Afghanistan election: five campaigners for female candidate shot dead

[Turborama]

Source: The Observer (UK)

• Dead were among 10 who went missing in Herat province
• Four candidates already killed ahead of parliamentary poll

Sunday August 29 2010 14.00 BST

Five campaigners working for a female candidate in next month's Afghan election have been found shot dead, an official said today.

The attack comes amid growing security fears ahead of the parliamentary poll, which is seen as a key test of stability in Afghanistan before Barack Obama conducts a review of US Afghan war strategy in December.

Poor security, particularly in Taliban strongholds in the south and east, already looms as the biggest challenge to the ballot, along with corruption and fraud.

Four candidates have already been killed. Yesterday, unidentified gunmen killed a candidate, Haji Abdul Manan, as he walked from his home to a mosque in western Herat province. The Taliban later claimed responsibility for the murder.

Last Thursday, up to 10 campaign workers for Fawzia Gilani, a female candidate, went missing in Herat's Adraskan district.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/29/afghanistan-election-campaigners-shot-dead

---

Related video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x499597">AJ English: Brave Young Afghan Candidates Campaign Parliamentary Elections Amid Atmosphere Of Fear

[Bobbieo]

1. It is very easy to hate these Taliban who hate women!!

[bluerum]

2. I have a theory

We are in Afghanistan to learn their campaign methods. Not to teach them how to hold 'democratic' elections.

[Jakes Progress]

3. Those who ignore history

are also doomed to repeat it. If you know the history but have the hubris to think history won't apply to you, you get yourself bogged down in a place that no nation has ever gotten out of without ruin.

[Hulk]

4. WTF are we doing over there?

And we "honestly" think we are going to make a change in their life styles? This is totally absurd.

They have been stuck deep in ignorance long before we came..and they will be long after we leave. The grip of the radical muslim brutality has them in their grips. People with nothing..and we only make it worse by screwing with it all.

If we really wanted to HELP the people..we would send them food and building products....and leave their society alone. They will kill each other once we leave..and it will revert back to what it has ALWAYS been. Stone age civilization.

Forget the oil and mineral deposits. They will NEVER be realized. NEVER!

[Turborama]

5. Afghanistan has not "always been a stone age civilization"

See the proof here that Hanna Bell Provided: http://demopedia.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=8922280&mesg_id=8926296

Or here, where she originally got the pictures and info..

Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan...
Record stores, Mad Men furniture, and pencil skirts -- when Kabul had rock 'n' roll, not rockets.

BY MOHAMMAD QAYOUMI | MAY 27, 2010



On a recent trip to Afghanistan, British Defense Secretary Liam Fox drew fire for calling it "http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/telegraph-view/7760976/13th-century-Fox.html">a broken 13th-century country." The most common objection was not that he was wrong, but that he was overly blunt. He's hardly the first Westerner to label Afghanistan as medieval. Former Blackwater CEO http://www.thenation.com/blog/secret-erik-prince-tape-exposed">Erik Prince recently described the country as inhabited by "barbarians" with "a 1200 A.D. mentality." Many assume that's all Afghanistan has ever been -- an ungovernable land where chaos is carved into the hills. Given the images people see on TV and the headlines written about Afghanistan over the past three decades of war, many conclude the country never made it out of the Middle Ages.

But that is not the Afghanistan I remember. I grew up in Kabul in the 1950s and '60s. When I was in middle school, I remember that on one visit to a city market, I bought a photobook about the country published by Afghanistan's planning ministry. Most of the images dated from the 1950s. I had largely forgotten about that book until recently; I left Afghanistan in 1968 on a U.S.-funded scholarship to study at the American University of Beirut, and subsequently worked in the Middle East and now the United States. But recently, I decided to seek out another copy. Stirred by the fact that news portrayals of the country's history didn't mesh with my own memories, I wanted to discover the truth. Through a colleague, I received a copy of the book and recognized it as a time capsule of the Afghanistan I had once known -- perhaps a little airbrushed by government officials, but a far more realistic picture of my homeland than one often sees today.

