Afghans Pin Hopes on Obama

As Barack Obama prepares to take the oath of office on Tuesday, January 20, the eyes and the hopes of the world are with him – perhaps nowhere more so than in Afghanistan, which promises to move to centre stage in the new administration’s foreign policy, eclipsing the waning struggle in Iraq.



An informal survey of dozens of ordinary Afghans throughout the country has revealed that the people of this beleaguered nation, like their counterparts in the United States, eagerly subscribe to Obama’s call for change.



“There is a lot of optimism around Obama,” said Sayed Nasim, a graduate of the law and political sciences department of Balkh University, in northern Afghanistan.



“People hope that once Obama is in the White House he will be able to untie the strategic knot in Afghanistan. America has not fulfilled expectations during its past seven years here, but during his campaign Obama was emphasising that that he would give this country serious attention.”



Nasim also had a word of advice for the US president.



“Obama should make economic change his priority, rather than sending more troops,” he said. “We want real change, not just some shift in the pieces on the chess board of power.”



More than seven years after the US-led invasion that sent the Taleban packing, Afghanistan seems more deeply mired than ever in violence and corruption. Development in much of the country is all but at a standstill, and in the southern provinces the insurgency is gaining ground almost daily. Afghans, who expected immediate benefits from the international presence, are bitterly disappointed, and eager to vent their frustrations on the international community.



Military operations against the insurgents by the US-led coalition and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, have also angered the local population, who seem much more willing to blame the foreign troops for the resulting death and destruction than they do their fellow countrymen, the Taleban.



The outgoing president, George W Bush, receives the lion’s share of resentment for what Afghans see as the bad behaviour of the foreign forces.



“Over the past seven years, Bush has done a lot of damage that Obama is going to have to fix,” said Khalil Rahman Omed, a journalist in Lashkar Gah. “My only wish is that he will do good things for this country.”



One of Obama’s major initiatives for Afghanistan – a proposed increase in US troops from 32,000 to almost 60,000 – has made many Afghans uneasy.



“We accept the foreign forces on one condition: that Obama changes Bush’s policies,” said Abdul Jabar, who trained as a journalist in Iran but now works as a cook in Kabul. “If he does good things for Afghanistan economically, then we will agree to the troops. But if it is the same as in the past, if innocent civilians are killed in these daily bombardments, then we are just fed up.”



Mohammad Sedeq, a shopkeeper in Kabul, had a similar message.



“If [Obama] sends 20,000 or 40,000 more troops, it will make no difference,” he told IWPR. “They won’t be able to control even one valley if there is resistance. If Obama has a good heart, and good intentions, there will be a positive impact. But if he is like this George Bush guy, we don’t want him. It would be really dangerous for Afghanistan.”



Sedeq, who said he served for 16 years in the army, attaining the rank of colonel, was also opposed to another proposed Obama plan, the arming of tribal militias, a policy which many see as having helped to stabilise Iraq.



“Tribal militias will upset the balance in tribal shuras (councils) ,” he said. “Local elders have authority among their people, but they will not be able to do anything if there are men with guns standing in front of them. Why don’t [the Americans] help the ministries of defence and interior, instead?”



Many Afghans fear that arming local militias will bring the country back to an era when warlords terrorised the population with their weapons and their men. Few are eager to return to that chaotic time, which served as a prelude to the reign of the Taleban. The fundamentalist regime arose in large part to curb the warlords’ excesses.



“Tribal militias are a bad idea,” said Mohammad, a shopkeeper in Kabul’s Charahi Shaid neighbourhood. “They may fight against terrorists during the day, but they will become thieves at night.”



Mohammad also hoped that Obama would bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan, surely a tall order in a nation that has been at war for three decades and underdeveloped for centuries before that.



“Now as Obama takes power, I pray to God that we get security,” he said. “He should pave the roads, and make it possible for businessmen to open big factories. He should help get rid of unemployment.”



Afghans’expectations for Obama are wildly inflated, much as in Obama’s native America. There seems to be nothing that the young president can not be expected to do.



“Our hope is that [Obama] will help get this country out of poverty, unemployment, and bad luck,” said Sayed Basir, who owns a furniture store in Mazar-e-Sharif. “This is a brave nation with a long history, but financial problems have turned a lot of people bad. Let’s see what Obama can do for us. Will he be better than the last guy? Or, God forbid, even worse?”



Benafsha, who recently graduated from Sultan Raza high School in Mazar, just wants security, so that she can continue her studies.



“Please, Mr Obama, bring us security, if you can,” she said. “Increase the number of troops, so security will be good. Then we can study, and help to build our country. We will not have to beg anyone for assistance.”



Afghans are a proud and prickly bunch, and will not be patient for long. While Obama seems to have a lot of goodwill in his favour now, he will have a very small window in which to prove himself.



“Afghans have been a toy on the superpower playground for long enough,” said Abdul Hakim, a nurse in Mazar-e-Sharif. “Our people are now poor because of this, they do not have technology, a developed economy, culture. We have been made into a weak country. I ask Obama to stop this.”



Sayed Hamed Razawi, a mechanic in Mazar, had a sterner warning, “If Obama has the same nasty policies as Bush, he will be shamed in front of the world. That other guy got two size 10s thrown at his mouth, Obama will get size 20s!”



He was referring to the December press conference in Baghdad when an irate Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at President Bush.



The most plaintive appeal came from Helmand, where foreign troops are battling the Taleban on a daily basis.

Over the past year, thousands of Helmandis have been displaced by fighting, and dozens, if not hundreds, of civilians have been killed in air strikes.



Mujtaba Mohammedi, the head of the local youth association, echoed many of his countrymen in his message for the new American president.



“Barack Obama jan,” he said, using a common form of endearment, “listen to me. Please stop the killing of innocent civilians in Helmand. Please.”



Jean MacKenzie is IWPR’s Afghan programme director. The following IWPR-trainees contributed to this report: Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Helmand, Aziz Ahmad Shafe in Kabul, Qayum Babak in Mazar-e-Sharif and Sedeq Behnam in Herat.