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Visiting Afghanistan

Scarlett MccGwire takes part in a trip to Afghanistan where she learnt more than she first imagined.

By Scarlett MccGwire

19 Oct 2011, 15:25

I spent last week at the British Embassy in Afghanistan, alongside colleagues from the Tories and Lib Dems, teaching Afghan political parties campaigning skills.

Security was tight, necessarily after the attacks on the British Council and American Embassy, so apart from the trips to and from the airport, we were only allowed out for a lunch break to look round Kabul. Even then we wore heavy body armour and travelled in armoured cars with armed guards. Our guards pointed out the Olympic Stadium where the Taliban stoned women to death and chopped people’s hands off and then drove to the top of Swimming Pool Hill, to view the high boards which condemned men were forced to walk and then dive off into the empty pool as execution. Savage retribution. Yet one of our guards had spent two years in Saudi Arabia and told us about self-descriptive Chop Chop Square in Riyadh, no less brutal.

While men dominated the streets, women walked freely some in powder-blue burkhas but the vast majority in scarves covering most of their hair, wrapped round their neck and shoulders. All wore long tops concealing their figures and even those in long skirts wore trousers underneath to cover their ankles. Early in the morning, on the way back to the airport, it was impossible not to be moved by the stream of girls in uniform white headscarves heading off to school.

While, whatever the propaganda, we did not invade Afghanistan to liberate the women, undoubtedly the position of women and girls, at least in Kabul has improved; however, they are far from free. Even in the matter of dress, while some choose to wear the burkha, others find the compulsory scarves restrictive.

It is important to remember that the invasion did not introduce resistance to the Taliban; brave men and women started political parties under the Russians and the Taliban, risking their lives to change their country. We worked with some of them, who need no lectures from the west about democracy.

Instead, the international community has fashioned a constitution that suited us when we decided to promote Hamid Karzai, by making the President extremely powerful with a weak Parliament; giving the Afghans a voting system which mitigates against political parties and favours independents or celebrities, thus reducing checks and balances on the President. Whether this was the intention or just the law of unintended consequences is unclear. The result is unhappy MPs and a powerful President ruling from his palace fortress, while the international community blame weak political parties.

What happens after the troops leave? One of the parties we worked with – the National Congress Party – is calling for the end of international military bases, so there is not universal horror at the prospect. However, whatever the rhetoric, the international community run the show now because they have the money. As we saw in the last century, transferring power is rarely done effectively.