‘between the dragon and his wrath’, 1994–2017
When it comes to the media, state censorship was relaxed and a host
of privately funded magazines, newspapers, tv and radio stations sprung
up after 2001. The internet gradually became available to most urban and
peri-urban areas, and there is now a nationwide mobile phone network.
This has allowed Afghans more means of expressing their views without
government interference, or eavesdropping, as well as to be in touch with
the wider world. Today hundreds of websites promote various aspects of
Afghan culture or engage in a vigorous and frequently bad-tempered debate
about politics, ethnicity and religion. The Afghan media is more robust
about criticizing government officials and exposing graft, incompetence
and waste, but journalists continue to face threats from powerful indi-
viduals embedded in the government as well as from insurgents. In early
2016 the Taliban claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack on a bus
carrying the staff of Tolo tv that led to the deaths of seven staff members.
Employment opportunities improved after 2001, particularly for
younger, educated Afghans who spoke some English, while the construc-
tion boom provided subsistence wages for day labourers and artisans. One
group to particularly benefit from the 2001 intervention has been the Shi‘a
and Isma‘ili Hazaras, who were traditionally at the bottom of the economic
and social pecking order. During the 1980s and ’90s many young Hazaras
had received a good education in Iran, while the children of Isma‘ilis had
attended the Aga Khan’s schools in Pakistan. Since they spoke reasonable
English, many of them found employment as translators and ‘fixers’ with
the foreign military, ngos and diplomatic missions, while Hazara women
were engaged as housekeepers and cleaners. The Aga Khan Development
Agency (akda) instituted an employment training programme and the
akda’s development programmes have provided support for Isma‘ili and
Shi‘a communities in the Hazarajat, Baghlan, Badakhshan and Kabul. Even
so, there has never been enough work to go round and urban unemploy-
ment remains high among unskilled labourers. At the same time northern
Afghanistan suffers from a chronic shortage of agricultural labour, since
young men preferred the higher wages on offer in the cities or labouring
jobs in Dubai, Iran or Pakistan.
One of the most significant reforms undertaken by the government
after 2001 was the replacement of the almost worthless afghani with a
new, more stable currency. Ashraf Ghani, who at the time was Minister of
Finance, discouraged foreign agencies and traders from using u.s. dollars
or Pakistani rupees and did his best to increase state revenues. However,
one of the unfortunate side effects of the foreign aid that poured in after
2001 was that it perpetuated the culture of dependency, which began in
nandana
(Nandana)
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