Fieldnotes on Humanity

Individual leadership matters, and leaders make a difference in international relations. There is some empirical evidence that individuals have played an essential role in international relations. In IR, the form of government is not as important as the leadership. Sometimes, the public domain and internal politics are personified in leadership. In Farsi, there is a proverb that goes "what leaks out of the ewer is what is inside it"[از کوزه همان تراود که دراوست],or as it goes in English, "a tree is known by its fruit." Let's consider Ahmadinejad of Iran's leadership, for example. During his two-term presidency, he had been one of the most controversial figures in the international sphere. If Ahmadinejad had not called Israel a “tumor” and had not reiterated the words of former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini, by saying that Israel should be wiped off the map, today, Iran might have a different status in international relations. Furthermore, if Ahmadinej...

On September 16th, 2012, AFP reported that NATO troops killed eight Afghan women in an airstrike. These women were on a mountainside collecting firewood for fuel in a small village in the Alingar district of the Laghman province. According to the report, ISAF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Hagen Messer said that the shooting happened at around 1:00 am (2030 GMT Saturday) . Considering Afghan society and especially Pashtun traditions, it is almost impossible to believe that they would let their women go out in middle of the night, in complete darkness to collect wood. Traditionally, it is immoral and against Pashtun culture to let their women go out, especially in the dark, for work. Moreover, it makes the story murkier when it says the women were in the woods at 2:00AM because they cannot see in the dark. Usually, Afghans collect firewood and pile them next to their houses and huts and it is the men’s job not women’s job. The AFP and New York Times (NYT claims the airstrike hap...

At home, in my small village in the central part of Afghanistan, I used to carry water in buckets on my shoulders from a stream 100 meters from our house. Being born in a mountainous area with water scarcity, I understand the value and importance of fresh water. Considering my lifestyle in Carlisle and my lifestyle back home, there is a significant difference. I can not make a comparison between here and there, but I try to be conscious when using water, particularly when taking a shower. My maximum time in the shower is 5 minutes, during which I open the faucet, wet my body, then apply soap, and lastly rinse. All this literally takes less than five minutes. I take a shower in cold water even in winter. I am now used to it. My skin wants it. I have seen my roommates running the hot water nonstop for two hours. I cringe and become uncomfortable at the sounds of constant drops of water in the bathtub. Of course, I can't say anything except that my stomach churns and churns. Welcom...

"All politics is local" is a common phrase in U.S. politics and it only makes sense in the context of the United States and some European countries. When it comes to the Middle Eastern politics, this phrase withers away and becomes meaningless. Probably, nowhere is more diverse and tourist-centered with restaurants and foods from around the world than New York City, specifically Times Square. People from different part of the world like Asia, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe have their businesses and street markets. They keep the city clean, civilized, and always do their best to please their customers. Now, imagine New York City in terms of culture, religion and races, but when it comes to voting, and paying taxes, these differences do not matter. What is important to the citizens of New York City is raising taxes, the job market, education, Wall Street, health care, and many other minor issues on an individual level. At this point, candidates knock on the doors o...

Here I discussed the impact of the "green on blue" attacks by members of the Afghan police and army against coalition forces in Afghanistan and NATO airstrike which killed 8 women who were out gathering firewood before dawn.

map's source A de facto partition is not the best idea in Afghanistan but it will finally be the only option for Afghans to live peacefully. During the 20th century many new states were created and still happens and will continue to happen. Afghanistan in U.S. post-withdrawal does not seem to be peaceful, it is very likely for the country to enter into a catastrophic civil war that ethnic-cleansing would likely to be happened. As a result, a de facto partition is very probable to happen and the country would split into Pashtunistan and non-Pashtuns.

As anti-film protests are spreading around the Middle East and North Africa, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has postponed his trip to Norway fearing unrest in the country. At the same time, the Afghan government has ordered an indefinite ban on Youtube to prevent access to an obscure American made film mocking the Prophet Muhammad. Karzai has already condemned the anti-Islam film as “ inhuman and insulting ” that’s made by extremist Americans. But the question is why Afghans are not yet protesting against the film because in the past they used to be at the forefront of such events? There could be many reasons for why there is not yet a anti-film protest in Afghanistan. But first, not many Afghans have access to the internet or Youtube either.   This case is not that sensitive to the accidental burning of the Koran at the Bagram air base in northern Kabul for example. The burning of the Koran happened inside the country, Afghans have been very sensitive to cases like this t...

