Quality of Life
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries of the world. Literacy and numeracy is low, and religion is strictly observed to the letter of Koranic Sharia law interpreted by often illiterate mullahs imposing severe restrictions on the lives of women and girls who are expected to clad themselves in full burqa coverings in the public arena, and not to venture out of the home without being escorted by a male relative.After the invasion of 2001 by NATO-UN-US troops to remove the fundamentalist governing-host Taliban and their honoured guests, al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden from the country, matters improved with a general relaxation of the oppressive Islamist regime, and the appointment of a more 'moderate' Pashtun leader in President Hamid Karzai, with a governing cabinet that included former war lords.
Just as oppression and repression was the order of the day in Afghanistan and is deeply engrained in its heritage and culture, so too is corruption firmly entrenched at every level of life, from government to private industry, the military to the national police. But improvements were made; humanitarian aid agencies entered the country along with foreign troops, keeping themselves scrupulously separate from the military and opening medical clinics, schools and encouraging women to embrace their new freedoms.
The country was transformed with an overlay veneer of timid modernization in the urban areas, while the provincial countrysides continued stolidly in the religious orthodoxy they were most familiar and comfortable with, reflecting their tribal culture. When the Taliban first came to power in the country in the wake of a bloody civil war following hard on the Soviet invasion, they issued an edict that traditional opium poppy growing cease.
Afghans speedily learned not to oppose Taliban edicts and poppy growing ground to a halt. After the ouster of the Taliban, however, the rural agrarian society returned to growing poppies rather than edible grains as urged by the foreign diplomats and alien military and humanitarian workers. Simply because the farmers were able to earn far more from growing opium poppies than grains.
And the Taliban, living in exile then in the Hindu Kush mountains separating Afghanistan from Pakistan, urged the farmers on to substituting wheat for poppies and took a portion of their harvest for the profit it garnered them. Members of the Karzai government took their share as well. And the harvest reaped this past May in the country produced the largest, most profitable yield yet realized in the country that produces 70% of the world's opium poppies.
Afghanistan has a serious problem with drug addiction among its poverty-stricken, uneducated and hopeless people. It numbs them from the reality of their miserable lives, even while it shortens those lives. And the production of the poppy fields enable the farmers who grow it to be able to feed their large extended families. And the scourge of opium addiction throughout the world is assured.
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| Afghan villagers preparing the soil for poppy planting in Nangarthar province -- AP |
The Taliban make their profit by charging farmers what they term a "religious tax" of one kilogram of opium for every 10 kg produced. "They say we are going for jihad", said the farmer. "It is the money we give for God."
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| Afghan farmers collect raw opium -- AP Photo, Ramhat Gul |
"Our children are planting poppies. Even my wife and my mother are planting so we can finish by the end of the month" said another neighbouring farmer, of the poppy-planting season from September to October, those tiny black seeds, the sole crop that will guarantee them enough earnings to keep themselves together, body and soul.
Labels: Afghanistan, Drugs, Islam, Poverty, Taliban
posted by Pieface @ Friday, November 15, 2013
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