The vitriolic outpouring of what can best be termed “suicidal ethnic division”, which has erupted in the wake of blatantly rigged elections, does not bode well for the future of Pakistan. Ethnic divides have always existed but the current blame game could, at any moment, blow the existing semblance of national unity absolutely sky-high.

Historic as the elections were, in more ways than one, the exceptional voter turnout — predominantly consisting of the younger generation and women, a high percentage of whom were blinded by cricket and charisma — vowed, on the one hand, to follow their leader, Imran Khan, to the ends of the earth. However, on the other hand, they consider his victory in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) to be ridiculous in the extreme, unless they are residents of the province. Everyone must not only begin somewhere but must, before they can be considered fit and able to move up the political ladder of success, prove that they can handle the job that they have been chosen to undertake by the voters. And, as the “Captain” claims Pashtun ethnicity, where better a place for him to prove his highly questionable mettle than this?

PTI opponents, however, are sneeringly condemning ethnic Pashtuns for exercising their right to freedom of choice to the point where anger, long simmering at the “step-motherly” treatment meted out to them by successive central governments, is threatening to boil over. It is being stoked largely by supposedly educated people who should know better, via social media websites. Those spouting anti-Pashtun rhetoric appear to have forgotten that K-P has and is suffering far more from terrorism than any other place in the country at present and that people can only take so much before retaliating at “visible” — versus “invisible” — enemies.

The same applies to those getting a massive high from denigrating anyone who happens to be of Punjabi origin who, through no fault of his or her own, happens to belong to the most populous province in the country and is most certainly not renowned for his or her patience.

Then, of course, there is the fraught situation in Karachi which, weighed on the scales of past experience, is liable to result in bloodshed unless a measure of sense — an elusive ingredient in this ethnically diverse megacity — is injected and injected fast.

As PTI supporters kick Pashtuns, Punjabis, Balochis, members of the MQM and anyone else they fancy — although PPP supporters are being left alone to lick their wounds — and Punjabis ridicule Pashtuns, etc., it is fairly obvious that everyone on the “playing field” has forgotten, vote rigging aside, that Pakistan is supposed to be a democracy. It is supposed to be a democracy in which the majority vote, which is unlikely to be decidedly different in the absence of rigging, carries the day.

The harsh fact is that the majority has chosen to vote for what is considered by others to be a corrupt party as it is their democratic right. Spewing venom directly at other ethnicities is no way to bring about any kind of tolerable change. It will, instead, only act to further divide an already divided nation and, quite possibly, hasten the break-up of a country that is already struggling to survive.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.

Effortlessly, acrobatic swallows swoop and glide through wheelbarrow-pushing vendors attempting to earn a living on the streets of central Kabul. Their cries of kishmish and krut — the rock-hard balls of sundried yoghurt made by Kuchi nomads during times of plenty — echo from building to building on the almost-deserted Flower Street, from the otherwise silent shopfronts of carpet and fake antique stores lining Chicken Street and in voluble competition with the traffic, jostling for position, on Shara-e-Nau where shopkeepers are wearily resigned to lack of trade.

“Everyone is worried” says Rizwan, a cook who — in an attempt at making ends meet — doubles as a maintenance man in one of the many, poorly-constructed, apartment blocks that have sprung up around the city in recent years. “They worry about what will happen in 2014, they worry about how to earn enough to survive and they worry about the arrival of the Taliban which is stupid. The Taliban are already here. They never went away.”

Rizwan, his acne-scarred face twisted in disgust, hails from a small village in the Kunar province bordering Pakistan where, he explains, everyone in the village is the Taliban.

“In the daytime, if they have jobs, they work. In the night-time, they plan how to kill Americans and sometimes, they do. The Taliban are everywhere in Afghanistan now. They become more powerful every day and no one can stop them. If America was serious about killing the Taliban, they would have done this when the Taliban were few but they did not and now, the Taliban are many. Why did America not kill the Taliban when they could? The answer to this is simple: America, supported by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, made the Mujahideen and then, when the Mujahideen became too strong, America, again with help from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, made the Taliban to fight the Mujahideen. So, you see, America — with these two other countries — made number one and then number two and now, when the Taliban become too strong, they will make number three. I and the poor people of Afghanistan, those who continually suffer and are killed in wars, are watching and waiting to see who this number three will be.”

