Focus 580; Afghanistan: Afghans and Their Culture

Good morning and welcome to focus 5 A.D. This is our telephone talk program. My name is David E. And thanks very much for tuning in the country of Afghanistan is now getting a whole level of attention. It has not received perhaps since it was invaded by the Soviet Union in 1979. It seems now increasingly likely that sometime in the near future the United States will be sending troops into the country in an attempt to capture Osama bin Laden. He is the man that the United States believes is ultimately responsible for the attacks that took place on the 11th of September in New York and in Washington. All of this perhaps makes it more important than ever that we understand and know Afghanistan. And with that end in mind this morning in this part of focus 580 will be talking about the Afghans their culture their country with Thomas Barfield. He's professor of anthropology and chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Boston University. Before taking up that position in 1909 he taught at Harvard. He's done extensive field work in

among nomads in northern Afghanistan as well as short a period of time in. Young and western China most recently some of the work that he's been doing looked at the problems of economic change and nationalism in post Soviet Uzbekistan and he also has been involved in some applied work on refugee repatriation and war reconstruction for Afghan refugees in Pakistan. He's talking with us this morning by telephone and as we talk questions comments certainly are welcome. The number here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We have a also a toll free line that means no matter where you're listening if it would be a long distance call you that number that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. And if you match those numbers with letters on the phone you get w i l l which probably doesn't make it any easier to do three three three. W I L L and a toll free 800 1:58 W while those are the

numbers to call. Professor Barfield Hello. Hello. Thanks very much for talking with us we certainly appreciate it. Sure. It seems to be this is one of those cases and Unfortunately we seem to face it quite a bit that we find ourselves involved in a part of the world that we don't know very well and that people and certainly happened on this program and I'm sure it happens elsewhere find themselves asking the most basic questions about this place like Who is it. What's the geography like what's it look like what are the people like what are their daily concerns what's their life like. And it seems kind of unfortunate that we have to perform that level of education for people when we come to a point like this but that seems indeed to be where we are. Sure Well Afghanistan is a country about the size of Texas so it's relatively large. It's surrounded by other nations that is it's landlocked and because of that it shares borders

with a number of different regions in the north the ex-Soviet states Turkmenistan Uzbekistan and Tajikistan form its northern border its western border is on Iran's frontier and its southern border and its eastern border is Pakistan so it lives in a rather difficult neighborhood. But the other thing that is important on that is that it's it's it's at the center of sort of a crossroads. It used to be one of the ancient Silk routes crossroads. And what that means is that every one of those countries I've mentioned has sort of CO ethnics that live on the Afghanistan side of the border. And for that reason all the politics that take place in Afghanistan have ramifications for the other nations in the region that it points to the next question that I was going to pose and that is do people in Afghanistan think of themselves as Afghans or do they think of themselves as something else perhaps that they identify with. With their

ethnicity or that that sort of background and the. Of nationalism the way we think about it is not something that most Afghans would hold. In general Afghans maintain a strong local level identity. This can be based on their ethnicity and language. It can be based on religious affiliation. It cannot be based on region of the country there but in general local ties are very strong and as you move up the ties get weaker and weaker. There is no never has been really a strong internal idea of Afghan nationalism but where that idea does become very strong is when Afghanistan is faced the outside world so when the Soviet Union's Soviet Union invaded if anything it helped forge a sense of national identity because sort of all Afghans were under attack. But this kind of identity cannot really be used internally to unite the Afghans.

