Prince of Conquerers

Prince of Conquerers



Though he stands 5' 4" he gives no appearance of being self-conscious about his height. He exudes self-confidence. The only time Ali Reza is close to being embarrassed is when his friends and co-workers use his nickname in front of foreigners, even though it is used with an obvious combination of affection and respect. He tries reminding people to call him "Ali Reza" but usually gives up after a few tries and everyone reverts to using his regular name, "Cheng geez"--the Afghan pronunciation of Genghis Khan.

Ali Reza is an undergraduate student at two universities in Afghanistan--Kateb University and the American University of Afghanistan. But being a student is something he does in his spare time. His main job is as a businessman. At the age of 24 he is the founder and proprietor of the Star English Academy which has over 7,000 students at three branches. His most recent enterprise is dubbing foreign TV shows and selling them to Afghan TV. (If anyone wants to come to Afghanistan and try to enforce their copyright they are welcome to).

He began as a program officer for USAID a couple of years after the occupation. He did that for three years. He rose quickly in the ranks due to his industriousness and English language ability. But he didn't really like it. He found that he was spending 50% of his time writing reports to justify how they had spent the money. His experience illustrates a problem with foreign aid. The money that you can get applying for grants far outweighs the profits from actually doing something useful in many cases. At the American University the most popular courses are those that teach applying for grants and justifying how you spent the grants. The best and most talented people in the country are sucked into the most profitable activities around which, when the money is flowing, are those that involve getting money from foreigners. He decided that if he wanted to really do something to improve things he would have to go out on his own.

He started the Star English Academy with almost nothing, barely a wall to write on. he developed his own curriculum and started attracting students. His students were, like him, mostly Hazaras, the previously despised asiatic minority. The word "Hazara" means 10,000. The name comes from the story of the town in Herat, which was destroyed by Genghis Khan in the 13th century for attempting to revolt. The scourge of God reportedly made an example of town by killing all of its inhabitants and replacing them with Mongols, 10,000 of them, Hence, the name.

Since that time the Hazara have had a hard time in their own country. As the smallest minority, distinguish both by their racial features and their Shi'ia religion, they have been treated practically as slaves throughout much of their history in Afghanistan. But since the coming of the Americans academic achievement has come to the fore and the Hazarah have had something of a come back. this has been called the Rennaissaince of the Hazarah.

But this has not stopped the violence against them. the Pashtun nomads of Afghanistan have recently attacked the Hazarah in the province of Ghazni.

The nomads were supposed to be settled in fixed abodes as a matter of constitutional law. That has not happened.

The attack was one-sided. the Hazarahs had no guns. The ISAF, in its wisdom, had taken them away. The big plan, don't you see, we are going to make Afghanistan a modern, civilized country where the government provides security. The Hazarahs, having no interest in violence and very much wanting to live in a free, democratic society, complied. The nomads did not. Nor has the Taliban.

It is all part of our fundamental mistake of trying to impose solutions that make little sense in the institutional context of Afghanistan. We are trying to impose policies that treat everyone impartially by means of a bureaucracy that is thoroughly cooped by ethnic and clan networks as loyal to the Taliban and local warlords as they are to the state. The result is that we put those who are willing to follow the rules and give their loyalty to the new democratic order are the ones that are hurt by our policies.

Aid is another example. The thinking that drives our aid distribution is that if a province is supporting the Taliban it can only be because they are dissatisfied with the new order. By giving them aid we will remove the source of dissatisfaction and give them an incentive to join the new order. But at some point the aid becomes and incentive to continue the revolt. Given the weak institutional structures through which the aid is given the money mostly ends up benefiting corrupt officials rather than the true targets of the aid.

Worst of all, the provinces that are happy to accept a modern, democratic state are neglected. Schools are built in the Pashtoon areas only to be burnt down while the Hazarah areas build their own.

Ali Reza talks faster the madder he gets, without ever losing the precision of his language.

"The Karzai government has decided to call the Taliban "the dissatisfied brothers." So now we will say, "the dissatisfied brothers just hanged a seven year old boy for being a "spy". The dissatisfied brothers have just thrown acid in the face of two girls walking to school."

The counter insurgency strategy which we have adopted means economically developing the areas that are under Taliban influence. But the thing That I hear most often in here is not the anger of those that support the Taliban--such people are vanishingly rare in educated circles--but the disappointment of our natural allies in Afghanistan. We have worried so much about making our enemies like us that we have neglected our friends, a mistake no successful 'conquerer' can afford to make.