In his late 20s, Rizwan, like countless other Afghans, is of the opinion that his country is being used as a battlefield by countries including America, Britain, Russia and China that, he insists, do not want war on their own turf — viewing the people of Afghanistan and the country itself as expendable. “These countries only care for themselves”, he continues. “It is the same with rich Afghans who have made so much money out of wars. Even they do not care about their people. When the situation here deteriorates some more, rich Afghans will run away again and give thanks to God for saving them and their families while, as always, the poor people suffer and are killed.”

Undeniably bitter, Rizwan — who like so many others here trusts nothing and no one — sums up his nation’s angst with “Afghanistan is just a war place for others. The situation is hopeless. Maybe my country is finished now. There is nothing the people can do except wait — in silence if they want to survive — and see who and what is this number three.”

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2013.

A metallic pink Toyota Corolla, packed with a motley crew of kerchiefed young men, cruises a wide side street off of Shara-e-Naw in central Kabul. An expertly etched black skull and crossbones are emblazoned across its bonnet — a blatant warning of the rapidly approaching anarchy. Shuffling figures encased in dusty blue burqas emerge from sunless shadows to beg, their numbers increased of late, as are those of grimy street urchins brandishing single packs of chewing gum, demanding baksheesh in practised whining tones. Cobblers and knick-knack sellers wait for non-existent customers. Weary labourers lounge despondently across the ambitiously named “Kabul Business Centre” — its blue-glassed facade silent and blank-eyed. Just around the corner, a row of cows march along the pavement outside a butcher’s shop, where gutter water floods out of the deep, garbage-clogged drain separating the cracked pavement from the road. It is noon and the cows’ feet, like the labourers, are going nowhere today.

The city, to a first-time observer, appears to be rising from the ashes of over three decades of war. Construction machinery roars amongst the stark ribcages of emergent buildings. But the previously frenzied pace of work has dropped from top gear to bottom and may just as well go into reverse — as has the economy and the very mindset of Kabulians themselves.

Afghans, in the guise of giving their all for the love of the country, have engineered this national disintegration all by themselves. Previously, they used to point accusatory fingers in the direction of Pakistan and elsewhere. However, now they no longer hide the fact that a certain segment of the population is solely responsible for cutting the nation’s throat; self-serving corruption and mercenary instincts being the final nail in a home-built coffin. Those who could have — and should have — saved this courageous country from destruction have ensured its demise as they siphon off and ship out billions of dollars any which way they can. Far from weeping when they have devoured the last golden egg laid by the convenient goose called foreign aid, they will simply pack up and run, leaving the long suffering population at the mercy of whoever or, more ominously, whatever, hits them next.

This rampant corruption, visible to anyone who cares to look, is so out of hand that President Hamid Karzai — that weak-willed puppet who is suddenly trying to take a stand much too late — publicly appealed for all financial looters to at least spend their ill-gotten gains within the country, in order to inject some life into the collapsing economy, instead of spending it overseas or stashing it away in foreign banks. But his appeal carried neither weight nor conviction as far as the increasingly beleaguered population is concerned, as those responsible for killing the country did nothing but laugh in his face. They are not about to change their spots now. And, while they cook their own goose, an angry and disgusted population watches, waits, and prepares for the long-awaited departure of the foreign occupation forces that brought this about and for the now seemingly inevitable civil war.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 24^th, 2013.

Environmental sustainability took a serious kick in the teeth when, on the very last day before he was to leave office, former prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf sanctioned the uplift of timber, valued at eight billion rupees from an area of the country where, in an attempt at stopping rapid deforestation, movement of timber has been banned for the last 20 years.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Pakistan lost 33.2 per cent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010. This latest ‘official mistake’, however, is set to exacerbate the problem as even before the official announcement, the timber mafia in Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) had seemingly already gone into action because someone in informed political circles gave them a nod and a wink.

The people of Diamer District have reportedly expressed dire concern for illegal felling of precious forest reserves which is once more in full swing. It is claimed that local authorities can do absolutely nothing about this latest official bungle, but hang their heads in confusion and environmental shame as the notification, issued by the Gilgit-Baltistan Council Secretariat Islamabad clearly states that “the prime minster has approved the disposal of legally and illegally cut timber from Diamer to down country”.

