Afghanistan - Saint-Denis "... from exile to integration".
26 March 2023.
In 2022, an encounter led me to read up on Afghanistan. I read two very enlightening books about Afghanistan: "Le Royaume de l'Insolence" by Michael Barry (Flammarion) writer and expert of Afghanistan and "L'ombre des Taliban" (autrement) by Ahmed Rashid former reporter. This same meeting led me to Saint-Denis on March 26, 2023 for the closing of the festivities of Norouz, the Persian and the oldest New Year's celebration in the world.
Beyond reporting images and the state of affairs presented by the speakers during three round tables, this chronicle is an echo of the call for help of the associations present for the Afghan people whose lives and existence are threatened.Several association representatives as well as members of the Afghan diaspora exiled in Europe were gathered this Sunday, March 26 in Saint-Denis in the Hall of the Legion of Honor by an audience as attentive as it was small.
After an opening proposed by Pierre Lafrance and Nima Divantchegui, round tables were organized by the guests.
After an opening proposed by Pierre Lafrance and Nima Divantchegui, round tables were organized by the guests.
Gaisu Yari explained the approach of her project "Afghan Voices of Hope" supported by several foundations which collects testimonies from compatriots. Also around this table were actress and singer-songwriter Farzana Nawabi, Mina Rezae, Afghanistan's first female cafe owner in Hazara, and comedian Younis Ashna. Salehi Fatema, a former Afghan journalist, is now inter-cultural mediator for terre2cultures. They shared their opinions on the Afghan diaspora and the role it must play in its exile, as well as on the daily reality of their life as Afghan exiles in France.
Etienne Gille and Florian Le Page from AFRANE (Franco-Afghan Friendship), Sophie Tran from La Chaîne de l’espoir, and Shabnam Salahshoor, a young Afghan journalist and activist in exile, spoke about the historical context and the current situation in the country.
Finally, Pauline Vialaret from T2C (Terre de cultures), Domitille Nicolet Equal Legal AID, Fahrad Alizadehand Fahrad Sediqi from Aéré (Action Emploi Réfugiés) spoke about the difficult journey of exiles and the situation of refugees once they arrive in Europe.
Florian Le Page and Etienne Gille came back to the historical context to enlighten the audience on the Afghan issue.
The new "Great Game" in Afghanistan seems to have fizzled out, Western countries withdrew along with US troops in August 2021, leaving the population in the hands of the Taliban for failing to create the conditions for democracy in the country and to have put in place a reliable command at the top of an army endowed with financial means making it capable of defending the freedoms of the Afghan people against the obscurantist and brutal Taliban.
The new "Great Game" in Afghanistan seems to have fizzled out, Western countries withdrew along with US troops in August 2021, leaving the population in the hands of the Taliban for failing to create the conditions for democracy in the country and to have put in place a reliable command at the top of an army endowed with financial means making it capable of defending the freedoms of the Afghan people against the obscurantist and brutal Taliban.
The reasons for this abandonment may be found in the fact that Western and in particular American public opinion seems to have grown tired of humanly and financially costly wars. American voters have had enough of the manipulations of their leaders. We will recall the particularly deadly war in Iraq on the Iraqi side, whose obscure stakes were borrowed from cynicism. The Iraqi government has been accused of stockpiling nuclear weapons and representing a threat to the West, the Americans in this case the Bush administration fabricated evidence in order to validate its intervention in Iraq with the disastrous consequences that we will see later.
As it has been reminded, the wars waged in the Middle East by Westerners are no longer confined to the borders of distant countries. A protean form of terrorism is emerging and striking far from conflict zones, at the very heart of cities.
The Taliban have indeed harbored and protected the leader of Al-Qaeda: Osama Bin Laden. In exchange, he financially supported the Taliban, which enabled him to train thousands of radicalized and fanatical men and women from all over the world to do "Jihad". This "Jihad" is a war without an army in the name of the religion of Islam and its god Allah. They were instrumentalized to better serve the purposes of the masters of the game, of which O. Bin Laden was a part. The latter orchestrated from Pakistan and Afghanistan the attacks of September 11 which provoked the fury of the Americans and which will trigger a manhunt generating in the process of abuses in terms of human rights, including prison of Guantanamo in the sad illustration. This hunt will end with the death in 2011 of the leader of Al-Qaeda.
To satisfy their electorates, the leaders of the United States promised the withdrawal of their army in Afghanistan. The administration of US President Joe Biden has thus kept the promise made by Barack Obama and Donald Trump, his predecessors. American soldiers left or more precisely fled the quagmire in August 2021, leaving behind them a situation of chaos.
