An Afghanistan Picture Show: Or, How I Saved the World (3 page)

If you begin reading
An Afghanistan Picture Show
in the expectation of more political discussion than this, you will be disappointed. To be sure, people who remain onstage today, such as the infamous Gulbuddin, or who disappeared from it only yesterday, such as Rabbani and Masoud, get mentioned. I remember interviewing Rabbani for this book and feeling very pleased with myself; by the time he became the head of the Afghan government I no longer particularly cared about my so-called accomplishment. After all, this book, as much as it originally wanted to be, is not about Afghanistan at all. First and foremost, it portrays, far more than its shallow young author could have imagined, a certain kind of social relationship. The epigraph to one of my latest European short stories was derived from the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
.
It could equally be the epigraph to this book: “Every attempt to present altruism as a route to the transformation of an antagonistic society on nonegoistic principles leads ultimately to ideological hypocrisy, masking the antagonism of class relations.” I wanted to do good, and “help the Afghans.” Ignorant of the very evident implications of the fact that I was the semi-privileged citizen of an extremely privileged country, I believed in the simple equality of all human beings, and expected that one of the Mujahideen commanders would set me some task, which I would do my best to fulfill—haul water, document a battle, or fight—and that would be that. It was shocking to me that, instead, quasi-divine powers were ascribed to my person. I was an American; I could do anything. And because I could not do anything, not even walk over the mountains very well (I had already lost forty pounds from amoebic dysentery), I failed all parties, inevitably. Had I been physically fit, with a million dollars in my pocket, I still would have failed the Afghans, for I was nobody but myself. And myself was all I ever wanted to be—an illusion which masks “the antagonism of class relations.”

Nonetheless, while I now suspect that the
Great Soviet Encyclopedia
’s entry on altruism is very likely true, and the longer I think about it, the more examples of its truth I can see—French Jesuit missionaries saving Amerindians from their satanic idols, and destroying their societies in the process; American missionaries saving Afghan women from the misogyny of the Taliban, and in the process bringing about a revival of the same warlordism which raped and abducted vast numbers of Afghan women—the passage of years also strengthens my belief in the absolute necessity of encouraging altruistic aspirations all over this earth of ours. What should I have done, with the knowledge, wealth, and health I had? Exactly what I did. My memories of failure haunt and humiliate me, which is all to the good.

In the year 2000, on the eve of entering what was then Taliban Afghanistan, I paid a visit to my former host and adopted father, General
N., who gets considerable mention in
An Afghanistan Picture Show
. The old man had grown older; his mind was not quite as focused as it used to be; two digits had been added to the telephone number on the card I’d kept since 1982. He remembered me most joyfully; he welcomed me; I took his hand with love and respect.

When I set out to participate in, and then to write,
An Afghanistan Picture Show
, I egotistically supposed myself to be the protagonist of that tragicomic do-gooder’s saga. The truth is that the real hero of my book is General N. He sheltered and fed me, clothed me as a Pathan, arranged my safe passage to Afghanistan and back; above all, he reached my mind before it was fully closed. He told me that we were now friends for life, and we were, although we communicated only by letter for most of our friendship, and after a number of years even the letter-writing stopped. I know in my heart that this fine man took me on not because I was an American or because he thought I could do anything or even necessarily learn anything, but because I was one of his many charity cases.

I had at least shown enough forethought to come to Pakistan with a parallel-text Qur’an, which indeed I still have and always bring with me to Muslim countries. Studying the Qur’an with one’s hosts is an excellent way for non-Muslims such as myself to express interest, show sincerity and respect, and gain knowledge of local custom. I used to read the Qur’an with General N., for much the same reason that I used to read Marx, Lenin, and Stalin in Communist countries, and on my return in 2000 it gave both him and me great pleasure when I asked him to explain a certain passage. I learned something about the text, and meanwhile got to look one more time into his mind.

I remember reading the Qur’an with him in the hot summer of 1982, and I remember his lime tree, and his children now all grown and gone; above all I know and believe in
the goodness of his otherness
. I will probably never be a Muslim. Nor can I be a Pathan. Yet I have a partial sense of what it might be like to be what General N. is. It is so different from what I am, and the fact that my world and his are now at war breaks my heart; but I’ll never give up believing, and trying to help
others see, that we and they are brothers and sisters together. Well, so what? Isn’t that obvious? How I wish it were obvious!

