To understand the problems that exist in Middle East, particularly in Afghanistan, we need to start by examining the influence and role of Western powers in the region, commencing from the years of British occupation in India, right until now.
During the British occupation in India, Russia’s growing power started becoming a threat to them. Britain needed to create a shield against Russia to protect her empire. The land which is now called Afghanistan was situated in between the two powers so an intense competition started between Britain and Russia to use Afghanistan. Britain used all her political and military strategies with the help of their Pashtuns allies, to use this land for their security.
Afghanistan is a new country that is basically a product of British Empire. This land officially became known as Afghanistan a bit over one hundred years ago. It’s a place where there has never been a government or power that treated all Afghanistanies equally, regardless of their ethnicity and religion. It’s a country where minorities have always suffered most of the pain. No matter how capable they were, they were always left alone and forgotten about by both the Afghan officials and other nations.
Meanwhile, there are problems that can easily be solved to reduce the number of problems faced by the people, but they are no interests shown by the government or the International Community to point them out and come up with a solution.
Hazara people of Central Afghanistan were the first group to hand over their weapons when the interim US supported government, led by a Pashtun President, Hamed Karzai, came in power. They hoped that they will be protected by the new regime as they had promised. In recent years we have seen that this is clearly not the case as we saw several racial attacks against Hazara people. The Nomadic Pakistani Pashtuns who are heavily backed up by the Taliban and other terrorist groups have repeatedly crossed the Afghan-Pakistan border and attacked farmers in Central Afghanistan that led to hundreds of local Hazaras being killed, injured and displaced. There have been several protests in which hundreds and thousands of people demonstrated in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif to urge the government and the International Community to put an end on this problem and stop Pakistani Pashtun nomads from entering Afghanistan illegally and cause destruction.
Central Afghanistan is known to be the most peaceful region in the country, where people value and understand that peace and stability are the first national priority but this region still remains unchanged while most of the reconstruction projects have been done in areas where most of the Taliban insurgencies and terrorist attacks are taking place. Almost all reconstruction projects are taking place in Southern and a few Northern provinces.
Bamiyan, the city that has the potentials to be the main resource for Afghanistan’s tourism industry has seen almost no changes. Local people are lacking basic health care facilities such as hospitals and clinics. The only change that can be observed is the construction of a 2-3 km road in the main bazaar of Bamiyan.
Bamiyan needs to be connected to the main cities through proper roads for the tourists to travel to and from Bamiyan with ease. This will create new business opportunities for the local people as well as benefiting the tourism industry.
These are just some of the problems at present time. People have suffered for far too long and to stop this continuous pain, there needs to be a better awareness of such issues and problems, firstly, by all the people of Afghanistan and secondly, by the International Community, specially those countries who have been involved in restoring peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan. There will always be social and political instability in Afghanistan unless these issues as seen as fundamental roots that all the present problems are derived from.
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