Khattak highlights instances of dehumanisation in conflicts

ANP provincial president says policy-formulation should be based on international humanitarian law.

ISLAMABAD: Speaking at a special lecture on “War and Humanitarianism: Widows, Orphans, Kinship in Contemporary Afghanistan” at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Afrasiab Khattak highlighted instances of dehumanisation which occur in conflicts.

This is exacerbated when even government departments cannot concur on one figure for casualties of conflict. The key lecture, to which Khattak was invited as a respondent, was delivered by Dr Anila Daulatzai, an anthropologist who received her PhD from the John Hopkins University, USA.

The humanitarian tragedy of war often gets ignored. Similarly, people in Pakistan have experienced such incidents of warring, Khattak lamented. Sharing his insight on development policies, particularly in the context of conflict-prone areas, he expressed that policy-formulation should be based on international humanitarian law.

Daulatzai, who has been conducting anthropological research in Afghanistan over the past several years, said that martyrdom is not only viewed differently by various sections of the society in Afghanistan, but also manipulated to meet political ends.

Drawing on her experience of working as a co-baker at a bakery run by widows in Afghanistan under a World Food Program project, her research carefully documents how international aid initiatives based on neo-liberal ideas of what it means to ‘care’ for widows are fundamentally altering how the Afghan State, and Afghans are coming to conceptualize the ‘care’ of widows.

Casting light on the lived realities of Afghans post US-invasion, she detailed how the families of people officially declared as martyrs in Afghanistan have to go through complex bureaucratic procedures to claim their rightful compensation. Moreover, given the magnitude of casualties in Afghanistan, there are not sufficient resources to compensate most families of martyrs.

Instead of caricaturing state bureaucrats, Daulatzai’s research explores how state officials try to fulfill their duties as ordinary Muslims by sometimes re-interpreting the state’s rules to help the families of martyrs, when they can. Yet the state – and the bureaucrats’ creative practices -  are seen as un-modern, corrupt and reform-worthy in the eyes of international donors.

After the lecture, participants discussed their views stating that aid from the international community should also be on humanitarian grounds, rather than just aiming for policy reforms and agendas set by others in Afghanistan (and similarly, Pakistan).