whipped it into gear Prescript: If revolution in the Third World can be plotted from Mao through Algeria to Castro and the Sandinistas, the “War of National Liberation” in Afghanistan definitely falls outside the curve. Instead of goals based on Marx, it holds up the vision of a society based on the Koran. Afghanistan is thus a variation on Iran, where Muslim zealots overthrew a conservative modernizing regime, and a reversal of Vietnam, where communists lead the fight against superpower intervention. From the late 19th century when Aghanistan was squeezed into its present form, it has had an uneasy relation with modernity. King Amanullah was thrown out for trying to push things too quickly in the 1920s. When a substantial middle class did develop, it faced the embarrassment of backwardness with uncertainty. A number of directions were tested. By the 1960s two trends had become dominant at Kabul University- Marxism and Islam fundamentalism. The growth of the left People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was promoted by the presence of ever more numerous Soviet advisors. When the PDPA attempted a coup in 1978, their success was guaranteed by the commanders of several army units who had been trained in the U.S.S.R. The new government, however, made a series of fatal errors. Its reform program—for which many Afghans saw the need—was abrupt, coercive and insensitive. The PDPA interferred with the custom of bride prices, sent male teachers to girls' schools and changed the flag to all red. Beginning with the traditionally fractious tribes in the east, incited by travelling mullahs, resistance flared up all over the country. The PDPA regime was scarcely able to withstand this storm, and seemed ready to collapse. In December, 1979, the Soviets intervened militarily. A more reasonable (and pliable) leader took power; the rebels were blown away by Red Army firepower. The mujahideen retreated to the mountains and held on, while the government never retreated from its initial mistakes. The presence of 100,000 Soviet troops meant the PDPA would not fall, but it also guaranteed that it could not succeed. The tenacity of the mujahideen attracted me. I wanted to write about these free mountain warriors who refused to surrender even against an overwhelming mismatch in military resources. I reckoned they must have the support of most of the people to have survived so long. During the last phase of the Geneva negotiations in April 1988,1accompanied two members of a German aid group into Kandahar Province to see “inside” conditions myself. The journey was not easy and ended in disaster. The Afghans were yelling at me in Pashto as I stumbled up the hill from the outhouse: they were ready to move out. The forward mujahideen base at Toba in Pakistan was barely light, but the big Mercedes diesel was already warmed up. Prom the back of the truck Wahidi called my name. I climbed up the side and found a comfortable place among the jumble of burlapwrapped boxes that had been carelessly pitched on top of the arms and ammunition that were the important things. I grinned at Wahidi and Hakenberg and laced my boots tight w ith cold fingers. Doctor Oliver Hakenberg was a German, but he spoke near perfect English; he was working for the Afghans for essentially nothing. Saeed Wahidi (Saeed means from the family of Mohammed) managed Afghanistan Nothilfe, a small medical-aid group funded by contributions from Germany. I would accompany them as they checked two clinics in Kandahar Province inside Afghanistan. As the sun rose over the crumbling hills, the truck was lurching toward the border. It was part of a small convoy— another truck and a pickup packed with armed mujahideen acting as a scoutcarrying supplies to Mullah Naqeeb, a big guerrilla commander in Kandahar. He had promised to take us to the Argandab River, which was running very high with snowmelt and rain and had already plugged the pipeline for a week, and, more importantly, to get us from the other side of the river down to the clinics, in an area also called Argandab. Here in the Southeast the country was relatively flat and the mujahideen were motorized. So hour after hour we were shaken like crash dummies, in chaotic creek beds winding through impossible canyons, on the high-speed flat stretches that were constantly interrupted by vicious dips and hummocks. Oostahz Naeem was paid 7,000 rupees ($420) to make the trip which he did every two months or so. He brought his crazy-eyed brother and brother-in-law as helpers, but only Oostahz could work on the fuel injectors or handle the transmission. He whipped it into gear with style, and as the cassette wailed the frustrations of chaste Afghan love into the desert night, he sang with it, “When you-u-u are sad, the wo-o-rld is sad.” One day, as Oostahz and his family sweated over a flat tire, Wahidi called my attention to a small stream. All water is important in this semi-desert, but this was a spring, the rarest and best water, the kind that doesn’t turn foul after two hours in your canteen. It flowed out of a rocky hillside, became a small pool, then disappeared into an orchard. This was an idyll. I waded into the cool, clear water, and for some reason my mind turned to the Koran. Part of its strength, I thought, is that Mohammed was capable of such a profound degree of satisfaction with nature—water in a pool, or the stars in the clear sky at night. It is this feeling, supercharged with his amazing concentration on God, that holds the Muslims today, and among them, the Afghans. “ I have found a crab.” Hakenberg’s startlingly clear blue eyes focused on a small crustacean underthe bank. Indeed a fresh-water crab (not a crayfish) here in the middle of the desert. He enumerated the fauna and flora as neatly as he clinched his backpack. Every family of any substance had a guest house, usually better than their own rooms, and it was here that we stayed. These days the villagers are not very prosperous, but they welcomed us 20 Clinton St. Quarterly— Fall/Winter 1988 with style, and as the cassette wailed the frustrations of chaste Afghan love into the desert night, he sang with it, “When you- U'U are sad, the wo- o-rld is sad.” By Paul Overby Dependents and mujahideen climbed through a notch in the mud wall around the orchard and came through the tall grass, stooping under the trees. They kissed his hand, sat down on the ground cloth and told him their problems.
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