Lying timber amounts to 2.07 million cubic feet of legally cut timber and 1.93 million cubic feet of illegally felled timber. After the payment of ridiculously low fines, this will be sold off mostly to the commercial timber trade outside GB with some — the dregs — allocated for sale as fuel wood in the region itself. All sales are to be completed within the next four months, which means that people are unlikely to spend much needed cash on fuel wood right now with spring already here. However, the main point remains that with the “traditional connivance” of nefarious rogues in “high places”, the well-supported timber mafia is set to enjoy a major field day and, as always, the environment will suffer badly as yet more precious forest cover is lost.

Pakistan currently has just 2.2 per cent forest cover remaining which, for a country of 770,880 square kilometres, is abysmal and if deforestation trends continue at the same rate as they have since 1990 — a loss of 1.66 per cent or 42,000 hectares per year — it doesn’t take an Einstein to calculate that it will not be very long at all before there is no forest cover left to speak of. This would be an absolute catastrophe on many different fronts at once.

It is not just the 1,027 recognised species of birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians or the 4,950 recorded species of vascular plants that are endangered by deforestation; this adversely impacts climate change, too, of course, and vastly increases landslide and associated hazards. Additionally, it results in an increase in river silt which, in turn, leads to a corresponding build-up of silt in reservoirs and dams, thus impacting both essential water supplies and the production of hydroelectricity.

The often farcical, government promoted, tree planting campaigns, which are nothing more than publicity stunts, do absolutely nothing to alleviate the problem of rampant deforestation. The problem is that the timber mafia, along with the corrupt politicians and officials working hand in hand with these criminal gangs, must be brought to book while there are still forest trees standing.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10^th, 2013.

Kursheed herds the family buffalo along the rough mountain track leading towards a treeless area, where the animal will attempt to graze on rough, nutrient-deficient, tough grasses mixed with small shrubs. Kursheed, her shalwar kameez filthy from repeated wear, is nine years old and should, by law, be in school along with her two brothers — one older and one younger than her. Instead, her mother sees absolutely no point in educating a girl who will be married off to a cousin as soon as possible.

Kursheed’s mother, herself illiterate, says that she needs her eldest daughter at home. There are four younger girls amongst other children in the family, too, to help with chores because until her eldest son — only 11 years old at present — marries and brings home a wife, there is too much work for her to tackle alone. She doesn’t see much point in sending her son to school. The teacher is rarely there and school resources are almost non-existent. However, she sends him to school anyway because her husband, also illiterate, insists that all things considered, their son is highly unlikely to matriculate — as is the case with countless other boys in the mountain areas, who are regularly allowed to skip school.

In a country with the second lowest literacy rate in the world (only Nigeria outranks Pakistan in this), no one really cares whether or not children actually go to school. According to a variety of sources, there are somewhere between 5.1 and 9.5 million Pakistani children between the ages of five and 16 who have never seen the inside of a classroom in their short lives and, the odds are — increasingly so — that they never will. The government doesn’t give a single damn about these numbers as its meagre budgetary allocation — a mere 2.3 per cent of the Gross National Product (GNP) and just 9.9 per cent of the total budget — goes to prove.

“Ghost” schools, “ghost” teachers and teachers in many government schools, who have no education to speak of themselves, hardly give students a chance of gaining the kind of basic education needed in order to take a single, upwardly mobile step in the increasingly high-tech, highly competitive world of today. Even if teachers have some education, they do not have access to the most rudimentary teaching tools with which to teach a largely outmoded curriculum. This is especially true in rural areas where adult literacy rates are even lower. To these issues, we add the targeting of schools by the Taliban — with an emphasis on girls’ or co-educational schools — and now the targeted killing of schoolteachers. Realistically, the government’s claim of achieving a literacy rate of 60 per cent — only a four per cent increase from the supposedly current 56 per cent — by 2015 is a non-starter.

As it stands, only those children put through the exorbitantly expensive private education mill will achieve an acceptable scholastic level. Government refusal to prioritise education is — when the chips are down — responsible for the majority of ills faced by the country today. Unless things change, Pakistan will continue its slide into oblivion. Change must ensure that all children, irrespective of parental wishes, receive the education they are entitled to.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 3^rd, 2013.

Waziri Humanitarian Organisation’s current project helps Hazara women utilise their talent and earn cash for their struggling families

The wrought-iron basement door was standing open, despite bitterly cold temperatures, to allow a few stray beams of sunlight to help us see what we were doing in this dark room in a Kabul suburb where the power was off. As we excitedly sorted through heaps of beaded and hand-embroidered dress pieces, we discussed possible designs that would show them off to their exquisite best. Suddenly, the door darkened and Attaullah Waziri and I looked up in surprise.