Christopher de Bellaigue who is the author of the new book Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-American Coup has published an article on the Atlantic , explaining the complexity of ta’arof in Iran. Ta’arof is a borrowed word from Arabic which is simply used for introductions and meeting people. In Farsi ta’arof is a form of polite behavior shown among Farsi speakers in Iran. It is a delightful and respectful interaction but at the same time it is a form denial and dishonesty. As Bellaigue explains ta’arof is “symptomatic of a broader Iranian tendency to clothe every­thing in ambiguity—and to spend an inordinate amount of time doing so.” Bellaigue, whose wife is Iranian, applied for Iranian citizenship eight years ago. Each time he went to the Department of Alien Affairs, he was welcomed warmly and offered tea and then asked to visit again. He says since ta’arof has an open ending, 8 years later, he is still waiting for his citizenship. Ta’arof as much...

In 2005, I made a short visit to Tehran to visit a few friends. Tehran is the smoggiest of all capitals and when its severe air pollution that’s caused by petrol produced locally hits the city, it becomes unbearable. Schools were closed, the government expressed its concern and only a small number of cars were permitted to move in the city. I spent 10 days in Tehran, in a city that was shrouded in darkness and poisonous air - it was really suffocating. One day I was in a taxi with other three other passengers going from downtown to uptown or “Tajrish.” On our way, everyone was complaining about the air pollution and why the government does not do anything. A former University teacher who is retired and now driving a taxi blamed the United States and especially the CIA that has control over Tehran’s air. He said, the U.S. has this ability to put some tools in the sky to divert the direction of wind to somewhere else and stop letting people suffocate from a poisonous air in Tehr...

Here is a successful story of civic education in Afghanistan that has rarely heard in the U.S. because of overwhelming news focus on war on terrorism . Aziz Royesh's work is beyond explanation, what he has been doing is life changing in the country. Royesh is a Reagan-Fascell Democracy fellow at National Endowment for Democracy in D.C. He was also a fellow a Yale University last year. This video tells a lot about his achievement and more importantly about his student's achievements.

Note: This piece first appeared on NATO Review . First, I fled Taliban brutality. Then I spent time in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan. Finally, I found myself working in Dubai. It was while I was in Dubai that I heard one evening BBC Radio announcing the assassination of the Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud by two Arabs. Two days later, I was watching CNN when I saw a plane crash into the World Trade Center. I thought it was a movie. But then I switched over to Al Jazeera and the BBC. I realised it was real. Some of my Afghan friends were happy when they heard that the United States planned to attack Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who gave sanctuary to Al Qaeda. Six months after 9/11, I had my ticket booked to return to my country after spending years in refugee camps. In the plane, I saw people singing and dancing and celebrating; going home after ten or 15 years away from their families was beyond imaginati...

My second photostory is about 10 years changes in Afghanistan. This month, Afghanistan marks the 10th anniversary of the start of U.S. and NATO operations to oust the Taliban. The NATO Review asked me to make a photostory to illustrate the biggest changes since 2001. Please find the photostory on this link " Afghanistan's Story in Pictures ."

In some countries, young people have led in bringing change. In 2010, in Egypt and Tunisia, they toppled the government; in Iran, they have become the biggest and longest threat to the theocratic regime. In Iran, over 60 percent of 75 the million people in the country are under 30 years old. In Afghanistan, according to a United Nations report in 2008, 68 percent are under 25 years of age. Traditionally, Afghan youth as a group have been quiet and never caused trouble. That may be changing. The Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings that spilled over to many other Arab countries have also inspired the Afghan youth. Facebook and Twitter played a critical role in the Arab spring. Many Afghan young people were following the news of Arab uprisings carefully, and as regimes collapsed one after another, dozens of Facebook pages have sprung up calling for change in Afghanistan. A Facebook page like Love Afghanistan encourages Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek to unite. A similar page call...

It is said that the Afghan-Chinese relationship goes back to the seventh century when Chinese monks traveled through Silk Road to visit the Buddha statues in Bamyian, blown up by Taliban in 2001. The Silk Road was not only used for a pilgrimage purpose, but also an extensive interconnected route for trade which stretched across Afghanistan and connected the Asia. It was not only for religious and business reasons that monks and merchants throughout the history traveled to Afghanistan; in 1957, Premier Zhou Enlai and Vice Premier He Long visited Afghanistan which marked the beginning of the first diplomatic relationship in the history of Afghanistan and China. Since then, Afghanistan and China ties were bound in formal visiting and nothing remarkable happened until 1963, when a boundary treaty was signed between the two countries. Afghanistan shares a 76km border to its north with China which is known as Wakhan Corridor. However, relations between the two countries were quite gloomy...

We live with our memories, and those memories are part of our past, the past which is connected with our tradition, religion, and culture. We are who we are, and sometimes we carry our values with us wherever we go, no matter how far-flung the corners of the world are. I am carrying my people's and villagers' immemorial custom with me, which connects me to a land that takes great pride in itself, no matter if it is devastated by war. Tonight, I shared the customs of Eid al-Fitr with Dickinson students. Telling the story about my village, my family and relatives and how we were celebrating, I felt exalted at the dinner table. Students became more curious about Eid and wanted to learn more about my village. I wish I had had enough time to talk more about it. Most of the students who celebrated Eid were Americans; they either had been on an abroad program in the Middle East, which Dickinson offers, or were pursuing majors in Middle Eastern studies. By the way, these are the lines ...