The country has been torn up by about 20 years worth of conflict. They Soviets invaded in 1979 and they were there for 10 years. Then after that there was civil war. The Taliban came to power in 1906 and now they control something like 90 percent of the country. And yet the country still is. It's certainly they didn't bring peace to the country. What has happened to Afghan to the extent there is such a thing as Afghan society what has happened to it as a result of now this more than 20 years of war. Well Afghanistan is put under a tremendous amount of stress more than a million Afghans were killed in the anti-Soviet war and as many as three perhaps more million Afghans fled to neighboring Pakistan and Iran. The other thing that happened is is that people that by and large tended to stay in their in their own areas were operated either as international refugees or as internally

displaced people so there was a great deal of disruption to Afghan society on the other hand. Afghans have always maintained such strong local identities and very strong kinship ties with their own group. It's been a remarkably resistent society in terms of not suffering. Many of the ills that one would associate with long periods of anarchy these are people that essentially know how to handle their own affairs in the absence of the state. The one of the things that it seems to be the case that when that when the Taliban came along that there were at least a significant number of people who thought that that was a good thing because the country had really been torn by by civil war by warlordism and that they were seen as a stabilizing force until perhaps people got the idea of what kind of society they had in mind and now we have seen what life is like in the parts of Afghanistan that

the Taleban administer. Is it possible though to say even at this point what what most people feel about the Taliban and whether they think that that was a good thing or a bad thing. That they came from Pakistan and essentially took over most of the country. Most people in Afghanistan probably despise the Taliban when they first came in. Their ideology was certainly not particularly well received but after 10 years of civil war anybody they could promise to restore order would be well be welcomed it to give a chance to do that. But one of the things that the Taliban failed to do it never transformed itself from a political religious movement into a government so it never provided government services and never attempted to rebuild the roads to involve the international community in reconstructing the country. Instead it focused on not enforcing its social views of veiling of women making men wear beards of beating people to go to the mosque. And this really offended a lot of

Afghans and also they saw you know there was really no improvement in their situation. And this began to alienate a lot of people they were also alienated by the fact that while the Taliban themselves come from from Kandahar in southern Afghanistan that their military was very strongly backed by Pakistan and that they had these very close relations with the so-called Arab Afghans that is essentially foreigners living in Afghanistan. And many Afghans felt that those people had too much influence over the Taliban. But if if there was a perceived threat coming from outside of Afghanistan would people really be. It depends on on how that threat is implemented. Afghans in the past A very often taken a wait and see attitude to foreign intervention and in particular whether the foreigners stay in Afghanistan or not. Any type of foreign intervention it's brief and pulls out does not provide a focus

on sort of to to to unite the Afghans. There are very pragmatic people in terms of looking how their politics work. The messages from the Bush administration as far as the Taliban go are seem to be a little bit mixed up. On the one hand saying that they weren't interested in a directly trying to overthrow the Taliban. On the other hand saying that they think that Afghanistan would be a better place without the Taliban. And now it's it does seem to be the case that the U.S. government is talking of providing aid to this group the Northern Alliance that controls this 10 percent of the country and still has been it is in opposition to. The Taliban would Afghanistan be a better place if it was run by the people who are involved with the Northern Alliance. Well if you look very carefully at the US government's position on this it did not say a folie of the Northern Alliance or put them in power. It said it would aid all Afghan opposition groups and one of the things that the Northern Alliance has actually been

careful to say is that it is not looking to be made the sole governor of Afghanistan but rather to be part of a larger coalition that would involve all ethnic groups and sort of all political players. The Northern Alliance did rule Kabul at one point and they didn't do a very good job of it. The great difficulty which both sides sort of realize the Northern Alliance represents the northern ethnic groups. They can't rule Afghanistan with a co-op without the cooperation of the southern groups the Pashtun people the Pashtun people have found it very difficult to come to some kind of cohesion around a common political party. The Taliban took advantage of that to seize power. And what everybody realizes is essentially you have to involve all of these groups and come to a sort of a fair power sharing arrangement in order to make it work so the United States has not said that it wants to put the Northern Alliance into power merely It wants to see the Taliban gone and replaced with a