A slight figure, tightly encased in a mud-splattered blue burqa, carefully stepped through drifting haze on the steep concrete stairs, a plastic bundle in her arms, mud-caked plastic shoes tip-tapping eerily as she descended to where we sat on the blue carpeted floor with our ‘treasure’ heaps. It was Fouzia, one of the most talented ladies to join our ‘Women’s Sewing Project’ which is aimed at helping widows, and other women from extremely poor backgrounds, earn an income and thus manage to survive in the harsh climate of Afghanistan as it is today.

Fouzia’s story is typical of those who have come to us at ‘Waziri Humanitarian Organisation’, a Kabul-based NGO, in search of help: A member of the long-persecuted Hazara community, she is just 28 years old, a mother to two  sons and a widow since the age of 18.

“I was married at 14,” she relates. “And bore my two sons before I turned 18, when my husband died from a cerebral haemorrhage.”

Too proud to ask for help, Fouzia who lives in a tiny ‘house’ which belongs to her brother-in-law, turned to the only skill she had in order to make an income. “I had learnt embroidery from my grandmother and mother during the good times,” she explains, her burqa thrown back to expose her delicate, high cheek-boned face. “I also went to school then, up to 5th grade. I now ensure that my sons get the best schooling they can in our local government school, as without a good education they can do nothing.”

From her tiny home in the Hazara slum known as Dasht-i-Barchi, Fouzia began a long round of the distant, up-market city shops. She carried with with her examples of her delicate embroidery: work so fine that it is impossible to tell the upper side from the back and, because of its extraordinary quality she was able to get enough orders despite intense competition.

Then came the Taliban years. “God gave me hands and feet so I have to work,” she stresses. “The Taliban were not going to stop me from feeding my sons. I do not want help. I will not have my sons growing up thinking that their mother is weak. I want them to be proud of me.”

Not being able to stick to her previous routine with the Taliban on the prowl, Fouzia managed to make ends meet by selling to private customers only. “It was extremely difficult during those years,” she explains. “But I would not give in. I do have family members living near me but I refuse to ask them for anything. I will manage on my own and am doing the best I can. One day I will do even better and one day,” she says. “I will have a business of my own.”

The number of women involved in Waziri Humanitarian Organisation’s project is between 10 to 12 at the moment.  Set up using Waziri’s own hard-earned cash, we have only been in operation for a few months. Two of the women are currently training with the paid assistance of a master tailor in the basement premises loaned by a friend; the rest are working from the privacy of their own homes or from tents in the overcrowded internal refugee camps where even the basic necessities of life are absent.

Our project currently has just three sewing machines on which two Hazara women, Majabeen and Najiba, studiously stitch traditional Afghan outfits under the tutelage of ‘Ustaad’ Sahib, a master tailor from Jalalabad. The finished clothes are then carefully ironed and packed ready for dispatch to outlets in California and Germany, which have agreed to market for us. In the meanwhile, negotiations with other potential outlets in New York and Canada are currently underway and we are also looking to the internet for sales. Profit is ploughed back into the project in the form of cloth, embroidery material and sewing machines so that more women can be trained.

The women working on the premises are paid a monthly income; plus, they are given a substantial lunch — which they happily take turns in preparing in the adjoining kitchen — and all the tea they can drink.

Those, such as Fouzia, are on a piece rate for whatever work they can find the time to do. Rates vary depending on the intricacy of the embroidery work they are requested to undertake. They are quite happy with the pay they receive, with more than one of them earning as much as Afghanis 15,000 per month which is Rs.30,000 and good even by Kabul standards where the cost of living is shockingly high.

The atmosphere in our basement is jovial: 20-year-old Majabeen, the only earning member of a family consisting of a sick father, mother and four younger siblings, happily jokes with Najiba. Najiba herself has four young children and her husband, a traditional cobbler has been rendered jobless due to the influx of cheap Chinese shoes in the bazaars. The income from her sewing also has to support her widowed mother-in-law and a brother-in-law who lost both legs during the years when the Mujahideen fought the might of the Soviet Empire.

