Memories of Afghanistan

Afghanistan—a country on the brink of a humanitarian disaster, a land filled with fleeing refugees, starving people, and turbaned terrorists in training camps. TV pictures tell the story of a country in ruin and poverty, a country brought almost to total destruction by twenty years of war and struggle. Yet once—though poor—this was a proud nation, and a beautiful country, and one that had survived many centuries of harsh history. Not too long ago, it was a country in peace, and one with a rich cultural heritage ... 

Apart from the nations of Europe, there are few countries in the world that have never been under colonial rule—or at least never in recent times: Afghanistan was one of them. Many centuries ago, Genghis Khan's troops rode down from Mongolia, mercilessly killing the mountain tribesmen of Afghanistan who dared to resist the invader; but apart from this humiliating period in time, the Afghans—who are in fact a mixture of three separate ethnic groups—have held their heads high in the face of invasion.

The country that is now at the centre of the world's attention was once one of the world's proudest nations, and a nation that other countries invaded at their own risk. In the 19th century the armies of the British Empire knew that Afghanistan was not a country to interfere with.

A hundred and twenty years ago, in 1881, British soldiers were nonetheless stationed in the Afghan capital, Kabul. They were there for two reasons, firstly to help stop the Russians from invading the country, and secondly to ensure the existence of an independent buffer-state between the Russian Empire to the north, and the British Empire in India (modern Pakistan) to the south east.

Queen Victoria would have liked to add Afghanistan to her empire, but her soldiers never succeeded in this mission, though they tried, and failed. In 1879, the whole British Mission (embassy) in Kabul, including servants, was massacred by a group of rebel Afghan soldiers, furious because they had not been paid by their own king, Mohammed Yacoub. Yacoub was friendly to the British, so the British got the blame. The story of the Kabul Massacre was remembered for a long time by the British in India, and recorded by several Victorian writers and poets.

Other bloody events also marked the relationship between the British and the Afghans in the 19th century. In 1842, in the notorious battle of the Khyber Pass, a complete British army was massacred by Afghans as they returned from a short raid into the country. Just one man, a doctor, managed to survive the massacre, and make his way back to the safety of India, to tell the story of the terrible event.

Though the world has changed a lot since Victorian times, Afghanistan has changed little. In many ways, the Taliban have even moved the country back in time, to a dark age of ignorance, intolerance and repression; but even without the Taliban, Afghanistan would still, today, be one of the world's most undeveloped nations. Land-locked, aside from most modern routes of communication, and broken up by the mighty Hindu Kush mountains and by vast deserts, Afghanistan, like the "tribal territory" of northwest Pakistan, has remained fiercely independent from outside interference, and strongly attached to its traditional ways.

For the last twenty-five years, the Afghan people have suffered from war and destruction: the overthrow of the monarchy, then the invasion by the Soviet Union in 1978, then the war against the Soviets, then the struggle for control of the country between the Taliban and the supporters of General Massoud, now the massive departure of a people on the verge of starvation, driven from their homes as much by fear of the Taliban as by the threat of military invasion.

Yet in spite of all this, despite the destruction of a large part of their country, the Afghan people remain kind and hospitable. Older Afghans remember back to a past, when they lived in peace and relative security; younger Afghans, who have never known an era of peace, look forward to the day when a new age of peace will come. Hopefully, that new dawn will not be too far away.