KABUL: Resplendent in white gloves and peaked cap, the traffic policeman watched helplessly. All around cars sat bumper to bumper, pumping out black exhaust. It was time for Kabul’s new spectacle: rush hour.
Every morning the tailbacks stretch from Ariana Square, past the smart, internationally trained soldiers outside the Foreign Ministry, past the packed prison, the police station with its newly-donated radio system, the ranks of white Land Cruisers outside the United Nations and the recently refurbished embassies of a dozen foreign powers.
Opposite Kabul’s central park a row of restaurants, just opened, are doing a brisk trade. Men crowd around stalls selling snacks, balloons and fruit. Next to the Herat restaurant - virtually the only place to eat four months ago - a computer shop is selling laptops and accessories. The bazaars are packed. You can even, occasionally, see a woman without a burqa.
This is the new Kabul. For anyone who remembers the days under the Taliban the change is astonishing. It is not just the absence of the repressive religious police that is impressive or the end to the executions in the football stadium; it is the fantastic activity, the hustling, the sheer number of people selling, building, earning.
There is a downside, of course. The new prosperity has brought crime. Theft, according to senior officers from the ISAF peacekeeping force, is endemic. Without the European military patrolling in their box-like armoured cars, ‘anything not nailed down would go’, they say. Murders and assaults are more common than under the Taliban.
Rents are so high even relatively prosperous refugees are returning to find they cannot afford accommodation in their own city. On the black market Johnny Walker whisky sells for 100 dollars a bottle, Manchester United shirts are 50 dollars and, if you know who to ask in the bazaar, you will be offered hardcore pornography.
On the other hand, everyone - expatriates and locals- know this is the best opportunity the country has had for 30 or more years.
The complexities are understood in Washington, London and elsewhere. Allied military planners have repeatedly made it clear that their operation is only part of a wider strategy to bring security and allow economic and political development. George W Bush has recently spoken of a new Marshall-style plan for Afghanistan.
The money will probably flow in eventually: 4.5 billion dollars has been pledged in aid and, though only a fraction has arrived, most analysts believe there is sufficient political will in the West to ensure that the funds do arrive - especially for key projects such as training the army and eradicating drugs.
Much depends on Afghanistan’s neighbours. At present there are no regional powers trying to destabilize the country for their own ends - the cause of much of the past decade’s strife. Pakistan appears to have accepted that having less influence over a stable Afghanistan is better than trying to run the state through proxies and ending up with a den of extremists, drug smugglers and warlords on its doorstep. The Iranians, though unpredictable, seem happy with their economic and political influence over the West.
And, for the moment, the quasi-democratic political process set in place to help Afghanistan recreate itself as a nation appears - just about - to be working.—Dawn/The Observer News Service.