Along with the new embroidery so painstakingly done by these women, we also reuse whatever antique Afghan embroidery work we can manage to find. These we buy from various sources who have travelled remote regions of the country, an increasingly dangerous task, in search of the rapidly dwindling amount of genuine pieces to be found. This is a painful indication of how desperate village and nomad women must be to resort to selling what is, in reality, their heritage and we are working towards, slowly and just one small step at a time, being able to incorporate at least some of these women in our project too.

Published in The Express Tribune, Ms T, March 31^st, 2013.

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It is now estimated that over 50 per cent of the population of Pakistan lives below the poverty line. The latest figures indicate that this includes 190 million people and even this number is expanding rapidly. Some of these people rarely know where their next meal is coming from and, unsurprisingly, at least 24 per cent of these people are malnourished, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

By any account, these figures should shock the government into action. Yet, nothing serious appears to have been undertaken to alleviate what is a potential disaster in the making — a disaster which is not limited to the rural areas alone but which increasingly affects the poor struggling to survive in deplorable urban conditions, too. This is all thanks to escalating inflation and unemployment.

Once upon a time and not so very long ago, the rural population in the huge agricultural belt of the country enjoyed a reasonably acceptable standard of nutrition. However, over the last 20 years or so, this has slowly dwindled as the mechanisation of many agricultural tasks has resulted in a surge of unemployment with landless labourers being the first to suffer. Residents of mountainous areas have always been seasonally food insecure but as a direct result of environmental degradation and the over-exploitation of natural resources, their struggle for survival is now year-round. Furthermore, it is forcing a growing percentage of them to migrate to urban centres in search of manual work, which is increasingly difficult and often impossible to find.

There is no immediate miracle solution to food insecurity but the number of those afflicted can be reduced if immediate educational and helpful action is undertaken. The problem can be tackled on more than one front with priority being given to teaching people how to produce their own food in even the most extreme circumstances. The Department of Agriculture can, for example, utilise either some of its own vast land holdings or, in urban areas, commandeer vacant plots on which to train food insecure people how to cultivate seasonal crops for their own consumption. The Parks Department can follow suit as a vast majority of rural migrants do not have this knowledge, despite the assumption that they do. And, even if they do, they have neither the land nor the money for the basic seed stocks required to get started.

It is also a shameful fact of life that the vast majority of the population, food insecure or not, has absolutely no understanding of the basic nutritional value of food or of the long-term consequences of eating chemically processed food. Even more worrying is that younger generations increasingly rely on packaged products and fast-foods, all of which are far more expensive than homemade, nutritious foods that they, ridiculously, no longer know how to make.

The introduction of sensible home economics courses to teach students about food preparation and nutrition in all schools and colleges — governmental and otherwise — could go a long way in reducing basic nutritional problems in the future. If lessons in sustainable home food production and seasonal food preservation are also included, then hopefully, the situation will improve over the long term, slowly but surely.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27^th, 2013.

Spring in Islamabad is surprisingly long this year and whilst this is good news in some ways, it is proving exceedingly bad for those unfortunate enough to be allergic to the pollen of the legions of paper mulberry trees, so thoughtlessly introduced to green up the capital city soon after its initial construction.

Native to Japan, Taiwan and Thailand, Broussonetia papyrifera, as the species is botanically called, has turned Islamabad into the pollen capital of the world: it is estimated that 90 per cent of these paper mulberry trees are male and they are responsible for the astronomical pollen count which, during spring, regularly exceeds 40,000 per cubic metre. A pollen count of 15,000 per cubic metre is considered dangerous for allergy sufferers, a fact which speaks for itself.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA), over recent years, has made a number of very hit-and-miss attempts at reducing the number of this dangerously invasive species. However, it has not undertaken a serious eradication programme for reasons best known to the CDA itself. Thus, allergy sufferers in the city continue to pay a dreadful price in health and wealth as treatment can be quite expensive in the long term.

Extremely widespread throughout the capital area itself and spreading even further by naturally dispersed seed, this species was originally planted by way of aerial seed dispersal via helicopter. This project was initiated without obtaining appropriate background information and now, it has become very difficult to control. Unlike many other tree species, it is not simply a matter of cutting the trees down as felling the main trunk actively encourages the widespread, shallow root system to retaliate by sending up new shots all over the place. Suddenly, where there was previously just one tree, there are now dozens.

