Between Hope and Fear

Afghans still struggle with violence, poverty and constant power shortages. But can the memory of the past keep them moving forward?

KABUL,

Afghanistan - This is where past and future collide: the Kabul City Center. The ten-story shopping mall could have been plucked from New York's Fifth Avenue. Inside it is all polished marble and brushed steel in a softly-lit atmosphere.

Two bullet-shaped, glass elevators slide smoothly up and down the most modern commercial building in Afghanistan, while just a few steps outside, vendors still use donkey carts to haul firewood, vegetables and rusty propane tanks.

Nearby, on Kabul's oldest street, children still sift through piles of garbage looking for metal and wire to sell.

The Kabul City Center is nearly allegorical. Built by a private Afghan developer, it is a grasp at modernity in a nation still firmly rooted in the 17th century.

Just across town is another building, just as well-known, but symbolic of a different era.

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Since the backward and uniquely repressive Taliban was toppled in the fall of 2001, Kabul has made progress, both towards security and reconstruction. But in a city nearly leveled by 30 years of war, it is a brick-by-brick process beset by continued violence, corruption and confusion that could easily take generations to complete.

"If you look at the larger infrastructural projects, they are slow," says Anja de Beers, executive director of the Kabul-based non-governmental agency ACBAR (Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief).

"Partly, it has to do with security," she says. "The other part is starting from zero. It takes some time. Larger projects need a lot of money and a lot of expertise. And it's a difficult country to work in as far as the seasons are concerned — the weather allows only a limited amount of time to work on these projects."

Kabul has seen a mixed bag of improvements in the four and a half years since the fall of the Taliban. In a place so devastated by war there are spirited attempts at re-establishing normalcy — like a man-made lake on the outskirts of Kabul where Afghans can rent paddle boats, cruise the shoreline in an outboard cruiser, or picnic at the water's edge.

Kabul's new golf course

There is also a new nine-hole golf course, though some demanding hackers might have a hard time telling the difference between the fairway and the rough.

Foreign investment is pouring into Afghanistan, from countries all around the world including the U.S., Great Britain, Turkey and even

Iran. But many residents complain that the new developments tend to benefit only the rich and the middle class.

For example, even in Kabul, the capital city, electricity supplies are sporadic for many — usually every other day and then only for a few hours. Most people, if they can afford it, have to use generators to supply power for light and heat. During this year's harsh winter, people went for days without any power at all.

"Electricity is a huge problem, but the whole infrastructure has been destroyed," says de Beers. "The population of Kabul has increased. Also, hydro power and water levels go down in the winter months, which means less supply; fuel prices increased after the earthquake in Pakistan because Pakistan limited its own power exports, uncertain if they'd have enough for their own winter.

"After the fall of the Taliban, I think expectations were raised very high, but it's been difficult to deliver."

Security is one sector of the economy where the growth appears to be sustained. New Millennium is a Dubai-based company that is doing $200 million worth of business in building military and security compounds in places like Afghanistan,

Iraq, Djibouti and Kuwait.

Construction in Kabul

"We just put a bid in to ramp up berthings for three different locations for Afghan police training facilities," says Anthony Eiland, senior contracting officer for the company.

Eiland says the company also wants to get more involved in civilian reconstruction, but that security has to be established first. He also concedes that the government doesn't provide much of a system for monitoring how money is spent. He says honest businesses have to do that themselves, while dishonest companies probably don't do it at all.

"There aren't any actual figures on money lost to corruption," says de Beers, "but it's certainly here. The amount of money is much more now, so the amount of corruption involved is also greater. Before it was lower- and mid-level civil servants taking their cut, but now it's said to be in the higher levels of government as well. I think the emphasis for the government is to make these contracting procedures more transparent and more streamlined."

While security has become better in the capital with the presence of multinational troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), some organizations say that's as far as it goes. Taliban attacks are still frequent in the rural eastern and southern provinces against coalition forces, schools, police stations or any other institutions seen as cooperating with the national government.

And with an increase in poppy production since the fall of the Taliban (Afghanistan is reportedly responsible for 90 percent of the poppy used for the world's opium and heroin supply), crime related to drug production and smuggling has also increased.

Bursts of color in Kabul

With all of these challenges, the Afghan government was reportedly pleased by a recent donor's conference in London in which pledges of international assistance were renewed — including the largest amount, $600 million, from the United States.

However, the money doesn't come without strings. These include pressure to curb corruption and streamline some of the unwieldy ministries within the national government. To that effect, Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently reshuffled his cabinet, sacking his longtime Foreign Minister, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, as well as his chief of the Women's Affairs Ministry, Dr. Masooda Jalal.

The U.S. government also applied some pressure concerning religious and social tolerance, specifically in regards to the case of an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, who could have faced the death penalty for the crime of converting to Christianity. (An Afghan court has dropped the case against Rahman).

As the case played out,

President Bush reportedly tried to intervene with President Karzai on the man's behalf. But the Afghan religious court magistrate said he would not tolerate any outside interference in the case.

The case illustrates the still very religious nature of Afghanistan, where even in Kabul, many women continue to wear the shroud-like burka, even though the law no longer requires it.

But aside from these side issues, observers say Afghanistan has critical and pressing needs to address before the population begins to lose hope and possibly begins the slide back into larger-scale violence.

"They have to stimulate economic growth, access to healthcare, education and security. And there has to be a freedom from fear," says de Beers. "People need to have work so they can fend for themselves in a peaceful environment. If they feel threatened on all sides they lose faith, and begin that downward spiral of supporting war — or even not caring."

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In Kabul, the specter of that past is, ironically, just a few kilometers from the new Kabul City Center.

Grim reminders: a former al-Qaida compound

It is a sprawling Moroccan-style structure with huge stone walls, a stained-beige facade with bright green doors and matching window panes. It is abandoned now, though seemingly intact on the outside. It was hollowed out from the inside by two American JDAM (joint direct attack munition) missiles.

This was the headquarters of

Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida during the reign of the Taliban. It's a clear symbol, just like the Kabul City Center, that Afghanistan, although seemingly hopeful, remains very much on the threshold between its violent past and the possibility of a peaceful future.

"It's true, some Afghans feel disappointed in some of the processes, but they do have hope to live lives as individuals," de Beers says. "But for people who saw almost everything forbidden, that's mostly changed and now they are coming back trying to reintegrate into society."

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