broad based government. And that's because they realize that the Northern Alliance would would fail as a partner if you supported it. Well it's such a such a coming together of various elements in him to form a new kind of coalition government is that is it reasonable to expect such a thing could happen. Well that's one of the reasons there's so much interest in the old king's Aiyer shop because they are Shah who was ousted from power by his cousin in 1073. It represents the old monarchy of Afghanistan and what's important about that is he's he comes from a Pashtun lineage that is he represents the people in the South but he has fairly good relationships with the other ethnic groups in the. Tree and many people see the ex-king as a bridge as as a way not that he would be a great leader you know in selfies he's a very old man although he looks fairly healthy and he was never a very powerful ruler when he was in charge of Afghanistan but that this would provide a bridging mechanism a way to bring

everybody together to create a government. And one of the things you have to realize is that after 10 years of civil war both sides realize that they really can't do it by themselves. The former king Mohammad Zahir Shah is 86. He's living in exile in Italy. Apparently now a lot of people have been going to visit him. Most recently a delegation from Congress with this very idea in mind that perhaps that he could be a figure around which different people could rally. Do you think though. That that's a that's a reasonable kind of scenario that he could indeed be that kind of thing. Yes he could I mean the thing is that no one's expecting him to go back to Afghanistan to rally the tribes or to make things happen. But he would provide particularly for the Pashtun people in the south a legitimate way to shift their allegiance from the Taleban to someone else. But one of the things they would be looking in terms of this coalition government is what kind of resources would be coming from the outside

world. What kind of future what would Afghanistan have if this new government was able to supply a tremendous amount of food aid to end the famine and begin to reconstruct the roads take care of the war damage perhaps bring in peacekeeping troops to put an end to the violence. It would have a very good chance of succeeding. Well do you think that that is indeed here the United States has the opportune. To play a positive role that would be seen that way in Afghanistan and in the rest of the world without seeming to be too meddlesome to be going in and saying we there is here this is this government we don't like this government we replace him with this other one advantage the American government has right now is it really doesn't care what kind of government it is in Afghanistan as long as it gets rid of terrorists and bring stability to Afghanistan and to the region.

Whether that takes an Islamic form of government a parliamentary system a monarchy one advantage here is the United States really doesn't care that gives it all a lot of leeway in terms of accepting any kind of compromise that the Afghans themselves can come to. Secondly most Afghan governments throughout their history have been able to survive without outside aid going all the way back to the formation of modern Afghanistan in 1880. They've depended very heavily on subsidies from foreign nations. And the bottom line that the Afghans true is we don't really care where our governments get their money as long as they represent Afghan interests. And therefore the fact that you don't have foreign troops occupying the country. It is important but if outsiders get aid to Afghanistan and things look better. Most people who are willing to support it because most Afghans really don't care what their country's foreign policy is what they're concerned with this is what is their internal policy. The United States has been providing

humanitarian assistance for some time before September 11 certainly we were but most people don't realize that when we supported the mujahedeen to fight to fight the Soviets we are providing we and our allies providing almost a billion dollars a year in a partially weapons partially humanitarian aid that aid continued until the Soviet Union collapsed. And then from giving two or three hundred million a year we started giving 50. 15 million a year. So while we may be the largest contributor from Afghanistan's point of view we walked out. We promised the Afghans we promised the Mujahideen you defeat the Russians. And even though this is cause great violence to your own country we're going to step in with a Marshall plan we're going to rebuild. But when the Soviet Union collapsed we had no interest in Afghanistan and we let the Afghans sort of sit in the smoking rooms and said we'll never need this country again will never hear from it again. As far as the Afghans are concerned they would really like to see us

make good on the promise that we made to them when we arm them with Dean that is that we would restore normalcy to the country in terms of rebuilding its economy getting the refugees back in and helping a stable Afghanistan and that's something that we did we didn't do in the 90s we created the groundwork for the Civil War and the anarchy and the rise of the Taliban we didn't do it directly but we created the conditions in which we now find Afghanistan and how much money would cause to rebuild this country. Well there was only one road. All right. I mean we're not talking about a country that had a tremendous infrastructure to begin with Afghanistan's population is maybe 85 percent rural and it's mostly engaged in subsistence agriculture and pastoral isn't what we're really talking about is you know tens maps hundreds of millions of dollars to put the infrastructure back in shape. But this is not necessarily something that the government would have to do over a long period of time because there's been a great deal of discussion about the building of gas and

