After the riot

Look, Afghanistan could be sliding back into chaos

Anyone wanting to track the state of Afghanistan would do well to simply keep vigil at Kabul’s Olympic Stadium. When the rest of the world seemed to be trying its best to look away, to ignore the Taliban’s blatant crimes of cruelty after their triumphant roll into Kabul in the mid-1990s, it was packed audiences at the football stadium that finally forced even the most evasive to take notice. Then it was the Taliban’s penchant for public punishment for minor violations of its medieval behavioral code that was on display. Men would be hanged at the goalpost, amputated limbs would be waved in front of cheering crowds, and transgressing women would be shot. Things, we have been repeatedly told, have changed since then — 9/11 and the war against terror transformed everything. Afghanistan was bombed out of the stone age, it was designated a crucible for a wonderful new endeavour. All the purposeful nations enrolled in the war against terror would adopt this landlocked land and help it leap forth into the 21st century. So, a new interim coalition was installed in Kabul, aid packages put together, and peacekeepers posted at strategic locations.

On Friday, the stadium provided a reality check. An ironically titled Game of Unity between a home side and foreign troops turned into mayhem. Thousands of fans, angry about being denied entry, clashed with troops. One could, of course, shrug this off as just another football riot. But it amply mirrored the chaos Afghanistan seems poised to slide into. For it came just hours after the country’s aviation and tourism minister, Abdul Rahman, was collared off an airplane readying to ferry him to New Delhi, and lynched. Initially an accusing finger at thousands of Haj pilgrims. They had paid up a fortune of $1500, and were now desperate as day after bitterly cold day passed in anxious wait at the airport, while the Saudi deadline of Sunday neared. Hamid Karzai, the stylishly caped head of the interim government, then offered another theory. His own intelligence chief had succumbed to personal vendetta and organised the assassination, he said.

Either way, it’s a worrying symptom of political and social instability. Of the dangers of believing that a sumptuous aid package put together in Tokyo and a government agreed upon in Bonn would do the trick. Yes, $4.5 billion have already been pledged, but the ways and means of utilising this aid are unclear. Leaders belonging to the Northern Alliance and those loyal to the king have been sworn in together, but chilling reports of tribal warfare — of warlords engaged in turf battles — continue to filter in. And, yes, a Hazara woman is actually in government, but each week brings news of fresh affirmations that a large chunk of the new leadership subscribes to most orthodox social norms. The hateful Taliban are thankfully out of power, but a new liberal order and an efficient administration are still chimeras.