News
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Afghans seek voice after 30 years of conflictMAZAR-I-SHARIF: After three decades of occupation, civil war, Taliban rule and a NATO-led military campaign, ordinary Afghans remain powerless and without an unified voice.
Most of them are afraid to talk, the few that do speak out are barely able to share ideas with each other, much less address authorities.
“There is one thing missing in Afghanistan, which is the people’s voice,” said a Kabul activist Saeed Niazi, who aims to get ordinary Afghans much more involved in nation building as the country prepares for the exit of foreign combat troops by the end of 2014.
There are an estimated 1,000 civil society groups in the country but, with a literacy rate of about 28 percent, most Afghans have no idea that such groups exist.
Some groups are viewed with suspicion because of foreign funding but, without funding, they cannot exist.
“A civil society is still unknown for people in Afghanistan. They don’t understand it,” Kunduz province community leader Abdul Mohammed Aiymaq told a conference in Mazar-i-Sharif that drew activists from nine northern provinces in late October.
Underscoring the problem, Mohammed Kazem Amini, a newsletter publisher in Faryab province, told the meeting: “Even the people in the city do not know anything about the idea of a civil society, or what is democracy.”
Security fears mean lawmakers and district officials have very little direct contact with Afghans in the areas where the insurgency is strongest, such as Taliban strongholds like Helmand and Kandahar provinces in the south, on the Pakistan border.
“The government in reality is very badly disconnected from the people, particularly in the insecure areas. Security is a big challenge”. “None of these parliament members have been able to go directly back to their constituents and talk to them,” said Aziz Rafiee of the Afghan Civil Society Forum
US embassy spokesman Gavin Sundwall said civil society groups were vital in a country like Afghanistan, which lacks a robust system of political parties, so alternative views could be debated.
The poor security diminished the ability of such groups “to enhance their own capacity and legitimacy”, he said.
The first half of this year was the deadliest for civilians since the US backed overthrow of the Taliban 10 years ago, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). reuters
Courtesy www.dailytimes.com.pk