The statement can nevertheless be qualified, the United States maintains the pressure on the Taliban who signed the Doha agreement on February 29, 2020 in Qatar and which conditions the American withdrawal on the commitment of the Taliban not to make Afghan territory haven for terrorists. Thus the United States is now fighting against Al-Qaeda from a distance, as illustrated by the elimination, on July 31, 2022, of Ayman Al-Zawahiri, bin Laden's successor at the head of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.
Read Le Monde 4/08/2022 - The death of the leader of Al-Qaida illustrates the new American war in Afghanistan. Le monde - 28/09/2021 - Withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan: the Pentagon admits a "strategic failure"
However, development aid from the United States, the World Bank and the European Union has been suspended, as has the UN aid fund. The NGOs, the only ramparts and support for the battered populations, left the country for lack of reliable interlocutors on the side of the Taliban to give them security guarantees for their personnel and sufficient maneuvering capacity to provide aid to the populations. It should be noted, however, the continuity of the operation of the French hospital in Kabul, which found interlocutors allowing them to continue their activity, as Sophie Tran (the chain of hope) had the opportunity to mention it during the conference. Presence on the ground remains key to maintaining dialogue and finding concrete solutions.
Read Le Monde 02/10/2021- Life in Afghanistan under the new Taliban order.
The new "big game" has become that of China, powerful, omnipresent, of which Pakistan seems to want to be an ally just like Russia and Iran.
In the midst of the Cold War, Pakistan and its intelligence agency, the ISI, had set up and armed the Taliban with US dollars. The CIA and those in charge were then little concerned with the convictions and objectives of these men in the fight against the Soviet army. Pakistan is now seen as the big loser according to Florian Le Page (Afrane); the control of the Taliban - armed, trained by Pakistani intelligence, and by uneducated and dogmatic mullahs in madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan - has completely eluded them. They lose control of the region. Terrorism and religious radicalism invite themselves into the life of this border country.
Read Le Monde 08/18/2021 - China wants to exploit the failure of the United States in Afghanistan.
In the midst of the Cold War, Pakistan and its intelligence agency, the ISI, had set up and armed the Taliban with US dollars. The CIA and those in charge were then little concerned with the convictions and objectives of these men in the fight against the Soviet army. Pakistan is now seen as the big loser according to Florian Le Page (Afrane); the control of the Taliban - armed, trained by Pakistani intelligence, and by uneducated and dogmatic mullahs in madrasas in Pakistan and Afghanistan - has completely eluded them. They lose control of the region. Terrorism and religious radicalism invite themselves into the life of this border country.
Read Le Monde 08/18/2021 - China wants to exploit the failure of the United States in Afghanistan.
All this is done to the detriment of the Afghan people. It is paying a heavy price for decades of wars and the deconstruction of political, legal, administrative and economic institutions by the Taliban. Everything there is deadly.
The rights of women and men are flouted there, the population, including children, lives in fear, they have suffered judgments without trial with monstrous penalties staged in the public square or in football stadiums. : stonings, severed limbs, imprisonment and this for reasons as implausible as having played kite or balloon or stolen food. Without forgetting to mention the arbitrary arrests, the disappearances of activists and journalists.
The women who constituted half of the living forces of the country were forced to leave their posts. Technically, this essential cog in Afghan society is disappearing without an alternative solution reminded Mister Le Page. The tale decision-making power is hermetic, secret, without control and is therefore perfectly inoperative on the scale of the country. During the conference, it was recalled that women who made up more than half of the teaching staff have been banned from practicing. The shortage of teachers is causing an impoverishment of the education system, including for men, and the Taliban have not provided any alternative.
The rights of women and men are flouted there, the population, including children, lives in fear, they have suffered judgments without trial with monstrous penalties staged in the public square or in football stadiums. : stonings, severed limbs, imprisonment and this for reasons as implausible as having played kite or balloon or stolen food. Without forgetting to mention the arbitrary arrests, the disappearances of activists and journalists.
The women who constituted half of the living forces of the country were forced to leave their posts. Technically, this essential cog in Afghan society is disappearing without an alternative solution reminded Mister Le Page. The tale decision-making power is hermetic, secret, without control and is therefore perfectly inoperative on the scale of the country. During the conference, it was recalled that women who made up more than half of the teaching staff have been banned from practicing. The shortage of teachers is causing an impoverishment of the education system, including for men, and the Taliban have not provided any alternative.
Today, famine, sanitary conditions and also climate change weighs on this people. A people whose landmarks are disappearing, their culture(s) and history are methodically erased by IS. A people who see part of their population succumb to heroin produced in the country from poppy fields and whose international trade finances the Taliban.
