajib, but scarves like the ones Audrey Hepburn used to wear. They were also wearing short, full skirts, like Debbie Reynolds used to wear in Tammy Tell Me True. Some pictures showed men and women in a university classroom, studying together, and in a lab, all in white lab coats, women with no head covering. These pictures were taken, Esman said, either at the time of the last king of Afghanistan, or during the administration of the first president of the country, who, along with his family, was killed by a Russian-backed Communist coup in 1978. That president believed that the future of the country was in progress toward the 20th century, and sealed his fate when he told Communist leader Leonid Brezhnev that Afghanistan would determine its own destiny when Brezhnev told him to remove American advisers from Northern Afghanistan.

What a difference 40 or 50 years can make!

Since those pictures were taken, the country has been in upheaval, thanks to land division by treaty, and to greedy people who want land and power. Truly, the country has many problems, many of which have to do with lack of infrastructure and lack of industry. The country is rich with copper and other minerals, but no one here has the capital to construct a mine, and companies in other countries will not enter into such an endeavor for lack of security. The country is poor – a good salary here in Herat is $1,000/month. That amount may feed, house, and clothe up to five people in one home – or maybe more.

And yet, it is the country of a people, people who love their home as we do in America.

Regardless, some people are trying to kill others in their own country because one group does not pay respect to the religion as the other group thinks it should. The religion controls, but only a certain type of religion, or a certain type of worship, and people, including those in the government, who do not adhere to that religious standard are targeted. Watching this conflict is further evidence that separation of church and state is a must. Whose religion rules? Whose religion’s rules?

Ours was a sobering and enlightening discussion. I hope that Afghanistan can continue to foster a reliance on the law for justice so that the people can depend on justice. And I hope, hope, hope, that Esman and all our little guys (and one girl) stay safe in a place that has, in their lifetimes, never known safety.