Sons of their fathers

The cruise in luxury four-wheels, inhabit 'up-market' areas. 'They' are blood kin of warlords, profiteers, criminals.

They cruise the streets of Kabul in luxury four-wheel drive vehicles or complain of boredom in the strange atmospheres of their multimillion dollar mansions. Thanks to looted riches, they inhabit what are considered to be ‘up-market’ areas of the city: these heavily guarded, wedding cake-buildings highlight that it is brass, not class, which rules the robber’s roost that Afghanistan has become these days.

‘They’ are the sons, nephews, cousins and close blood kin of warlords, profiteers and other high-ranking — in terms of finances only — criminals who have, since the latest round of foreign occupation, smashed their way into the country. In the grim aftermath of 9/11, they have taken full advantage of the armed conflict, political infighting and civil war to line their pockets and then their foreign bank accounts with untold billions of dollars. However, if any remnant of honesty had prevailed, this money would have been more than enough to rebuild their war-ravaged country and the lives of its persecuted inhabitants, many times over. And still, there would have been more than enough lose change left to play the game of international monopoly that they apparently consider themselves to be grand masters of.

Greed, however, runs through their veins while the lifeblood of true Afghans continually soaks the ancestral soil that they either refuse to or simply cannot leave.

The majority of the parasitic spawn of the current crop of warlords and their ilk were not born in Afghanistan but in countries around the world where, at some point since 1979 and onwards, their families sought and were granted refuge. They were brought up, housed, schooled and otherwise sucked into cultures very different from their ancestral own. These young men have, especially since the fall of the Taliban regime, flocked to Kabul to live lives of unparalleled luxury at their tribal elders’ expense and actual work. Unlike the underground dealings in all matters of illicit goods, the hard work of their elders is not within their blinkered ken. The plight of their suffering country people is completely ignored unless, that is, they are able to, without doing anything more than talking, reap a profit from it.

Weekends in Dubai where many corrupt Afghans maintain luxurious homes or apartments consist of splurging on flashy rental cars, some of them costing as much as $2,000 a night and viewed as a necessity to relieve the ‘stress’ endured in Kabul. Or, if they are feeling especially bored, then a few weeks of playing around in the Far East or Europe are taken as their God-given due and to hell with the consequences as moneyed elders will always bail them out of jams in order to protect the family ‘reputation’ until the next time.

These spoiled brats, the only printable term applicable, have created an increasingly dangerous and extremely volatile Mafioso-style underworld in Kabul with the open support of their largely reprehensible benefactors. It is an underworld which, according to current indications, is slowly but surely taking control of the basic political arena and, unless serious action is immediately instigated, will be well placed to influence the next presidential elections — a scenario which should make any honest person’s hair stand on end in fear.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2012.