Parliamentary Elections in Afghanistan
For the first time in three decades Afghanistan is holding parliamentary elections. It's a momentous time for a country still trying to emerge from years of war. There's been much criticism that these polls will only consolidate the power of the country's powerful commanders, the warlords with dubious histories. But Lyse Doucet, who's been covering Afghanistan since the late nineteen eighties, as discovered that in a nation where a new political culture is only slowly taking shape, the very existence of an election process has brought new energy to a long-stagnant political life: When the Taliban were toppled in 2001, first it was the massive hoardings for mobile telephones...the images of Afghans, laughing and chatting. Afghans, the ads declared, were now connected to each other and to the world. Now there is a veritable forest of signs at every square and roundabout in Kabul and other cities...billboards selling luxury watches, promoting national unity, the new Afghan army. But, for the past month billboards, walls and fences across this land have been telling another story. Everywhere you look there are the faces of election candidates...middle aged men in suits and ties, men with turbans and long thick beards as dark as the night or as white as the first Afghan snow. Hardly anyone is smiling. Tradition says photography is serious business. Even wedding photographs here barely coax a smile. And in a country where only 4 years ago, women were largely confined to their homes under an oppressive Taliban rule, there are their faces too: candidates like young Sabrina with a fetching canary yellow headscarf. Shukria with finely pencilled eyebrows, gazing into the distance, cradling a pen in her hand. The faces are plastered everywhere, on every available bit of space, sometimes on top of each other. It's led to Afghan cartoonists sketching someone's face on top of someone else's legs. At first glance, these walls are just an unsightly mess of photographs. But, like the carpets of old, if you know this nation's history, you can read meaning into what seem like random patterns. These layers of paper form a bright new canvas of a nation's dark history. General Ulumi who once worked with the Soviet Red Army is running for parliament. There's also Mullah Khaqsar who used to execute the writ of the Taliban. But there's also Malalai Joya the young woman who, a few years ago, bravely condemned the warlords in public. And as I drove out of Kabul one day I even spotted the face of Ali Dayani, an interior designer I met while he was decorating a new residence for the former Afghan King. In this election, candidates must run as individuals, not as members of parties. But Afghans know who everyone is. They know their past. They know their father, their grandfather, or at least, they do in most cases. But what if they don't? In the last month of campaigning, in towns and villages across this country, Afghans… from village elders with wizened faces, to wide-eyed teenagers too young to vote...have sat cross legged in the shade of mulberry trees, or in air-conditioned rooms cooled with electricity powered by generators. They've pondered and argued and debated the questions of this time. One dimensional photographs, after all, only tell part of this new story. As one Afghan friend put it, in real life, many candidates with a past are two-faced. If elected to Parliament, it's still not clear which face they will show. But whatever happens, the opening of Parliament will be the start of a new chapter. And no one here can say with certainty how that Afghan story will unfold. |
