In Afghanistan, Hot Place to Shop is Bush Bazaar

This article, with it's portrait of a culture clash in Afghanistan's black market, reminded me of some of the things stated in a previous post about bribery with American products. It seems to me that Western products are in very high demand in Afghanistan. This article makes it seem that the the Afghanis are so eager to own Western products that they often buy them even if they have no idea what it is. It was interesting to know that even Americans go to these black markets to buy cheap computer hardware.

Another aspect of this culture clash is between conservative Islam law and the goods for sale at the black market. Many of the pre-made meals do not follow Islam's dietary rules, and therefore cannot be purchased (although some people buy them anyway.) 

When I think about the Afghanistan black market, I do not think of Western products. However, it seems like these products have a great appeal. Is it because these products are something new, different, and foreign? Is it because, in the words of an article previously posted, these 21st century products are in an 18th century society? Will these products lose their appeal once the younger generation grows up and, after being exposed to these products for so long, they lose their novelty?

Here is a link to a quick video of a black market in Bagram. A black market near the US military base in Bagram was mentioned briefly in the article, but I am not sure if this is it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97vDlEJpfm0

Sex, Make-Up, and the Responsibilities of a Shiite Wife

I really wanted to post this week's NY Times article on a women's protest against the new Afghan law that would force the country's Shiite women to have sex with their husband whether they want to or not (i.e. marital rape), to acquire the permission of their husband in order to go to work or school, and--ironically enough in a "devout" Muslim society--to dress up and use make-up if that is what their husband demands. President Karzai was most likely thinking about his chances for re-election when he signed in the law, and clearly there are plenty of Shiite men who are willing to make a fuss about this sort of thing, if the counter-protest in this article is any indication. Naturally the West has been putting considerable pressure on Karzai to re-consider his move.

And yet, what struck me as particularly interesting in the article was this quote by a local cleric: "We Afghans don't want a bunch of NATO commanders and foreign commanders telling us what to do."

Normally I am willing to blame Western greed, incompetence, and all-around meddling for a vast array of problems in the Middle East. But it took me a while to figure out if I really bought the argument that the law is a reaction to heavy-handed Western interference in the region. I can see how the prolonged presence of Western troops could cause offense, raising feelings of nationalism or, in a country as ethnically diverse as Afghanistan, enflaming religious sentiments. But is that really reason enough to demand that women become this politically, economically, and sexually subservient to men? The real explanation is a bit more complex in my view.

I would hypothesize that patriarchal attitudes and the ill treatment of women is usually tied to the amount of "life control" that a man has in a given society. In Afghanistan, where poverty is rampant and there are few opportunities for advancement into "respectable" professions, it is difficult for a man to occupy a position of power and esteem (40% of the population was unemployed in 2008 according to the CIA Factbook). Furthermore, it is hard for him to feel in control of his own life and property when access to clean water is limited, electricity is on the fritz, violence and corruption are everywhere. This recent Washington Times article argues that since the fall of the Taliban, the rule of law has disintegrated in Afghanistan as warlords take control and police have found it more profitable to shake down innocent citizens than enforce the law. Given this climate of insecurity, the average Afghan man may feel that it is only in his family relations that he can fulfill his urge to be "master" and Western culture and its advocacy of female liberation is, in his mind, an attack on this last vestige of his authority. If Western superpowers are guilty in anything here, it is in impoverishing the Afghan nation through invasion, which has led to destruction of property and life, the disruption of economic and political stability, and the rise of a black market economy that surely encourages steep social hierarchies.

I find this explanation for the divide on women's rights more convincing than any religious justifications that Afghan men might give (when did Allah ever concern himself with make-up? what about the fact that the top Shiite cleric in Afghanistan is opposed to the law?) or any "clash of civilizations" that Western politicians might propose (doesn't the West also have a long history of mistreating women?). I do not think there is a fundamentally unbridgeable cultural or moral gap between the two sides--I think it is merely a reaction to poverty, insecurity, and power imbalances. But if someone disagrees with me, or has other thoughts to add, please do...

The Opium Trade in Afghanistan

1. http://www.havocscope.com/data/tag/afghanistan/

2. http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/nrcrpt/2008/vol1/html/100779.htm

3. http://www.havocscope.com/regions/asia/afghanistan.htm

(the second source references an Article from the International Herald Tribute; which is not currently available online)

The State Department report that the Afghan drug trade is "undercutting efforts to establish a stable democracy with a licit economic free market in the country". Take for example the opium trade: The opium trade seems well and alive in Afghanistan. The UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,) claims that it "exports 90 percent of the world's poppy crop" (source 2). It also hints an increase in poppy cultivation after the fall of the Taliban. For example, the amount of opium grown in 2007 almost doubles the amount grown in 2005. (source 2)

One policy attempt to handle the opium situations is advocated by Gulab Mangal. He is attempting to combat the marketing of opium by encouraging the farmers to not plant the poppy seed. This is deemed a better policy than previous policies which were enforced after the production of poppy seeds. The governor blames this policy for causing increased poverty. (source 2)

I make the same observation that other fellow bloggers have made regarding the rise of prostitution in Iraq after the fall of the Saddam; in that case, as well as this, some standards of law have been further compromised after the fall of a regime. These two cases hint of what can happen as a result of the vacuum created after the loss of a ruling system. While the fallen regimes were deemed as the cause of much corruption (hence why the American government supported their fall), they also suppress other forms of corruption.