oil pipelines from Turkmenistan which has great oil deposits on the Caspian Sea and having a pipeline that runs through Afghanistan to Pakistan or India. That kind of pipeline would bring a billion dollars in royalties to Afghanistan every year so that when you replace the roads and it's the linchpin the trading linchpin between Central Asia and South Asia and the Middle East and Central Asia. So it's not a question of sort of endlessly putting in money it's essentially a question not of nation building but a war reconstruction. There's nothing left standing in the country after 20 25 years of war. Our guest in this part of focus 580 is Thomas Barfield He's professor of anthropology. Chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Boston University has done extensive field work among nomads living in northern Afghanistan. He's also done some work in western China and in post Soviet beki stan. And we're talking this morning about Afghanistan and your questions certainly are welcome as always here in the champagne Urbana of 3 3

3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us and that he has. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Do we actually have a way aside from trying to work through the government of Pakistan to talk with people in Afghanistan. Sure. We don't. The only reason we used the Pakistani government is to talk to the Taliban because they're the only country that recognizes the Taliban. We talk to the Northern Alliance directly we don't go through Pakistan. In fact the Northern Alliance is quite hostile to Pakistan. But now that the Russians have become more cooperative. They have allowed the stationing of aircraft and military personnel in the Central Asian republics along the border of Afghanistan so in some senses even for military purposes we don't need Pakistan. We can run this out of Central Asia. We have a couple of callers to bring into the conversation let's do that. We'll start with.

Color battle line number one. Hello good morning. Yes I am wondering if there is anything left of University of Powell and my husband was head of a group that asked by the sheriff to come over to our State Department to help set things in a university of Kabul. I started to my husband a professor and dean of engineering research and he asked three others a professor of chemistry a professor of economics and a professor of agronomy. We were there and there are of course. I didn't go into university classes with him. I did go to the girls schools and I can hardly talk without crying

because it was such a wonderful experience for us to shower. I hear Shah Mohammed yourself said his children's math teacher. You're over here to me before we left and he stayed with us. And this is our in 1959. And my husband was. I thought he was smart enough he had he passed a court recorder to go with us. Who every day for a professor met at 5 o'clock with our wonderful interpreter and. They reported everything that they had done in the different departments at the university or whatever places they had visited and I wondered

if the State Department that report I have it. It's about all three inches thick at least and I just wonder if our State Department there read it because everything you've said this morning with absolutely what we found in we we were privileged to travel up to Mazar e Sharif to boff we met with him. Coochie Sonoma it's coming back through the primary area which touches China and it had a very nice experience with the nomads and we went to Helmand Valley and kind hire for us was interested in the building of the dam down there that the Morrison canoeists and company from hole built in Afghanistan it was finished before we

got there in 1959. I'm not only one left of four professors have died. I still have wonderful memories of how gentle thieves the people were I could get around a little hoarse kind of drown parrot I would come out of our mud brick house and stand in the street and vote with a driver and I would come by and I just hold my hand up and because I made some friends or if I wanted to go to a girls school I'd learn four words how to get around in Afghanistan in Kabul. Say Rupert Rudolf they just they rusted in spots and I just feel privileged to be talking to you this morning and I would like to have your dress I'd like to contact you and

even talk more or hear more from you. You are so right that people in the north of the border and we're very. They warned us not to cross the Red River because that's when it was the Soviet Union. And. Well I just want to take a part of your time or other people's time but I will call Vance and he only later in asking for your address in there in Boston. Yeah I'm sure that we can. Provide you with an ad with an address on a present bar via which you might want to say it. It seems to be pretty obvious and I know not only from to hearing what this caller had to say but we're talking with other people out there a lot of Americans that feel a kind that feel feel ties feel bonds with Afghanistan that well go back a long time.

