worlds are spinning by my window

Worlds are spinning by my window. Landing in Kabul on Monday (18 September) was not surprising, but what is these days? More than anything we are surprised by joy, by warmth, by sincerity. These are rare finds. Cultural noise and drama are ubiquitous. Wars and killings are common place. Political upheaval and despots are old news. Policemen are shot on the street corner. Imperialism is the new colonialism. Modernization is the lie that freedom has replaced tyrannical oppression. Democracy is the illusion of order and choice where despots once ruled. This is the world we live in. I've been suprised by the warmth of the people I've come to Kabul to visit.

What can I say about Kabul? Not much, I haven’t really experienced much yet. It’s an economic capsule struggling to take off from a ruined place. It’s a city in a mine field. There’s a minefield in the city. The UN and the embassies are barricaded for war. There’s a dirty street with gleaming shops. There’s an underground, expat party scene, an Indian restaurant behind a wall, dust and dung. Traffic looks like chaos, but people get where they’re headed. Streets run nameless in grids and in tangles. Streets are dust. Modernization is trying hard to rear its ugly head. Progress is progressing too fast and too slow.

I’m trying to take in so much. I’m trying to see around the corner of my life.

I’m starting all over again and I’m a different person than when I last set foot in South Asia. I’m still trying to grow up, I’m still wondering what I’ll do then.

I’m really enjoying myself here in Kabul, metaphysical analyses aside. This is turning out to be a true holiday, a quiet place to meet old friends and make some space between Canada and Pakistan. I’m staying at the guesthouse of the International Assistance Mission, an NGO that’s been working in Kabul for 40 years, focusing on community development, sustainable energy, healthcare and teaching English. The guesthouse is a large, sprawling building behind a wall (all houses are here). The house looks like it’s been around for a while and survived the wars of the past 20 years. It’s well run and homey. Interesting people flit in and out. And it happens to be located in the part of Kabul where most of the people I’m going to be meeting with live.

Here in Kabul life goes on despite security concerns. Parts of the city do look like a war zone. Big the big NGOs (or BINGOs) and the Afghanistan Government persist despite strict security measures. Commerce goes on. Buildings go up. Foreign investment is desperately courted.

My exposure to development theory and thinking over the past few years now informs my perspective of this part of this country. The pace of progress in Pakistan and Afghanistan and India is staggering (never mind China). The all-important middle-class is rising and consuming. India’s economic growth rate is one of the highest in the world. Pakistan’s is also strong. Afghanistan is desperately trying to catch up. The drug of the promise of capitalism flows strong through government veins. No one seems to be questioning the model of economic growth through government liberalization and industrialization that proselytes from the rich countries have been pushing for years. Fossil fuel consumption must be increasing almost as fast as pollution in the cities of South Asia. More cars fill the poorly planned roads and streets, more highways plow through scarce green-space, more shops sprout up through overcrowded and staggering market complexes. I’ve seen some numbers that suggest poverty rates in South Asian countries have been decreasing over the past 20 years. This may be, but the sheer numbers of poor and vulnerable, must be growing.

Poignant analyses of the effects of the October earthquake point out that the areas affected were economically insignificant to Pakistan. In other words, the fact that 10s of thousands died and 100s of thousands are homeless doesn’t impact Pakistan’s economic outlook . Any shortfall is taken up by the 10s of millions pouring in as foreign aid.