D uring my stay on the base in Kandahar, I spend time with the Afghan cultural adviser for our troops, an Afghan-born intellectual whom I shall call Hamid for the sake of his security. He says there is a misconception in the West that all the suicide bombers and Taliban members are Afghans. But, he explains, “two years ago, the Pashtuns didn’t even have a word in their vocabulary for suicide bombers. The bad guys are from everywhere, from Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, Pakistan and other Arab countries. The Taliban recruit not just Afghans, but young boys and men who have no education and no hope for a future.”
The following week, Hamid introduces me to local women. They express admiration and respect for our military personnel. Among them is Saghna, a slim, brave girl who just turned 20. She had been running an underground radio station in Kandahar city for two years in the hopes of educating Afghan women on basic health issues. As a result, she has been shot twice, and abducted. She quietly tells me about the day not that long ago when her neighbour turned her in to local Taliban insurgents, who threatened to kill her for her efforts to educate other women. Miraculously, she escaped.
Saghna is the breadwinner of her family. She knows little English and never had the opportunity to go to college or high school. She and her family are under the protection of our armed forces in Kandahar, after having to flee their homes five times. “The happiest day of my life was when the Canadian Forces stepped in last year and offered me and my family protection,” Saghna says, smiling. “They helped by moving us closer to the base so that my brothers and sisters could go to school safely.”
Before I leave Saghna, she says, “If the coalition forces leave our country, my people would have no hope.” She hugs me and offers me the gift of a shawl. I try to pay for our interview so that she could feed her family, but she refuses to accept the money. Instead, she says, “Just by talking to me you have done more than enough.”
When you consider all the nationalities taking part in the Afghan mission, it speaks volumes that Canadian Forces personnel and civilians are, to my mind, the most liked by the locals. But helping our troops comes at a price.
I spend a great deal of time with the Afghan interpreters who work at the hospital. They are initially surprised to see a brown-skinned, Indo-Canadian woman in their presence, and stare at me, unsure of my place there. When I smile at them, the three young men blush and turn their heads away. Then one of them looks back at me and smiles as well.
After they lose their inhibition they talk to me. They say they face extraordinary personal risks in supporting our troops and aid workers. They also say they feel betrayed by the Canadian government, which promised that they would be allowed to immigrate to Canada and is now reneging. (As of early December, none of the interpreters had been allowed into Canada, eight months after Immigration Minister Jason Kenney announced the policy.) They feel that somehow because I am “brown” I can help them, and insist that I personally speak to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and tell him how their families’ lives are threatened daily by the insurgents because they work at the hospital.
In spite of such complaints, during the course of my stay I become converted from someone opposed to the Afghan war to one who supports our troops being there. But our federal government has reiterated its position that Canadian Forces, who have assumed even more dangerous duties in the vital district of Arghandab, north of Kandahar city, will end the combat mission by 2011. I believe we should stay longer. While Afghanistan remains a country beset by bloodshed and corruption, after three decades of chaos the Afghan people deserve to have peace, the basic human rights that we take for granted in the West, and a functioning, honest government. As the furor over fraud during the August presidential election has shown, achieving those aims will be a tough battle, but one that must be fought. It is nowhere near time for Canada to abandon Afghanistan.
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