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Afghan community torn apart but not beaten by the Taliban
Robert Fox, Defence Correspondent9 Sep 2011
TWO great scars in the cliffs along the Bamyan valley are lasting monument to the brutal Taliban rule in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.
They housed the greatest standing statues of the Buddha, objects of pilgrimage for some 1,500 years until they were blown up by the Taliban in March 2001.
Today Afghans will mark the event that triggered the end of that regime, the murder of Ahmed Shah Masood, blown up by al Qaeda suicide bombers disguised as a television crew, in his native Pansheer Valley on September 9, 2001. Two days later al Qaeda bombers attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Bamyan, the mountain province in the centre of Afghanistan, is a living chronicle to what the Taliban did - and the remarkable achievements of this poor community over the past 10 years.
The population of 550,000 is about 90 per cent Hazara, a people of Mongol descent said to be the remnant of the hordes of Genghis Khan.
They are discriminated against because their high cheeks and oriental features are quite distinctive - and they are Shias. Most other Afghans are Sunni.
The Taliban first attacked Bamyan in 1998, and many remember it well. "They came from three different directions," recalls Zamman, now a consultant in Kabul.
"They came to the capital and just burned the bazaar from end to end and killed people in the street. The first lot were Pashtun, but then came men who couldn't speak Afghan languages or even Urdu - they were Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. They killed anyone who couldn't speak to them - in Nayak they killed 400 in the bazaar, and many more later that day."
Zamman and his family fled to Pakistan, for anyone literate was a target, particularly the female teachers. Some consider the massacre in Bamyan to be genocide.
Prominent among the Hazara community in exile under the Taliban was Dr Habiba Surabi, who helped organise underground schools and clinics for the beleaguered Hazara of Bamyan. For the past seven years she has been governor of Bamyan.
She is a whirlwind and has recently been rated the most effective of all Afghanistan's governors by the British and awarded an extra grant by the Department for International Development (DfID). She has concentrated on developing schools and literacy, health and maternity care.
"We have done a lot of good things, but there isn't enough aid as there is a lot still left to do," she says as she fixes me with a steady stare - while the rest of her face seems on the verge of laughter.
Bamyan has become a beacon of literacy in a largely illiterate nation. "We now have 160,000 children in schools, 44 per cent of them girls. In this year's intake 51 per cent are girls," she says, and seems about to burst with pride. Even the Afghan police in the province are more than 75 per cent literate. Nationally the figure is about 20 per cent.
How has this happened? "One plus two," she says. "I said one person who can read and write should teach two who can't - just a few words and phrases a day.
I asked police commanders in their stations to put the time by to teach two or three recruits. In my lunch hours I help four people to read and write."
In the classroom of the seven- and eight-year-olds at the Tay-bori school I see the magic formula in chalk - 1 + 2 = ? The children are wedged into the desks, though a few sit on the floor. What it lacks in furnishings - the filing cabinets are Unicef cardboard biscuit boxes - it makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.
"We came back from exile in 2004 and decided we needed a school here by the town," explains headmaster Qazaludin. "Local people gave the site and 10 per cent of the building cost," recalls Hadji Khazab Khan, a senior elder. "We all take a keen interest and help here, because we know illiteracy means poverty."
The rest of the costs have been paid by British aid through DfID.
When the school began there were 350 students. Today there are 1,417, of whom 824 are girls. They are taught a full curriculum of languages, literature and science until the age of 18 or 19 and for entrance to university if need be.
It's all done by 18 women and six male teachers, with senior pupils helping out. "The teaching is very good, and the teachers really kind," says Fenzana, 16. "They help us by encouraging all the time."
At the nearby university, where conditions are as Spartan as the school, students are looking to the future with both hope and realism. "I chose to come here from Kabul to read psychology because it is peaceful here in Bamian," says Latif Ashaif, 22. "Why psychology? Well I think 95 per cent of Afghans need a psychologist, don't you?"
Mohammed Zaman, 22, reading geology but aiming to be a politician, says he is worried about the isolation of the valley. "The roads to Kabul and Warded aren't safe [the Taliban ambushed and killed a midwife and her husband on one that day].
But we Afghans must unite - forget about gender, tribe, ethnicity. We must get youth together. We have had bad leaders here and we can never forget what happened here. With good studies and belief in the youth we can really rebuild the country."
Some of the older generation seem ready to think radically. In March a ceremony was held to mark the 10th anniversary of the destruction of the Buddhas.
In all 11 mullahs spoke, the last concluding: "Why don't we suggest that they rebuild the statues of the Buddhas in New York and the Twin Towers here in Bamyan?"
Reader views (1)
The taliban did this did this in favour of which religion ? The same one as 9/11 ? The problem in fact is not religion, its education, respect of one another and respect of life itself...a long way to go yet I fear.
- Eduardo, Biarritz, France, 11/09/2011 15:37
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