Not as Bad as it Sounds?

Several folks in the States have asked me about the apostasy case. I only know what I read in the papers, and cringe along with everyone else at remarks like:

Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, so we'll kill him if he doesn't recant!

Or:

God has been humiliated! (As if God is cowering in a corner somewhere)

But after all the scary quotes, the result was a demonstration in one northern city with around 200 angry men. Now make no mistake, the fact that this came to trial at all highlights a serious issue: Afghan law is completely at the whim of the judges' interpretation of the Koran, and the judges in question are fundamentalists. But 200 angry men... I'm not convinced that's reflective of the population as a whole.

I prefer to look at percentage of jerks. For example, when people complain about ugly Americans, I explain that there may be more of us stomping through their countryside, than, say, Japanese. But as a percentage of the US populace, America has no higher rate of willful idiots than any other country.

But the real test will be Friday prayers, which provide an opportunity for mullahs to harrangue the populace. I might revise my opinion of general sensibilities here after that.

Reading List

Some of you may have heard about the Afghan who converted to Christianity, returned to Afghanistan, and is now being brought up on apostasy charges, punishable by death. So far Karzai has said he'll stay out of it, which is too bad because Afghanistan's judiciary is run by conservative Islamists and have been given a stunning amount of power under the Afghan constitution.

With this in mind, when I saw an article on SF Gate (Today's True Feminists, http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2006/03/22/cstillwell.DTL) about Muslim women fighting for religious moderation, I found myself noting down the many books listed and thought I'd share the link.

What the Heck do they Think Calendars are For?

Today is Sunday, the first day of the Afghan work week. Tuesday will be a holiday, Nohruz, the first day of the Muslim New Year. The government is now talking about moving the Education Day holiday to Wednesday, which would automatically make Thursday a government holiday as well, since it's the last day of the work week and they only work half days on Thursday anyway.

BUT THEY STILL HAVEN'T MADE A DAMN DECISION.

The government does have calendars. Neither Nohruz nor Education Day are lunar (i.e. the dates are fixed, unlike certain other holidays where people watch for the moon and then declare the holiday). Why can't they make these decisions in advance?

Oh, but they can.

They're just to [CENSORED] [CENSORED] [CENSORED] to do it. And these are the key organizational skills which somehow make the Afghan government qualified to manage billions of US dollars in aid money? Granted, they do have an argument that the westerners aren't doing a whole heck of a lot better - money is wasted, spent on too many bloated ex-pat salaries, etc., etc. But at least we use our freaking calendars!!!

If I knew for sure that I had five non-work days coming up, I might be able to plan a trip out of here. But even if the holidays do go through, my company could well decide to work Wednesday and Thursday anyway.

My escape from Afghanistan isn't looking good.

I Resemble That Remark!

About every four months there's an article in an international newspaper about the disgustingly luxurious ex-pat lifestyle in Kabul, and the four months is up. The latest article on Kabul debauchery, "Let the Good Times Roll," isn't as nasty as some of the other reports. But it isn't particularly accurate, either.

It's not surprising; a journalist who spends a week in Kabul might not "get" the desperation that drives the drinking, dancing, and smoking. Loud laughter tinged with hysteria, depression barely held at bay.

Kabul's dozen international restaurants, sadly, don't constitute a "boom." I'm thrilled they're here, but frankly, there isn't that much to do aside from drink, which is why they get so much business and I see so many alcoholic foreigners. Ex-pats in Kabul get a certain haunted look after a while, particularly after rocket season starts up in the Spring (yes, there is a rocket season, after the snows melt and terrorists can more easily climb the heights to shoot into the city).

It sure beats Baghadad, but I don't want Baghdad to be my standad, thank you very much.

The prices in Kabul are high - it reminds me of stories I've read about boomtown San Francisco or Alaska. But the numbers from the article should be cut in half. At least. $50 for a round at the Kabul Golf Club? It's $20 - still too much when you've seen what the course looks like. That four bedroom house for $2500/month? I'm living in it. With three other people. And it's no narco-palace. If the reporter could see my bathroom... It's fabulous for Kabul (flush toilet AND hot water!) but pretty gungy by all other standards.