Read: Le monde 07/04/2023 - The looting of an Afghan historic site attributed to IS.
Read: Le monde 07/04/2023 - The looting of an Afghan historic site attributed to IS.
We therefore understand in the speech of the various speakers of the conference which is held in Saint-Denis, and in particular during the round table moderated by Gaisu Yari that the chance of Afghanistan to find peace and freedom could well be its diaspora .
Refugee in a West increasingly closed to migratory flows, she tries to help their compatriots who fled and those who remained. The Afghan witnesses around the table told their desire and their hope to return to Afghanistan to find a country that they deeply love and that they would like to rebuild and in which they could flourish.
After having lived in fear of the Taliban, having suffered the violence of the exodus, despite the years spent in Europe trying to heal their psychological wounds, and although their health and housing conditions have improved over time, they are the majority if not all of them thinking about this return to take care of their own and for themselves.
The cultural and geographical difference, the immense effort of learning the language for some of them are obstacles if not handicaps that are difficult to overcome. Domitille Nicolet, Co-founder of Equal Legal Aid, indicates that some refugees remain permanently dependent on help from NGOs and associations. The lawyer specifies that the fate reserved for refugees is not homogeneous in Europe.
After having lived in fear of the Taliban, having suffered the violence of the exodus, despite the years spent in Europe trying to heal their psychological wounds, and although their health and housing conditions have improved over time, they are the majority if not all of them thinking about this return to take care of their own and for themselves.
The cultural and geographical difference, the immense effort of learning the language for some of them are obstacles if not handicaps that are difficult to overcome. Domitille Nicolet, Co-founder of Equal Legal Aid, indicates that some refugees remain permanently dependent on help from NGOs and associations. The lawyer specifies that the fate reserved for refugees is not homogeneous in Europe.
That of Afghans who have obtained their refugee status in France would be more enviable than in Greece, as evidenced by her husband Fahrad Alizadeh, an Afghan refugee in Greece, who deplores the absence of institutional aid to learn the language and the rules of the host country. . Everywhere the steps are complicated, many of them are done online, in the language of the country, in other words a Himalaya to climb for the mere mortal. NGOs and refugee organizations are essential for refugees on the path to integration.
Even if the diaspora is sorely lacking in resources and struggles to make itself heard by states and public opinion, it remains mobilized. She deplores in particular that the eyes of the West have turned almost exclusively to Ukraine since its invasion by the Russian army; and now towards Pacific Asia with the rise of tensions caused by North Korea as mentioned by Florian Le Page. The calls of these exiles seem to be lost in the ambient noise in Europe, as evidenced by Shabnam Salashoor, a young Afghan activist whose tears this Sunday March 26 in front of the thin audience of the hall of the Legion of Honor in Saint-Denis seem to flow frustration, helplessness and anger.
To the question, are the Afghans able to unite to fight against the Taliban and to build a lasting peace in their country, Gaisu Yari (Afghan voices of Hope) is one of the Afghan women who believe in it and refutes the narrative, which she describes as Western and considers very political.
Later, Fahrad Sediqi, for his part, regrets that all Afghans in exile do not unanimously raise the Afghan flag. He deplores the excessive presence of the flags of the Afghan provinces during demonstrations of support for the country which contributes to believe in the opposite idea.
Afghanistan as described by Western experts is steeped in tribal and warlike cultures, corruption is omnipresent there, the thirst for power of warlords makes them fickle.
The war history of Afghanistan seems to show that the unity of the Afghan people is a chimera. It is these tribal feuds that have been used by foreign countries and industrialists to control the area against rivals and protect their interests. It is a strategic geopolitical area of Central Asia.
In this hall of the Legion of Honor in Saint Denis this Sunday, March 26, 2023, this diaspora seems very lonely.
Is Gaisu Yari's conviction akin to an incantation? Does the fate of Afghanistan depend only on the will of external powers?
When we know the history of Afghanistan and the resilience of the Afghan people, we know that this phoenix can rise from its ashes and shine again.
Hope is carried with energy by the diaspora settled in Europe. As expressed by all the speakers, it acts in favor of refugees without ethnic discrimination and disseminates a message in favor of Afghan unity that respects differences.
Is Gaisu Yari's conviction akin to an incantation? Does the fate of Afghanistan depend only on the will of external powers?
When we know the history of Afghanistan and the resilience of the Afghan people, we know that this phoenix can rise from its ashes and shine again.
Hope is carried with energy by the diaspora settled in Europe. As expressed by all the speakers, it acts in favor of refugees without ethnic discrimination and disseminates a message in favor of Afghan unity that respects differences.
©Didier Bianco.