Eid al Fitr is one the most important holidays among Muslims, especially among Afghans. I've been out of the country for nearly three years and now God knows how much I miss Eid, how much I miss my village, my family and relatives. Until last year, I was resisting not to even about it. I now admit that this year, on the threshold of Eid I began to feel more and more homesick. I now remember those days, hennaining our hands, waking up early and taking bath, washing our teeth and breaking our fast with family. What a joyful days. While thinking about Eid and feeling homesick, I found a clip of an old Afghan song from 1960s - sang by Mohammad Hussain Sarahang who was a master in Afghan classical music. Here is the clip and by the way it's sang in Dari/farsi, underneath of this clip you will find the translation in English. Gladden my spirit, it is sad. Be kind to my heart, it is impoverished. The very first day I laid eyes on you, I said: "The one that will darken my days i...

On Wednesday, May 18, a deadly NATO night raid on a house that left four dead sparked a massive protest that 12 people killed after the police forces opened fire on a 2,000 crowd. Reports on Taloqan's raid are vary, some say that the four people who are killed yesterday were members of Taliban while others strongly believe they were members of Al Qaeda. I have been watching the Afghan news outlets, probing for details but could not find any detail whether those four people who are killed by NATO were the Al Qaeda members or not. However, the Fighting for Bin Laden 's documentary on the PBS website which reveals a lot about the influence of Al Qaeda in northern Afghanistan provides a clue that they might have been linked with Al Qaeda members. Meanwhile 13 others died in a separate incident when a suicide bomber drove an explosive car into a bus carrying police academy trainers in Nangarhar province. These incidents are wracking the country while NATO forces are planning to h...

Many people are writing and discussing the outcome of Osama Bin Laden’s death, will his death make the world safe and is this a final nail in the coffin of Al Qaeda? These are part of the big questions on his death which have been raised during the last 48 hours. Yet, there is a crucial question that no one touched on: was this operation inside Pakistan possible without the ISI assistance? The answer for this question is simply no. The reality that lies behind this operation must have been caused by a deep rift inside the Pakistani intelligence service otherwise this operation would not be possible without cooperation between the ISI and CIA. It is now quite crystal clear for everyone that Osama was under the safeguard of ISI for the past few years. The fortified million dollar compound in which he dwelt and its location next to a military academy makes it clear that he was enjoying living under ISI protection. The ISI has so far simply said that it did not know about the operation, a...

In a country like Saudi Arabia in which media is controlled by the Kingdom, blogs have become an alternative source of news and opinion in recent years. Saudi is ranked second in the Arab world for having the most bloggers, trailing only behind Egypt. According to BBC , the number of Saudi bloggers (both male and female) was between 500-600 in both English and Arabic. Like many other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia is restrictive in its blogosphere. In 2008, Fouad Al-Farhan, a well-known blogger was arrested for his criticism of the government’s corruption and his call for political reform. In 2011, in the wake of uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi government enacted stringent new regulations forcing bloggers to register and obtain government licenses in order to publish online. According to this law , all Saudi news blogs and electronic news sites now must be strictly licensed, and are required to “include the call to the religion of Islam”...

-- Here in a program directed by Riz khan on Al Jazeera, young Palestinians and Israelis face off in a debate about their past, present and future. What do they think about their leaders, and do they think that they will see peace in their lifetime? It seems that to Israeli youth, the pain of Palestinians is not quite understandable. What to blame? Their ignorance? State's manufacturing knowledge and history fed to the youth? How do Israelis learn about their country's history? A country that was built from ashes? Ashes of Palestinians? Who lived there before? What happened to the Palestinians who lived there?  (I assume the same questions apply to settlers of the US, Canada, and Australia. What happened to the indigenous population?) Palestinians have suffered from multiple losses, including losses of territories and also human beings since the formation of Israel in 1948. On the other side, Palestinian youth are complaining about the way they are treated by the Israeli soldie...

I just opened up my twitter account and tweeted Greg Mortenson , the author of the well-known book “Three Cups of Tea”: “What's up Greg? It seems your Three Cups of Tea spilled over dirt. I never heard of your schools in Afghanistan. Why is that?” Last night, the 60 minutes report, raised questions on the accuracy of the Three Cups of Tea. According to CBS , the show "also checked on schools that Central Asia Institute claims to have built in Pakistan and Afghanistan and found that some of them were empty, built by somebody else, or simply didn't exist at all. The principals of a number of schools said they had not received any money from Central Asia Institute in years." CBS also said that the dramatic stories in the best-selling "Three Cups of Tea" have become the source of speeches Mortenson is paid to make and the partial basis of nearly $60 million in donations to the charity he founded. In 2009, while I was at Duke University on a media fellowship pro...

