By Aaron Peterson
Sharif is an Afghan refugee, a former resident of Mazar-e-Sharif. Sharif attended Kabul University. He is currently living as a political refugee in the Islamic Republic of Iran due to the on-going conflict in Afghanistan. Some of the things Sharif enjoys are listening to foreign and local music, watching documentary films and reading. Sharif is a proponent of progressive change in Afghanistan, equal rights for women and for a democratic shift in the country towards an actual democracy. He vehemently opposes human rights violations and the warlords of Afghanistan which have driven him from his home and native land.
In essence to understand the situation of Afghanistan which has been ravished by the Mujahedeen, warlordism and vast corruption. It is a necessity in order to hear from the people of Afghanistan who have been affected by this. That is, the unspoken voices that have suffered from the United States/NATO occupation, who have felt themselves in a place that no human being should be in of dire distress. Of seeing their society having been exploited by the Mujahideen (The most backwards and religious theocratic classes in Afghan society that preaches and enforces a strict form of Wahhabism which originates from Saudi Arabia and was imported to Afghanistan in the late 1970’s and 1980’s with the support of the United States government in order to undermine the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and USSR intervention in Afghanistan.
WordPress.com, Apr. 27, 2014: "Abdullah Abdullah is a member of the Northern Alliance, formerly of the militant group “Shura-i-Nazar” better known as “Jamiat-i-Islami”. A theocratic and Islamic fundamentalist militia that took part in the Afghan Civil War from the Ahmad Shah Massoud era of combat against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Military." (Cartoon: Abdullah is a representative of Jamiate Islami, shown here with prominent leaders Rabbani (deceased) and Qanooni)
Shariff, an Afghan refugee in Iran comments, I cannot see the war in Afghanistan being stopped. The situation will not be changed at the present time. The next president will be unable to change it. This shows the dire state of apathy that has been created by conflict from 1979 to the present where warlordism, corruption and exploitation have taken place both by the US backed occupational forces of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban.
Remarking on the legitimacy of the 2014 presidential election in Afghanistan, Shariff, comments on the nature of the candidates who were in the election. “The candidates descend from warlords, as have the past presidents of Afghanistan including the Karzai clique which ruled Afghanistan for the majority of the United States occupation As such these individuals given their backgrounds, cannot be the optimal forces for Afghanistan to progress as a nation.”
“Abdullah Abdullah is a member of the Northern Alliance, formerly of the militant group “Shura-i-Nazar” better known as “Jamiat-i-Islami”. A theocratic and Islamic fundamentalist militia that took part in the Afghan Civil War from the Ahmad Shah Massoud era of combat against the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and the Soviet Military. For a large portion of the people of Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah’s former alliance with the Northern Alliance linked militant group creates large divisions for the people of Afghanistan. Particularly in the southern portion of Afghanistan, notably Kandahar where the Taliban have a large presence. For ordinary people in Afghanistan, the issue of the new presidency and potential vote spoiling has only but fueled the call for separatism in Southern Afghanistan and fundamentalism from groups such as the Taliban.”
“Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan is very mixed and diverse in terms of socio-economic divisions, as well as ethnic divisions. In Kabul though, there is a resounding thought in everyone’s mind that those living in Kabul are extremely divided along economic lines. The people who have suffered the most from the over 30 years of conflict in Afghanistan are the extremely poor who live in slums with arguably the worst conditions in the world. In Kabul, the affluent section of Afghan society descends from the warlord groupings where such individuals have benefited from the decades of conflict affording them the ability to buy extravagant cars, homes, clothing and adequate food”, Sharif adds.
WordPress.com, Apr. 27, 2014: In Afghanistan, there is a staunch support for a more progressive society by a marginalized intellectual class in Afghanistan. Those of progressively political views in Afghanistan have faced persecution both from the government, Taliban and the warlords both inside and outside Afghanistan. At the moment, the people struggling for a democratic Afghanistan, progressive and secular are facing conditions which are extremely dire in which they struggle for their very right to exist, dreaming of a revolutionary future in which Afghanistan is brought back to it’s former glory. (Photo: Members of the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan show their support to Bradley Manning on March 8, 2013 - Hambastagi.org)
In Afghanistan, there is a staunch support for a more progressive society by a marginalized intellectual class in Afghanistan. Those of progressively political views in Afghanistan have faced persecution both from the government, Taliban and the warlords both inside and outside Afghanistan. At the moment, the people struggling for a democratic Afghanistan, progressive and secular are facing conditions which are extremely dire in which they struggle for their very right to exist, dreaming of a revolutionary future in which Afghanistan is brought back to it’s former glory.
Sharif’s message to the American and European people is one of peace. “The American people are a nice people. They are opposed to war and terrorism. The problem is the economic situation of the world. The war in Afghanistan is based on economic interests. To have control of Afghanistan’s economic resources and to be used as a military outpost for global hegemony, using the military power of the Northern Alliance and the warlords to maintain this. Such is not only present in Afghanistan, but it is a global situation.”
In a final conclusion and a message to the people of the United States, what must be learned is that the decades of conflict and US-NATO intervention in Afghanistan have solved nothing. The conditions remain nearly the same as they did previously, poverty is ramped and the beneficiaries of the decades of war have been as always, the warlords and their families who out of the blood of innocent Afghans have managed to create a lifestyle of luxury for themselves through extortion, opium processing/smuggling and straight out land theft. What we as Americans and as Western Europeans fail to see is the story beyond the paper, the stories of corruption of ongoing war crimes in Afghanistan both by the United States military, JSOC, NATO, the Northern Alliance (Afghan National Army) and the Taliban. Criminality, which has left the people and nation of Afghanistan in a dire state of strife, in which for the foreseeable future seems unstoppable.