Stay At Your Home, Boy!

By the freak of destiny I called Hassan, one of my close friends who lives in Kabul and he told the following story.

My name is Hassan. I live in an area of the city namely known as Afshar where about 3000 people have been massacred during the internal war in 1993. Those who committed this inhumane killing or the perpetrators of this war crime were fighters of the Shoraye Nazar; the most power Mujahideen group.

Today, as part of my usual routine, I got out of home at 08:30 to go for work. Just about 50 meters away from my house I saw two well-armed policemen on an army vehicle talking nervously to a woman. It took my attention; so I decided to approach them to find out what was going on there. Before I got any closer to them one of the policemen shouted at:” go back home”.

I asked “why? I have to be at work at 09:00.” He reluctantly shouted:‘’ Go back home’’. He said loudly:‘’ You cannot get out of your home for four days’’. He explained due to forthcoming ‘’Grand Assembly’’ (a Pashtun tradition of meeting to discuss matters related to high importance) at Poly technique Institute.

They felt offended for I did not know about the Grand Assembly. I tried to explain that I was bound to be at my office at the regular official hours. I told them that organizing an even should not stop people from going about their lives, but they refused to allow me pass through.

Polytechnic University is situated at about a 3-4 kilometers from Afshar and lies between the main city and Afshar. What do the residents of Afshar do while Loya Jirga is going on? Officials have no answer for.

I got back to home and stayed there for the whole day, but later in the evening, I got out to buy some bread to eat. The bakery shop is in vicinity to our home, but still I had to enter into argument with the reluctant policemen in order to buy bread from the shop.

It’s evening of the second day and I’m not allowed to get out of home because somebody that I don’t know about is making decision about something that I don’t know. But I know it’s related to our prosperous future. Some people call Afghan Government as a democratic government, but I don’t agree to it, because both the president and elected members of the people are bypassed while making big decision related to national interest. It seems to me that Grand Assembly is preferred over Afghan democracy.

By Mahdi Mehraeen