This does not mean that paper mulberry cannot be wiped out — it can. However, such a programme is extremely labour intensive and, therefore, costly to run for the many months, perhaps even years, necessary for it to be 100 per cent effective. While it is true to say that the CDA is always strapped for cash — largely due to serious mismanagement and misuse of available funds — if its officials could be bothered to do their homework on paper mulberry, they would discover that an eradication programme could be self-financed and even profitable. Perhaps, its profitability aspect will encourage them.

Paper mulberry gets its common name from the fact that in East Asia, its bark is traditionally used in the papermaking industry. Once stripped of the bark, it can also be made into cloth. The wood itself brings a high price on the timber market as smaller branches can be sold off as much-needed fuel wood.

Some 50 years after its introduction, it is pointless to continually bemoan the arrival of paper mulberry in Pakistan. This nasty species is also well established in Rawalpindi, Faisalabad, the Murree area and Chitral. The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources listed the tree as “undesirable” as it kills off indigenous flora at a frightening rate. Hence, the need now is to get rid of the paper mulberry plant without any further excuse or delay.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2013.

There will be no winners, only losers, when and if — a very big ‘if’ indeed — the last soldier of occupation leaves Afghanistan, a country repeatedly raped and looted, its people routinely persecuted, especially so, since 1979, when the Soviet invasion ignited a series of wars which are, sadly — whether foreign troops remain or not — far from over.

Ongoing ‘peace talks’, participated in, at least at ‘tamasha level’, by publicity seeking, multiple-faced personalities and the governments behind them, are completely meaningless in the face of a stark reality: a reality which includes the brutal fact that the so-called ‘Taliban’ are just one of over 1,250 known and recognised ‘subversive’ groups currently active throughout the length and breadth of Afghanistan and, no doubt, there are a large number of  ‘unrecognised’ groups too, and while these may range in size from small to miniscule, the results of their violent actions are no less destructive.

It is all too easy to dismiss these groups, irrespective of their size and structure, as religious radicals or self-serving bandits yet, when examined in the clear light of day, the majority are guilty of nothing more than surviving the only way they know how: with a gun in their hands.

The odds are that any Afghan born after 1970 — this is the majority of the resident population — has had, if they are male and lucky, a rudimentary education at best and, if they belong to a rural area, probably no education at all and it is the same for their sons and now their growing up grandsons, too. The single thread stitching these three generations together is that of, against all odds, ‘winning’ enough to keep their body and soul, and those of their dependents, together and strong enough to face whatever hits them next. Without education, without regular access to even low-paying labouring jobs, these thousands — goodness knows how many thousands and the figure could actually run into millions — have, out of sheer necessity, resorted to ancestral, tribal ways of survival and if these happen to be ‘illegal’ in this ‘modern’ day and age in which, exactly as in days of yore, warfare and violence increasingly rule the roost, then, as far as they are concerned, ‘tough’!

‘Warlords’ are notorious for their wrongdoings but, it must also be admitted, that, rightly or wrongly and in their own way, they do balance the book of Afghan humanity: despite mass  ‘propaganda’ to the contrary, warlords, big ones and lesser ones, still — and they always will — maintain their very own private armies, their troops garnered from the areas over which they hold sway and from amongst the rank upon rank of uneducated, otherwise unemployable, gun-toting men who would otherwise flock to join the 1,250-plus subversive groups rampaging through the countryside.

It can, of course, be argued that warlords’ armies do exactly the same thing but, while this is true of some, it is far from being true of all as some warlords do have, believe it or not and as their ancestors had before them, the welfare of their tribes and the areas under their control, at heart and the provision of paid for employment does go a long way to help.

Wipe the warlords off the face of the earth and both unemployment and poverty will escalate: despite the nasty taste it brings to the mouth — bringing all warlords, irrespective of their previous atrocities, into the fold, is the only way to stave off, possibly already unavoidable, chaos.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 20^th, 2013.

It helps to have a sense of humour when browsing through Bush Bazaar in downtown Kabul. And it is even better to have a companion to laugh with as you wander. Named after the American president George W Bush, the bazaar features all types of military gear and accessories, many of which seem to have literally fallen off the back of a truck.

Getting to the ‘Bush’ Bazaar, previously known as ‘Lenin Bazaar’ during the Soviet occupation, is no easy feat, even for a true Kabulian like my friend Sohail. Simply instructing a cab driver to take you there is an adventure in itself. It also happens that there is not one but two Bush Bazaars and the taxi driver will drive you to whichever one happens to be the closest. This time it turned out to be the wrong one.