And pity the soldiers at Camp Phoenix. They're living in metal boxes, and aren't allowed out to restaurants.

So I suppose I could sit in my room, feeling miserable as some sort of sympathy protest for the Afghans, but then what would all the Afghan waiters and caddies do for tips?

Too much of Afghanistan looks like this. Buildings blasted by artillery, landscape deforested by people desperate for fuel.

It's a challenging course, mind the bumps...

Kabul Golf Club

Girls, Guns, and Golf

Yesterday morning I braved the Kabul golf course again, this time in the company of three women golfers and two armed body guards (the PC term of the moment is "close protection workers"). The course had greened up a bit from my last visit, but it was still mainly rock-strewn dirt pitted with furrows and trenches (handy for diving into should one come under attack). Add the threat of mines, and the course is a sort of extreme golf, with the balls ricocheting off stray rocks, bumping over the uneven earth, and flying across (or into) deep canyons, and I wondered aloud if the ladies weren't going to find smooth green courses too easy when they got home.

"Are you kidding?" B said, leaning on her rent-a-club that looked like it came from a 1970's garage sale. "I don't think I"ll be able to golf without my shooters."

Afghan Aid

A frustrated friend of mine wrote this, and I thought it was funny enough to pass along...

You're an Afghan farmer with 2 cows. You receive a $1.2 million technical assistance grant to feed the cows and buy non-Iranian farm equipment to support your dairy. The cows accidentally walk across the border to your cousin’s farm in Iran. It’s not your fault, you don’t know what happened.

You receive a $600,000 grant to buy enough Swiss cows to supply milk to your new dairy. You still complain and must continue farming poppies for 2 more years until the Swiss cows produce enough milk to make a profit.

Ooops that damned NGO forgot to tell you that YOU must buy feed for the cows – you receive a $500,000 grant to purchase a feed mill and enough raw materials for feed (flown in from Dubai because you cannot deal with Iran and Pakistanis will steal it). The NGO sets up the feed mill and integrated farm for you, but in the process the feed materials rot because you don’t have a suitable warehouse or dryers.

You receive a $2 million grant to build a complete storage facility imported from Iowa to properly store your feed for your Swiss cows. You are forced to form a cooperative to support the community. You gather your relatives and form a co-op to satisfy the requirements, but do not have an office to hold the board meetings.

You receive a $750,000 grant to buy land and build a 1200 sq.m. house for all the board members to meet and drink green tea. You convince the NGO after they allocate the money that foreign contractors cost too much to build your meeting place and build it with Afghan construction for half the price. You buy 10 new Land Cruisers to transport the Afghan workers to/from the building site. They complete the first floor, but a 2.3 earthquake destroys the construction and you’ve run out of money because the Land Cruisers consume more fuel than the NGO predicted.

Available at http://www.sphinxbooks.com

The Contrary Countess, A Mystery in Old California

SAN MATEO, Ca – February, 2006 – The Contrary Countess (SphinxBooks.com/January, 2006/$4.99), an eBook by Tallinn Jones, draws the reader into pre-boomtown San Francisco, an environment of secrets and danger. The year is 1848. Upon the death of her father, Sensibility Grey is shipped off to San Francisco to live with her uncle. But when the young Englishwoman arrives in California, she finds ships abandoned in the harbor, a sleepy village deserted by all but a handful of women, and no sign of the uncle she was sent to live with. Alone and penniless, she must make her own way in the chaos that follows the discovery of gold... chaos that sets the stage for murder.

If Sensibility can survive a hoodoo curse and the dangerous intentions of a bank robber, she might have a chance to uncover a murderer. Add to this brew the disturbing presence of the darkly handsome Krieg Night, and the west becomes wilder than even Sensibility bargained for.