Well certainly Kerry. And the fact that I'm home when I'm left for a professor there are persons are few. Yeah Afghanistan essentially remain closed to foreigners until a late 1950s 60s they began opening up. That's when both the Russians and the Americans put in the roads. The airports know what infrastructure there was in the country and in the 70s it became one of the major overland routes for young people who were traveling on their way to India. And a lot of people were enchanted by the country and the Afghan people. It is a place that I think anyone who has been there and never forgets and the Afghans actually although it's a very remote place all people who have been there it's a place they not only never forget but. That the Afghans left them with a very warm feeling in their hearts. So despite all the trouble it's been in the country at least for those people who have been there.

It's a place that people like to see restored and back to the time that they were there. Let's continue the coming of the color next person in line is in Oakwood line to counter the northern front has a fair number of troops. How does that compare with the number of the three. The present government has it are these other groups that you talked about that they would need to work together with. Do they have 80 troops to do the Taleban. Coalition could come together with the Taleban willingly or would they have to be driven around. I mean that would like to be the I think more agreeable government that the people would would like but really easy to do.

Well it depends. See the Northern Alliance probably has about 15000 troops and more or less that they can put in sort of a regular order battle many other places in the country because of the long war against Soviet Union yet people that are armed. They could choose to join the fight. If they do but currently or under for example Taliban rule so it's hard to know you know how many of those people are available. But one of the interesting things that the Taliban itself is a very fractured movement. The people that run it the airplanes that move its tanks the Afghan soldiers that do that are actually the leftover communists. What happened was when the Mujahideen took over Kabul the communist regime didn't simply collapse its component parts join different parties. Largely they joined their CO ethnics and since the people that dominated the Army under the Communists were in fact Pashtuns. Many people found it amazing but it was true they join with the most radical Islamists because they were also Pashtuns. And

when the Taliban took power even though it be a logically you couldn't find two people more apart as professional soldiers they stayed on with the Taliban. So there you have even groups Afghan groups that are military units the Taleban who are not necessarily loyal to the regime. The Taliban itself it's estimated has about 40000 troops. But many of these consist of sort of raw conscripts that they convince to come in from Pakistani religious schools whose military value is doubtful. You have professional soldiers that have served many regimes and you have Osama bin Laden's group that also provides its own brigade that fights alongside the Taliban against its enemies. The Taleban itself has some difficulties in term in determining what its policy should be there are certainly some Taleban that would probably be willing to join a coalition government if it looked like they were going to be pushed out but Mullah Omar and his immediate circle.

I will probably fight to the last man they would have to be pushed out. But in Afghan politics some Taleban may decide they don't want to go down with him. It's always possible there could be a coup. Rumor has it that Pakistan is working very hard to see Moammar in his company replaced so that they could save the remnants of the Taliban because the Taleban have been Pakistan's proxy in Afghanistan and they're very they that's the reason they pushed the United States not to say that the Taliban is a target. They would like to say the Taliban are some remnant of it if they could. But what happens is that every time politics changes in Afghanistan very often it's the same people sometimes wearing a different hat so when we're talking about the Taliban we're not necessarily talking about a particularly united movement. And in Afghanistan everybody wants to be on the winning side just as the Taliban took a quote up nine tenths of the country with actually very little fighting. It looks like the Taliban are going to lose many of the warlords who joined with the Taliban because it looked like they were winning particularly in the

northern and western part of the country could immediately switch their alliance and suddenly we would find that three quarters of the country is anti-Taliban. That's the way Afghan politics very often works. Thank you. Thanks. Well I think that still raises the question of what would happen if if significant a significant portion. The Taliban with military force would decide to leave Afghanistan. They could be suggested certainly be a disruptive force in any place they would go. My guess would be that Pakistan wouldn't want them. Well many of them come from Pakistan. OK they're Pakistani citizens some of them. It would depend if they you know if they are leaving without any heavy weapons. There are no more of a force than any other that are along the Pakistani border where the people people are pretty much armed. But we're talking you know minimal I mean the whole Taliban army according to change Defense Weekly has only 500 Russian tanks half a dozen operable aircraft a few helicopters

