Conversation with an Afghani

During the San Francisco earthquake of 1989, two good friends of mine from San Francisco were in the air on their way to New York. They didn't hear about the earthquake until I told them. Then they felt a strange mixture of relief and envy that they had not been there for their city's huge drama.

That's a bit how I feel being away from Paris with all the goings-on. I'll be back there on Thursday.

A national general strike is now being planned for Tuesday, 28 March. A good day not to be in Paris.
.........................

I seem to write a lot about taxi drivers, I realize. That is partly because of the inherent constraints of my version of non-intimate blogging, and partly because I think taxi drivers are often ambitious, intelligent foreigners who have an interesting take on things.

Tonight I arrived back in Germany late and the driver was an Afghan about 40, as handsome as a movie star, with fine features and blue eyes. He said he had waited three hours at the airport for a fare, and my flight was the second-to-last one.

I told him that I had dreamed of visiting Afghanistan ever since I was a child, when I discovered a stack of old National Geographics with the spectacular photos of Afghanistan by Roland and Sabrina Michaud (who are  French). I am ashamed to admit that I cut them up and still have an album full of the dreamlike photos of that beautiful wild unconquered country.

He said he had lived in Germany for 25 years. He was from a Pashtun family of Kabul; his father was an army officer and had left for Pakistan after the Russian invasion. The man was very bitter over the Pakistanis.

"Pakistan is a new country, only a few decades old. It is artificial: half of it was stolen from Afghanistan, and half from India. Afghanistan has a 3000-year history." He said that Pakistan alone was the reason behind the strife in Afghanistan now. "The Pakistani government is getting American aid with one hand and giving aid to Al Qaeda with the other. Whenever they need more money, they pretend they have found an Al Qaeda leader and turn him over to the Americans. But in the past three or four months, the Americans are starting to notice. Sie bemerken es jetzt."

I am used to people hating America and I proceeded gingerly. What did he think about the American presence in Afghanistan?

"The Afghan people support the Americans. No one has ever been able to conquer Afghanistan. The Russians had 200,000 men in Afghanistan and could not keep the peace. The United States has about 12,000 men in Afghanistan and there is mostly peace. If even half the Afghan population was against them, this would not be possible. It is because the Afghani people do not mind the U.S. presence that the Americans are not having problems."

"Have you been back to Afghanistan yourself recently?" I asked.

"I went twice last year," he said. "At the Kabul airport, an American soldier said to me, 'I am sorry that we are occupying your country.'

"I said to him, 'No one can occupy Afghanistan.'"

* Photo from Olia717 on flickr

Comments

[L'Amerloque]

Hi Sedulia !

The Michaud volume of photographs has pride of place chez Amerloque. (smile) Looking at the photographs and reading passages from books such as Patrick MacRory's Retreat from Kabul put another prespective on the world - and fill many a winter evening in front of the roaring fire at a French country farmhouse ...

Best,
L'Amerloque

[Sedulia]

Yeah, the Michauds don't seem to able to make a photo that isn't beautiful. It was frustrating that I couldn't find more about them or better photos to use. I guess I'll have to buy the books.

[L'Amerloque]

Hi Sedulia !

>>I guess I'll have to buy the books.

There appear to be several used copies of Tartarie over on chapitre.com. Apparently Tartarie is "épuisé" (sigh)

Best,
L'Amerloque