A half-century ago, Afghan women pursued careers in medicine; men and women mingled casually at movie theaters and university campuses in Kabul; factories in the suburbs churned out textiles and other goods. There was a tradition of law and order, and a government capable of undertaking large national infrastructure projects, like building hydropower stations and roads, albeit with outside help. Ordinary people had a sense of hope, a belief that education could open opportunities for all, a conviction that a bright future lay ahead. All that has been destroyed by three decades of war, but it was real.

I have since had the images in that book digitized. Remembering Afghanistan's hopeful past only makes its present misery seem more tragic. Some captions in the book are difficult to read today: "Afghanistan's racial diversity has little meaning except to an ethnologist. Ask any Afghan to identify a neighbor and he calls him only a brother." "Skilled workers like these press operators are building new standards for themselves and their country." "Hundreds of Afghan youngsters take active part in Scout programs." But it is important to know that disorder, terrorism, and violence against schools that educate girls are not inevitable. I want to show Afghanistan's youth of today how their parents and grandparents really lived.

Much more: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=full

Also, watch the video in the OP to get an idea of how the youth of Afghanistan feel about the upcoming election...

[renate]

6. that is absolutely fascinating... and so heartbreaking....

I can't begin to imagine what life must be like there for people who remember how it used to be. :cry:

[Turborama]

7. I thought so too, when I 1st saw it I was amazed

I knew that Afghanistan was quite developed up until 1979, I'd heard traveller's stories and seen a couple of videos on YouTube, but hadn't seen any photos like that until Hanna Bell posted them.

Have you seen The Kite Runner yet? If not, I thoroughly recommend it.

[daleo]

9. 1979 - isn't that about the time the CIA started backing the proto-Taliban?

It really does look like the west had a fairly big part in starting this mess. Perhaps it is karma, that we are now stuck in a quagmire there.

[Nexus7]

8. A great example then for the religio-whackos

Afghanistan is a great example for the Christian theocracy types, the shock doctriners, libertarians, and Tea partiers. Look at these pictures and look at the country now, and it is almost a how-to manual for these nut-jobs.

[Vehl]

10. This is Amazing! thanks for posting!.....reminds me of my granddad's stories about 1940s Ceylon

If only Afghanistan had not taken a turn for the worse....it would surely have been one of the shining stars of that region.
Religious and ethnic fanaticism always ruins civilization...this has been seen around the world.



This picture reminded me of my granddad's stories....of Ceylon(now lanka) before and soon after its independence. It was a nation that probably had the best standard of living, and literacy rate in all of south Asia.When the Brits left in 1948, everyone thought it was poised to become heaven on earth..or so to speak.


When the then Singaporean president Lee Quan Yu visited Colombo (capitol of Ceylon) he said " I will make Singapore like Colombo!"
but then came the Buddhist/Sinhalese nationalists who banned English and English language education(for two whole generations) and the country took a nosedive. Look how different Singapore and Lanka are now. When the anti minority pogroms and discrimination started, many of the educated Elite left the country altogether....resulting in a huge brain drain...those who left were denied of any civil rights and were not able to contribute to the nation in a meaningful manner. Lanka would never be when it could have been....and thanks to those stupid policies..its bound to remain as one of those countries which have to depend on foreign aid for decades to come.



a picture from 1948...before all this madness started. People from both ethnicities being part of the first national cricket team.





Nations that go down the path of religious/ethnocentric nationalism are just shooting themselves in the foot. history is replete with such events. Yet people continue to do so...sadly

[Turborama]

11. And thank you for your insight into the recent history of Sri Lanka

Another country that got messed up by religious and colonial invaders in the area was Indonesia. But that goes back further than just when the Dutch came in and took over.

It's a long history but suffice to say that considering they, similarly to India, are celebrating just over 60 years of independence and are enjoying the benefits of having a new democracy since the relatively recent fall of the dictatorship things are slowly but surely getting better.

The main thing that stands in the way of Indonesia achieving its full potential is the endemic corruption. However, SBY (the President) appears to be working hard to clamp down on it.