September 29, 2001

WINNING AFGHAN PEACE IS A LONG-TERM PROJECT

No doubt the writer intended mordant irony, but the opportunity to educate Afghan refugees in the ways of civil democratic society shouldn't be missed.

A post on the Internet observed, ``I know how to scare the Taliban. Let's round up all their women and send them to college!''

Afghanistan is suffering a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable magnitude, born of the Soviet invasions, years of brutal civil war, an insane and murderous government and a horrendous drought. Five million of Afghanistan's 26 million people have been surviving on food aid provided by the United Nations, but that program essentially ended the day after the terrorist attacks on the United States. Another 4 million people are already refugees in Pakistan and other neighboring countries that have little enough for their own people as it is.

American action, by regrettable necessity, will make this dire situation worse. We are not to blame for that, as we are entitled to protect ourselves, but we are to some degree responsible. And just as we sent aid to Germany and Japan after World War II, we should ask how we can structure aid to refugees now that will contribute to our security later.

Specifically, is it possible to create at least some refugee camps that are not squalid hellholes breeding idleness and resentment? Instead, design and manage them as demonstration labs to provide inhabitants with experience and training sufficient to govern themselves when they are able to go home.

I would call it ``Sim City for real people'' but that sounds flippant and I am entirely serious.

We should have places where people enjoy the dignity of making their own choices and paying for what they need -- even if it is with scrip issued to them for the purpose -- in a simulacrum of a real economy.

Provide a minimum necessary for basic food and shelter, yes, but even in a refugee camp there is plenty of work that needs doing and people should be paid for doing it.

Schools, oh most certainly schools. Only about one in six Afghan women is literate, and barely half the men. Those who can read should teach the others, and the students, whether children or adults, should get small stipends for attending.

America obviously has a severe shortage of people who speak the languages of the area, not to mention major world languages such as Arabic and Urdu. Surely the money now being wasted on make-work Americorps jobs would be better spent on having Americans learn those languages on the ground, getting to know the country and its people.

Banks trained in the technique of microloans could help people start tiny restaurants and shops and establish service businesses. There should be community gardens and neighborhood newspapers and local radio and public-access TV. Lots of TVs, which the Taliban prohibit.

Too expensive? Compared with what?

Of course there are Afghans who know how to do all these things, and by all means they should be enlisted to help. But in a country where the life expectancy is in in the mid-40s, and which has been at war for more than 20 years, they might be sadly few.

This might sound like a very long-term project, but I think we should assume that it will be. Many Afghans have been in Pakistani camps for a decade or more. But time offers opportunity. Community leaders will emerge, and they should get the chance to travel to America, ideally hosted by American Muslims so they can see for themselves that their faith is not only practiced here but respected.

Well, a few crazies aside, but those few have been strongly condemned by every responsible public agency or private organization.

Critics of America charge, with some justice, that Americans are woefully ignorant of the rest of the world. But it is equally true that people in other parts of the world are ignorant of America, by design in the case of the Taliban. Dispelling ignorance of all sorts should be a national goal.

Send all the women to college? That may be a little more than we can manage right away. But freeing them from despotism and teaching them to read is certainly a start.

(702 words)