As is mentioned in
An Afghanistan Picture Show
, the general said to me that in order to carry out any project one needs a brain, a heart, and hands. The average brain is perfectly good enough for most worthwhile things, and by definition at least half of you who read this will be above average in this respect.
^‡
Many of us also have the heart, the desire to do something good. (I think I was once purehearted.) The hands are another matter. By “hands,” General N. meant “capability.” What are you good at? More practically, what are you good at that you have the resources to accomplish? Can you paint a mural of goodness and truth before you’ve found the right wall? The terrifying issues related to September eleventh will not resolve themselves in our lifetimes. It is up to each of us to do whatever he or she can to understand the grievances of others and, to the extent that we can lovingly and legitimately do so, to help them be satisfied. This defines not only our obligation as decent human beings, but our self-interest as terrorist targets.

W.T.V. (2013)

Ten years ago, when Soviet troops were airlifted to Kabul, the radio spoke in shocked tones. This afternoon it seemed to me somewhat reconciled, for the invaders were now called “government spokesmen,” and the Afghans had become “Muslim extremists.” As for me, during this decade I have thought much on Afghanistan and accomplished nothing; and so the Young Man has become the Thirty Years’ Bore. This work for its part has been similarly revised, ossified and prissified. I hope that it is still honest nonetheless. And I pray that this record of my failures may somehow in its negative way help somebody
.

W.T.V. (1989)

    
W
e are all disposed to live in comfort; and when some people shun the chilly slopes of Lofty Principle, preferring to watch those beneath them from the comfortable plateau of High Dudgeon, we had best forgive; we may not be able to shove them off, as they will have fortified their camp. Their opinion of us is very important, of course: —in metaphors like this one we are all, for some never explained reason, trying hard to work our way up the mountain; and as
they
have mined all the lower passes, we must be civil and request their escort. I myself, like many a milksop before, chose the path of altruism, on whose more fatiguing switchbacks one may encounter starving children, and lean one’s weight on their little heads in the guise of patting them. The question for me was whom to aid; for I could see the sun shining on the rifle sights of the folks whose opinion of me was of so much consequence. It was not that any of them was
particular
to excess; in fact, they were a very tolerant lot, believing in democracy, so that they generously allowed among their number many with whom they fought to the death; and thanks to this admirable diversity of view one could never be sure who was currently at the rifle sight. I recollected that the contingent which controlled this one pass was devoutly anti-Soviet (according to latest report), which meant that every Afghan I assisted would make me look so much better than I was; and who knew? —I might even be able to
help
somebody. I would write a book, I would; that was always safe.

I purchased two cameras, three lenses and forty rolls of film, and proceeded into the foothills, via Pakistan.

W.T.V. (1982)

… “T
oday the opponents of peace and détente are trying to speculate on the events in Afghanistan. Mountains of lies are being built up around these events, and a shameless anti-Soviet campaign is being mounted. —What has really happened in Afghanistan?

“A revolution took place there in April 1978.
^*
The Afghan people took their destiny into their hands and embarked on the road of independence and freedom. As it has always been in history, the forces of the past ganged up against the revolution. But from the very first days of the revolution it encountered an external aggression and rude interference from outside into their internal affairs.
^†

“Thousands and thousands of insurgents, armed and trained abroad, and whole armed units were sent into the territory of Afghanistan. In effect, imperialism, together with its accomplices, launched an undeclared war against revolutionary Afghanistan.

“Afghanistan persistently demanded an end to the aggression and that it be allowed to build its new life in peace. Resisting the internal aggression, the Afghan leadership, during the lifetime of President Taraki and then later, repeatedly asked the Soviet Union for assistance. On our part, we warned those concerned that if the aggression did not stop, we would not abandon the Afghan people at their time of trial. As is known, we stand by what we say.”

The Young Man’s sketch map of Afghanistan

N
ow, on our left we have
AFGHANISTAN
, which is to say
RUSSIA
, which is to say a hostile country, and up ahead of us, long before we could ever get clear and free to, for example, Polaris, we have
CHINA
, which is to say a neutral with its own problems, which
is to say (in this instance) a hostile country; and on our right we have
INDIA
, which has got to be practical, as we all do, so here we have another hostile country, and behind us, as a reminder that not only people are hostile, is the Arabian Sea. (But everybody knows that all environments are hostile in the long run.) So the refugees from our side of Afghanistan tend to stay in Pakistan. A few have gone to Delhi, it is true, where they experience difficulties at the hands of those who want to be counted on the winning side. Some enter
IRAN
through Baluchistan, but it is said that their ultimate situation is not happy. A very few (the rich, claim the ones who remain) are given asylum in the United States or the Federal Republic of Germany. There is much talk about going back to Afghanistan to fight, and an impressive number actually do it. And
PAKISTAN
, a country as gracious in spirit as it is poor, takes in all the others—who number more than three million.