“Hey! Wrong Bush Bazaar,” Sohail told the cab driver as the car screeched to a halt amidst heaps of socks, boots and other army gear dumped on both sides of the jam packed road. Even light hearted arguments sound volcanic in Pashtu and this was no exception; the cab driver claimed that he had negotiated payment to ‘this’ Bush Bazaar and not ‘that’ Bush Bazaar. He was quite reluctant to drive all the way to the other Bazaar and only agreed after we negotiated a sizeable increase in the fare.

I’ve always found the sight of the omnipresent ISAF armed personnel carriers rather disturbing. Then much to my agony, one of these intimidating metal monsters rammed into our cab! The infuriated cab driver jumped out of the car and started arguing with the security personnel. Despite the police presence, a crowd started gathering and the situation could have turned explosive any second. I breathed a sigh of relief when our cab finally rattled on.

The real Bush Bazaar was a bit of a letdown at first sight, hiding behind tacky and corrugated iron blocks of run-down buildings near the Sharae-e-Naw District. I was expecting it to be disorderly, colourful and loud, but the bazaar had unusually clean cement walkways and open fronted shops.

“The cleanest bazaar in Kabul,” announced Sohail, “probably the most expensive one too!” Bush Bazaar, until recently, was frequented by foreigners and so the Ministry of Health imposed strict hygiene regulations and for once, even rigorously checked expiry dates on food items.

Sadly, the best goods stolen from the US Army en route to Afghanistan no longer arrive in Kabul. “Since the border clampdowns, the best of the stuff gets no further than Peshawar,” Sohail explained, “if someone is looking for stuff like guns then there is no point in looking here. Hijacked weapons never get past Pakistan and neither do the vehicles that some stolen containers contain.”

Those containers are auctioned off in a smugglers bazaar just outside Peshawar where bidders pay a minimum of Rs100,000 for a container. Many who bid actually have no clue what they are seeking or getting. If they are lucky and hit a jackpot, they may just find something worth the money. But often, a couple of lacs are forked out for a container full of toilet rolls. It’s a mystery box game at the best of times.

As you stroll through the bazaar, you can see jars of caviar, packets of coffee and freezers full of parmesan cheese, while young children chase you with their wheelbarrows for hire. The bazaar has been better days, but they are long gone, the shopkeepers and the children say.

Shoddy Chinese rip-offs have now infiltrated Bush Bazaar and genuine US military apparel is fairly difficult to find. The same goes for the ‘look good’ backpacks, all of which are at least twice, if not thrice, the price of identical items sold in Pakistan. But the army boots are genuine indeed and definitely tempting, despite their inflated prices.

The bazaar, deserted on this bitter cold winter afternoon, is slowly becoming a hub for second-hand clothes.  But if you have the eye of a hawk and a soft spot for quirky items, a lot of treasure is certainly waiting out there.

When I noticed a strange, metal contraption with thumbscrews and vicious saw blades, I was alarmed. It seemed like the latest model of a medieval torture machine. To my relief, it turned out to be an elaborate meat slicing and mincing machine for amateur cooks like myself. Then, we came across a contraption that seemed like it was meant to hold broken limbs together — we weren’t wrong on this one, for it was in fact a pair of bendable leg supports used to prevent skiers from breaking their legs.

Much to our amusement, we were greeted with signs that read ‘Mobile gorillas’. The term turned out to be nothing more than a brand name for heavy duty, plastic travelling trunks. We also found some sad-looking parachute harnesses, lying empty of the parachute itself.

The food items, mainly of American origin, were quite interesting. ‘Warfighter Recommended’, ‘Warfighter Tested’, and ‘Warfighter Approved’, along with ‘US Government Property — Commercial Resale Is Unlawful’ were emblazoned across the vacuum packed, ready to heat food packets. Curiously, ready to eat Pork chops were also on sale.

In the end, while the miniature camouflage backpacks, the talking Pashtu dictionaries, the gun scopes, the watches and the assortment of dismantled computer equipment all sparked my interest, nothing could beat the roasted peanuts sold on the traditional ‘thela’ outside.

It just goes to show that while armies and conquerors come and go, sometimes leaving their trash behind, the true delights of Kabul will always remain quintessentially Afghan.

Published in The Express Tribune, Sunday Magazine, February 17^th, 2013.

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