Daunting news from Egypt in post-mubarakism surprised the world by jailing a blogger for three years . It shocked people because even in the Mubarak era, jailing bloggers was not as common as these last two months after Mubarak was forced to leave the power. The only and the first case during Mubarak was K areem Amir who was sentenced to 4 years in jail because of allegedly insulting Islam and Husni Mubarak. According to BBC , Maikel Nabil was arrested last month for blog posts where he criticized the role of the Egyptian Army during anti-government uprising. Based AFP , a military court sentenced him to three years in prison. The Maikel Nabil case harks back to Mubarak era; it seems the Army is still remaining in its authoritarian nature and it would likely be hard to expect changes in institutions like the military. It clearly tells us that Egyptian Army does not tolerate criticism and it raises lots of unanswered questions about whether people’s efforts would finally succeed to a...

Malalai Joya is c urrently touring the United States and I am a bit confused at what she hopes to accomplish here. She speaks poorly of the U.S, NATO, International Communities, and everyone in Afghanistan. She sometimes appears to be a feminist, sometimes a politician, and sometimes a human rights activist. Some believe that she fails to fulfill all these roles, but rather wants to be the center of attention. She does not have a clear agenda as to when she wants the NATO troops out of Afghanistan. She also demands US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a demand she shares with the Taliban. If NATO troops leave Afghanistan Joya would not have chance to speak out like now. Here what she says : “The Afghan people are squashed between three enemies: the Taliban, warlords, and occupation forces.” She always rants and raves about government, the Taliban, NATO forces and warlords which are all pointless. Warlords have no power anymore; they were devastated and disarmed four years ago. They have n...

Finally, after heartbreaking news from mass murder of more than 1,000 people in Ivory Coast, we have got some good news on UN and French troops humanitarian intervention in that country. According to BBC, the UN has said that three generals loyal to Ivory Coast's besieged President Laurent Gbagbo are negotiating terms for surrender in return for guarantees of safety for him and themselves. Also, for the past days, thousands of people crossed the border to take refuge in Liberia. In meantime, the The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, has warned that the dispute in Ivory Coast could destabilize adjacent Liberia. Obama has also issued a sternly worded statement for Ivory Coast's besieged former President Laurent Gbabgo, saying: " To end this violence and prevent more bloodshed, former President Gbagbo must stand down immediately ."

The humanitarian intervention of Western power commits a double standard if they do not intervene in Ivory Coast to stop the massacre. People believe that the Western intervention on Libya is based on some benefits rather than a humanitarian intervention. In Ivory Coast, there is a massacre going on right now where 200 UN peacekeepers are not capable of preventing a mass murder. According to aid agencies, at least 1,000 people have been killed in an act of mass murder by forces loyal to President-elect Alassane Quattara. The news came out just a few weeks after NATO’s intervention in the war in Libya. One would ask why do NATO allies not intervene in Ivory Coast to stop the massacre? Well, let’s see what will happen in the next few days. French troops have already taken control of the airport in the commercial capital Abeidjan as the fighting continues in the country. The answer to the aforementioned question is quiet clear. The countries involved in Libya’s war are taking aim to pr...

What the heck is going on in Iran? The Iranian regime put more constraints on its people and now they even have a problem burying their dead. On Thursday, more than 7 people were arrested while attending a funeral for the father of one of the reformist leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi. The Green Movement website says that government security forces surrounded Mousavi’s home in Tehran as people were gathered for a funeral. It says that there was a confrontation between mourners and policemen in plain clothes who seized the coffin, forcefully placed it in a ambulance, and took it to a burial ceremony. Furthermore it says, while a confrontation erupted between mourners and police forces, the police forces in plain clothes attacked mourners, beaten them up and arrested more than seven funeral attendants. It has been since February 14 that opposition’s leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi along with their wives have been put under house arrest, after they called for a rally in support...

Last week I tweeted : "I had a bizarre morning, lost keys and forgot my power adapter at the coffee shop, one of the laundry dryer machines did work, had to redo it ," a few minutes later, I got this tweet from a user saying : " We can get you a new set of keys!" There was also another company who tweeted me saying that they sold the best key leashes. These companies advertise their products through twitter, watching for key words and checking who tweets what, isn't that amazing? Compare these tweets with the tweets that are being sent out from the Middle East, telling of how many people died in anti-government protests while government media denies them. It's quite ironic that on the other side of the world, people use twitter for their liberation from oppressive regimes while on this side of the world, people use twitter to advertise their products. For one part of the world, twitter has become a powerful source of communication, spreading out their ang...