I’ve always loved reading historical mysteries, particularly Elizabeth Peters,” says Tallinn Jones. “I wanted to write one about my home, the San Francisco peninsula, and the gold rush era seemed ideal for a female heroine. Women of that time and place couldn’t afford to be shrinking violets, and the anarchy provided a perfect set-up for an amateur detective. I also wanted to explore what would bring a rationale, thinking person to engage in crime-solving. Playing amateur detective always seemed rather arrogant to me!”

“I decided to submit my story to an eBook publisher when, after reaching the final submission stage (editor in chief) of a print publisher I was told, ‘Great story, but I just don’t think there’s a market for western mysteries.’ I thought, ‘Tell that to James Doss and Nevada Barr!’ I didn’t think my novel was too “out of the box” for traditional publishing – it’s a frothy historical mystery - but I was frankly tired of beating my head against a wall.”

Tallinn Jones has lived for over a decade in the “wild east” of the former Soviet Union and, most recently, in post-war Afghanistan. She used her experiences in these lawless lands to color the emotional landscape of a California beset by anarchy. Read about her experiences on her blog: http://adventurersclub.blogspot.com. Tallinn is currently putting the finishing touches on the sequel to The Contrary Countess, Death of a Duchess, coming soon to SphinxBooks.com.

SphinxBooks.com is an ePublishing company founded in 2005, specializing in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror. eBooks are sold in multiple formats, and are available for purchase at SphinxBooks.com

Augh!

Yesterday was the equivalent of trying to convince the Flat Earth Society that the world is round, or the Baker Street Irregulars that Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character (I spent several months haunting the latter's e-mail list and was eventually ejected for my skepticism and keen logic). No matter how you say it, or what you say, they'll still proclaim for all to hear that the earth is flat and Sherlock Holmes really did exist (the dastardly Conan Doyle was simply Watson's editor and took all the credit for the stories).

The dead horse I'm beating is, of course, microcredit. It's become highly politicized here. There was even a recent, sneaky attempt to nationalize the microfinance organizations (which appears to have failed, fortunately). The main complaint is that the interest rate is too high.

What's too high? Some folks say any interest rate (it's un-Islamic) is too high. Others whinge that interest rates in Afghanistan are higher than in the US.

Well, duh.

There's a good reason why CitiBank hasn't opened a branch office in Kunduz, Afghanistan. It isn't profitable and is an all around pain in the butt. Of course the interest rates are higher! But no matter how many times I explain it, no matter what other countries I cite (Afghanistan's microfinance interest rates are lower than any other country's I've looked at), no matter how brilliant my arguments, it's all to nought. It's a political issue now, and the politicians (be they donors or Afghan government officials) don't want to learn about the issues.

It's much easier to wreck something than build it up.

Out of Pakistan

My colleagues here in Kabul (yes, I'm back in Afghanistan) claim that Pakistan is more dangerous than here. I disagree, but the more time I spend reading the papers in Pakistan, the more concerned I become about the country's inherent instability.

Here's the sitch:

There are big chunks of Pakistan territory lying along the Afghan border which the federal government has no control over. This has even been codified -- Pakistani federal law only applies within 10 feet in each direction of the highways in these regions.

The optimistic view of this situation compares it to that of the US many years ago, when the states had more juridical independence from the feds, and criminals could commit a crime in one state and run to another to escape prosecution.

A darker view would compare it to the US pre-Civil War, however, instead of cotton-growing slave owners, Islamic militants are running things. These militants are accused of having created a haven for terrorists, sending everything from rockets to suicide bombers across the border (the regions are also a weapons free-for-all; you can get anything there, for a price).

Pakistan's president, Musharraf, does not seem to have the political or military capacity to get control of these regions, and some of his generals, who he relies upon to stay in power, are in sympathy with the fundamentalists. So what happens if the US decides, "enough is enough" and starts bombing the border areas?

Last month we did just that, taking out a few Pakistani hoouseholds that were holding a dinner party for Al Qaeda terrorists. The general public was infuriated at this infringement of their soverignty, and I suspect that this has fed the latest cartoon riots, which have morphed into anti-government demonstrations, linking Musharaff's government to the corrupt and decadent west.

I don't see a lot of happy endings to this.