where we're not talking about you know I major military force in terms of equipment organization. We are past the midpoint here we have about 15 minutes left in this part of focus 580. And I should introduce Again our guest We're speaking with Thomas Barfield He's professor of anthropology chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Boston University before that taught at Harvard. He's done field work among the people of Northern Afghanistan. He's also done some work. In engine Jiang in China in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and has taken part in work on refugee repatriation and war reconstruction for Afghan refugees in Pakistan and we're talking about Afghanistan today questions are welcome. The number here in Champaign-Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that one's good. Anywhere that you can hear us and that is eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5.

The next caller is in Bloomington Indiana. This is our toll free line line for Hello. Hi. Hi Professor Barfield. Since this Taliban government is very religious we would assume that they're charitable and that they would welcome anyone trying to relieve the suffering of their Afghan people. But there is a German Christian organization called shelter now helping the poor Afghans and you know these shelter now Christians give the Afghans food blankets shelter. They they virtually do the same kind of work that Mother Teresa did in India. And it would seem that the Taliban as fervent Muslims would welcome these benevolent people cooperate with them you know to help to help these poor Afghan people but instead cooperating with the Taliban actually has arrested these Christians and they are now on trial facing a possible death sentence. For their charitable work could you explain the thinking of the Taliban.

These Muslims want to be thinking in the Taleban and this was actually an issue for earlier Afghan governments but the Taliban are the most hard line on it. Consider apostasy that is the conversion of a Muslim to another religion. As a as a Heena sin it's punishable by death and they do not consider anyone has the right to change a Muslim's religion to another religion. It's OK the other way but not that way and therefore they've always been very suspicious of charitable groups particularly religious charitable groups Christian charitable groups that the Afghan belief is that they're not really there to help the people but to secretly convert them to Christianity. It's almost a paranoia religious groups that are go in are told you know you shouldn't do this. The Afghans are very sensitive about it.

But the Taleban have this this belief that that that aid workers are in fact sort of a fifth column designed to subvert Islam in Afghanistan and actually you know nothing could really be further from the truth in terms of. Both Afghans interest in other religions and most of these groups are there in precisely to aid people not to teach their own on religious doctrines and past governments when this dispute is has arisen. People have simply been deported from the country on the telly Bonna first two to arrest and sort of prosecute and that's alienated popular opinion in many parts of the world. It's not just Christians after all they blew up the Buddhas earlier this year that defended the Muslim the Buddhist world. And I don't think the Taliban were even aware that the Japanese were their third largest humanitarian aid donors and that they were Buddhist.

The Taliban have taken a very hard line against pretty much all other religions. This is not in keeping with traditional Islamic beliefs but the Taliban are not a traditional Islamic movement. They're a movement of very ill educated. Who's knowledge of Islamic law and of the Koran is actually fairly weak and most islamic I think practically all Islamic nations have condemned Taleban policies well before the September 11th tragedy. Even Iran considers them apps absolutely outrageous. Well when you've got a government like this it's kind of hard to help their people if they're not interested in helping their people. And they're interested in preserving their own power and pushing their particular view of Islam. They only let foreigners in because they have actually taken know they've created no government infrastructure on their

own to attempt to feed their own people or to work out they rely on the international community to do this. And they know that if the population starves that they would find it very difficult to hold power. So while they have constant disputes with the international community they've been loath to break ties because the international community as it is is feeding a good percentage of their people. Thank you very much. Thank you for the go. Just to go back for a second too to the fact and you talked about the fact that the the Taliban in Afghanistan were backed by the government of Pakistan because the Pakistanis wanted to have a government in Afghanistan that they could. At least I have significant influence over Given that fact and no doubt Pakistan's continued desire to have some sort of say in what happens in Afghanistan is that is that going to complicate matters. If what the rest of the world is going to try to foster is a change in Afghanistan that would