Despite the previous Iraqi and Afghani regimes having serious faults, it is interesting that a compromised situation (lawlessness) can be exacerbated after removing faulty governments (that are often viewed as the source). If the U.S. would like to continue manipulating government structures in other countries, this example is yet another hint that managing the power vacuum after the coup is also a crucial task to establishing stability.

Little Blue Pills Among the Ways CIA Wins Friends in Afghanistan

I remember hearing about this from "Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me" on NPR last year and thought how humorously tragic it was that we could not enforce rules or use our high tech spy network to get information. All it takes sometimes is some old fashion bribery. Yet, that also says more than how funny the situation is, it says that what we have in common in cooperation is so little. There are no hearts and minds to win in this war but bribery and patronage.

Four days later, when the Americans returned, the gift had worked its magic, the operative recalled.

"He came up to us beaming," the official said. "He said, 'You are a great man.' "

"And after that we could do whatever we wanted in his area."

It is interesting to note that the operative said that last line because it implies that they have no resistance to the drugs and that it was another way to exploit them for "whatever we wanted". Maybe it is all the colonialism that we've been reading from Gregory but this article does show some of that through the operatives' quotes. Such as how they are trying to bridge their primitive gap of life to the 21st by Viagra.

While it makes sense that you have to give something to get something and sex has been a motivator for everyone everywhere, does it make it okay? It is okay that the reasoning behind this is that if we don't do it, someone else will (Taliban, Iran, etc)? Morally, I want to say no. We are using them to our ends while they are perceived to give into carnal pleasure. The article portrays Afghanis as fickle backstabbers,especially as devious high libido old men, that need to be bribed just for cooperation.

Afghanistan and Drugs

When Afghanistan is in the news, it often relates to one of two things: the fight against the Taliban or the massive amounts of drugs coming from the region.

Drugs make up 60% of the economy of Afghanistan according to the BBC country report. The CIA world factbook lists Afghanistan as the world's largest producer of opium (which is used to make heroin, among other drugs). As such, there is also a problem of money laundering, which has (and is) used to finance terrorism in the region, including financing the Taliban regime.

To combat the drug problem, the US and coalition forces have instituted a major counter-narcotics force in Afghanistan. In recent weeks, however, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, has condemned the current policy as "the most wasteful and ineffective program I have seen in 40 years." Holbrooke, who spoke at Macalester a few years ago (and I met him too), went on to say that US policy would be more effective if it helped farmers, not corrupt police and officials. The article also notes that despite reduction in acreage cultivated, Afghanistan is estimated to produce 90% of the world's illicit heroin, according to the UN. (Interestingly, I was unable to find any articles on sites such as CNN or MSNBC referring to Mr. Holbrooke's comments regarding the current drug policy in Afghanistan. It could be the keyword search just didn't find those articles.)

What I find most intriguing about this situation is this: the Taliban, an ultraconservative, fundamentalist religious and social movement yet they profit from the not only illegal but immoral drug trade. Is this rationalized because the drugs go to the West were they destroy the minds and bodies of "infidels"? How can involvment in the drug trade be rationalized at all?

Mothers Pimping Daughters, in Iraq

Last month, Time Magazine reported on how mothers in Iraq and selling their daughters out to human traffickers. The report mentions that girls as young as 11 and 12 are being sold to traffickers at prices up to $30,000. Others are sold for upwards of $2,000. The girls are then trafficked primary to other areas in the Middle East, such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, however Iraq has become a major hub of this despicable and lucrative activity. The girls, once sold, are able to enter the destination country through the use of counterfeit passports or other forged documents. Occasionally the documents have been suspected to have been governmentally forged as well.

Unlike the typical sex industry, Iraq's underworld is a place where female pimps hold sway and where impoverished mothers sell their teenage daughters into a sex market that believes females who reach the age of 20 are too old to fetch a good price. In order to get some of the young girls into the country (many of them around the age of 14), men pose as their "husbands" and then divorce the girls upon arrival once out of the country.

Nobody knows exactly how many Iraqi women and children have been sold into sexual slavery since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in 2003. There is no official number because of the shadowy nature of the business. Baghdad-based activists like Hinda and others estimate it to be in the tens of thousands. Still, it remains a hidden crime, one that the 2008 U.S. State Department's Trafficking in Persons report says the Iraqi government is not combating. Baghdad, the report says, "offers no protection services to victims of trafficking, reported no efforts to prevent trafficking in persons and does not acknowledge trafficking to be a problem in the country."

While sexual violence has accompanied warfare for millenniums and insecurity always provides opportunities for criminal elements to profit, what is happening in Iraq today reveals how far a once progressive country (relative to its neighbors) has regressed on the issue of women's rights and how ferociously the seams of a traditional Arab society that values female virginity have been ripped apart.