It's been over two months since the jet-propelled bombs hurled themselves on the monumental landmarks of a great city, causing mayhem and hysteria that shook the world. America today feels vulnerable and, to put it distastefully, a part of the eal world"" where terrorists are as much a reality as football on Monday night. Two summers ago in India, I had a brief but very enlightening (for lack of a better word) experience in interacting with an Indian Army officer just back from Kashmir after a posting in the valley fighting the terrorism of the same Mujahedeen fighters trained in Taliban's training camps. Here are certain facts that might help Americans to better understand the perils of the people who they regard as their enemy.
Afghanistan is a country about six to seven decades behind the rest of the world. They probably represent the last of the bygone world where groups with armies fought over territories and conquered capitols to prove their might.
Consider an average day in 21st-century America: People get up, brush their teeth, eat a healthy, calorie-controlled breakfast, check the weather, drive to work, sit in an ambient office, work, check e-mail, eat lunch, work more, drive back home, watch television, spend time with loved ones, eat a filling dinner and go to sleep on a comfortable bed.
According to the Indian officer's accounts, consider an average day in the rural parts of an Islamic country'one not oil-laden and populated by groups of people historically considered to be brave warriors (In fact, they have been fighters for years): Men get up, pray, meet with their friends, fire their guns, maybe get some soup and bread to eat, train with their weapons, get a pep talk on how their enemy should be destroyed unless they were ready for the ire of Allah, shoot a few more targets on the wall, sit around with their fellow fighters for an evening chat, pray, wives serve them some dinner and, at the end of the day, lay their backs on a hard earthen floor for a night's sleep.
It's not hard to gauge the unfathomable differences that exist between an average American day and a day in rural Afghanistan.
What are the fundamental problems that plague a citizen of this war-torn country? Taliban and bin Laden? It may be too much idle time and illiteracy, which is exploited by the demagogues who call themselves clerics. Imagine what you would have done if you were nearly illiterate, unemployed (in fact, never employed) and lived in a place with no freeways or malls, but you had automatic weapons and a religious leader who told you to kill and go to heaven or face God's anger. Your only childhood toys were real weapons. You got your own for your twelfth birthday. Your wife obeys all your orders; you went to your first war at 14; you have a bullet wound on your right foot, which is the reason why you skip a little when you walk'all this when you would probably just be old enough to vote in the United States. You, my friend, would have been a Mujahedeen fighter in Afghanistan, defending Kabul with your life and self-respect.
So what is at fault for what happened in New York City and Washington, D.C.? Maybe it's poverty, illiteracy and lack of a constructive purpose in life. The root of the problem is not the people, but their ideologies. I support the attack on Afghanistan completely. In fact, it will help stabilize the entire region and destroy a regime that should not have come to power in the first place. But it's the aftermath of this war that holds the key to the security of America and, to a measurable extent, the security of the rest of the free world. If Washington's aim is just to kill and destroy, then it will face many more terror attacks. But if its aim is to build, educate and develop, then the world could be a much more peaceful place.
Afghanistan today is like a germ ball that will be infected again by another resourceful country or entity that wants to exploit the enormous manpower available there. Someone should take on the responsibility to transform this country into a place where the people don't have the free time to be brainwashed. It's a challenge because there is no short-term economic gain here; it's a humanitarian responsibility. I have been close to many Muslims in my life and if there is one elemental object that all of them have, it's faith. The West will have to build on this very faith, which might take decades, considering all the damage already inflicted, to show these people that they are not anarchists, but progressive people from a different part of the world. Then the fundamentalists, who enjoy great popularity among the masses today, might find it very hard to mantra anti-Western slogans after the daily namaz in a mosque.