be for the better for the people of Afghanistan. Yes it will create difficulties but we have to remember that the United States too often has taken Pakistan's advice during the anti-Soviet war. Pakistan was in charge of giving out the military aid and they did not give it to the Mujahideen parties that fought fought best against the Russians. They gave it to the most fundamentalist Islamic groups that they wanted to support. They then decided later on to support that the Taleban and. The United States needs to understand that Pakistan has its own self-interests in this area and that those interests are not always the same as those of the United States. And so while Pakistan has a legitimate concern that a hostile Afghanistan not be created on their border I don't think the United States should pay too much attention to allowing the Pakistanis to try to set the limits of what an

Afghan government should be. The fact is they created a Taliban movement that they can't control. Pakistan itself is is under threat for its very existence and it gets no cooperation at all from the poly bond. It's a type of movement that has come back to bite its master and that should be a lesson to the United States too. We have caller here someone on a cell phone we'll get to that next. Lie number one. Hello. Yes thank you for taking my call. I have. In interest in this a very good topic for us we hosted a foreign exchange student in the early 70s from Afghanistan and he be pushed O and Persian and English and then in three to four years as we've heard from him because they actually smuggled a letter out from him through the embassy when they clear it out and I want to know if you

had any. We haven't been able to send anything or correspond because that will bring him into some senior high by having any contact with them you know because he speaks English and all that are there is there any hope for these kind of people you know as a family of five and a wife. In his last letter visions were horrible and they got worse for years. And comment for that is there any way we hope or help. Well this is one of the reasons that many Afghans are very interested in might be supportive of a new government because they see no future for themselves under the under the current situations and they're desperate for the re-establishment of normalcy for the reconstruction of their country.

And you know to to allow such thing as education economic development trade all of these things to begin to take place once again in Afghanistan and in a normal Afghanistan educated Afghans. You certainly would be able to find jobs and opportunities in the reconstruction of the country. I guess my question. If I can interrupt is it. How many people have you left. You not only left the water. I guess you know when you have only a few educated people left. The oh I'm going to be extremely difficult. They're restarting a nation. Yes but remember that you have millions of Afghans including many educated Afghans in Pakistan and Iran in Western Europe and in the United States. If Afghanistan were restored to some kind of stability such that there was no fighting and there was a political future. Millions of

refugees bringing their skills with them would return from Pakistan and Iran. Many educated Afghans people like engineers physicians teachers that are in Western Europe and the United States while they've been in these countries for a long time and might not move their families back. Many Afghans have said that if the country is stable again that they would be happy to devote part of their lives and skills to helping reconstruct the country. And they have money to invest as well so within the country you're correct that the number of people around to do these kind of jobs are relatively few but there's now a very large Afghan Diaspora that given an opportunity to rebuild lives in Afghanistan would be a major help in that process. Thank you very much. Thank you for the call Lets go. The next caller's in Urbana line too. Hello. Yes I'm really impressed with this kind of anthropological knowledge. And I wonder if the guest has

been in touch or can contacted by the United States government or if there are people with his degree of knowledge in the government that he knows about I mean is the government getting advice from people like this. And I'll hang up and listen. Well the relationship between government and academics is often fraught with difficulties but even before this problem I used to go down still do on a regular basis to lecture foreign foreign service personnel at the Foreign Service Institute sort of the post graduate school for training diplomats so the government has been interested in bringing in the views of people you know in terms of laying out. What sort of the culture the politics the history that particularly places that Americans are not familiar with. There are not too many people that do Afghanistan as sort of an academic enterprise one reason being the 25 years of warfare I was fortunate

enough before the war began to spend two years living with nomads in northern Afghanistan and meeting a wide variety of Afghans traveling you know with donkeys and camels high into the mountains that people are now talking about. And essentially living in people's villages talking with them and learning about their culture and that kind of opportunity has become obviously a much more difficult over the past 20 years. And therefore and there's been sort of difficulties in doing research there but also people in the United States when the countries of the world sort of fall off of our horizon we tend to forget about them. And therefore until recently the amount of interest in places like Central Asia and Afghanistan has has been relatively small. Now it's been revived again but it takes quite a long time to develop levels of expertise among lots of students and scholars. And this is something that's that's been

lacking for many years on countries like Afghanistan. Well if it's any indication the. Desperate calls now that seem to be going out from the government for people who speak the languages of this region. Arabic. But also I'm sure that there are probably very very few people working in the State Department working in the CIA wherever in Washington that that speak the languages of Afghanistan. That's true but that's also probably our policy in the United States was very involved in the anti-Soviet war and many American officials were over on the Pakistan border inside Afghanistan even helping them with. Many of them learned Persian or parched Oh actually don't speak Arabic and in Afghanistan. But as soon as the Soviet Union collapsed all of these people were transferred to other desks other jobs we don't need that level of expertise anymore. We'll never see Afghanistan again so there's a tendency for the government sometimes to be a little shortsighted that even when we develop an area of expertise there's a tendency after the immediate problem is gone

to just let it dissipate. We're just about the part where you have to finish and I must. Apologize we has I have a couple of callers I can't take. This is a difficult question I'm sure to answer but at this point do you have some sort of feeling about what's likely to happen here in the near future. Well this is this is obviously purely a guess because all I can do is is look at things coming over the news wires but again you know sort of being a little bit familiar with how things work in Afghanistan I think a lot of groups right now are waiting to see what is the United States going to do. And I wouldn't be surprised if the United States response to this isn't to go after the Taliban's weaponry that is if the Taliban has no tanks no artillery pieces and no air force and their superiority over their opponents begins to disappear. The second thing that will happen is that many people that are wondering. Is the United States serious or not. If that happens will decide the United States is serious and decide to defect not to the north

Northern Alliance but to some kind of new coalition. And at that point we begin to move into a different arena. That is if the new government can and can be created in supporting and supported and famine relief comes in the country starts to be rebuilt a little bit even immediately then it will be Afghans who are looking to get rid of Osama bin Laden and his cohorts because one great advantage we have is that none of the people that we are looking for in Afghanistan are Afghans. They're all foreigners. And while they may hide in the Afghan mountains that's not where they're from. And if the political climate changes and they lose their protection the Afghans tend to be sort of xenophobia but they're equal opportunity isn't it folks. They dislike foreigners of all types dominating their country and it would be the Afghans going into their own

backyard to see these these people out. But if even after these terrorist networks are gotten rid of. Unless the United States this time and the world community helps in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and bring Afghanistan back to normal we'll be back there in another 10 years it's really important to create stability in a land where any time this thing happens again it's a criminal problem not a military problem. And the Afghans after 20 years of warfare are not interested in spreading any kinds of ideologies or doing any kind of movements. All they want to do is get their country and themselves back into normalcy. And that's something that I think we did very very well in Europe such that countries in Europe in western Europe never even thought about fighting a war again. We need to think about that in terms of Afghanistan not just out of the goodness of our hearts because if we change the landscape in the economy and bring them hope for the future

they will have no interest in movements like the Taleban or extremists like Osama bin Laden were a part of me for interrupting you there present at the end of my time and we're going to have to stop I appreciate very very much you are giving us some of your time today. My pleasure. Our guest Thomas Barfield He's professor of anthropology chairman of the Department of Anthropology at Boston University. Our program made possible in part by a grant from the great and pasta the restaurant serving food from northern Italy at 114 West church in Champaign the staff there encourage you to join them in supporting AM 580. Today's broadcast also made possible by.