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November 22, 2001 Straight Talk The Afghan girl whose picture I have looks out of eyes that reflect the horror with which she has lived. Her beautiful, almost-green eyes are wide with fear, displaying the brutality and viciousness she has suffered throughout her tender years. Afghanistan’s past president is claiming leadership once again. Power struggles have been the story of this benighted country for millennia. It is slightly smaller than Texas, yet has at least a dozen ethnic groups that speak some 20 different languages. The one language they all understand is deadly violence; brutality and death are ubiquitous. Traditionally, Afghans side with the most powerful combatant, treacherously changing sides if the balance of power shifts. For some 13 centuries, the followers of Muhammad have spread Islam by the sword. They called it jihad, conquering one ethnic group after another, forcing a crazy quilt of countries and peoples to accept Islam or die. From about 650 to 750, one leader after another was murdered in an ongoing power struggle. By the 1960s, it was thought that Afghanistan had somewhat emerged from its long night. Education became important. The king loved his country and his people, experimenting with various types of agriculture. The land gets but two inches of rain per year, so he worked to develop an effective irrigation system; the rock-hewn one that had taken centuries for an ancient people to build had been destroyed by the conqueror Tammerlane in the 1300s. Then in April 1978, a communist coup destroyed the government. To all intents and purposes, Afghanistan ceased to exist at that moment, becoming little more than a battlefield. A resistance movement began within months. By Christmas Eve, 1979, the Afghan communist government was on the verge of collapse so the Soviet Union invaded under the guise of an invitation through a friendship treaty. The brutality of that invasion can only be comprehended by Americans who have served in a war zone, though the Soviets were no more brutal than native Afghans. As usual, the innocents suffered most. Why did such things happen to the beautiful girl with the green eyes? Put simply, she did not have ancestors who pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to give he a country in which she could breathe free, in which she could live a life of peace, limited only by her internal capacity for peace. Freedom was not a sacred trust bequeathed to her by forefathers who willingly gave their lives to secure it, as it was for us. She has lived in a land where, with luck, she will see her 40th birthday, but will never likely celebrate with ice cream and a rightly decorated cake. If she is truly lucky, she may never be beaten or viciously brutalized on her birthday, though she has known little but oppression and violence in her short life. She will never know that American girls are taught to worry about her, whether she has enough to eat, or that she suffers through cold Afghan winters without a warm coat. She knows nothing of the teachings and concerns of American parents and leaders; she is taught only hatred for Americans, so how could she impute to them such virtues? It is Thanksgiving. Let us thank God for ancestors who fought for freedom rather than power, who taught us to love rather than to hate, who were eager to live God’s laws, which have always been and always will be the price of freedom. Yes, we have much for which to be thankful. |
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Copyright © 2001 the Cortez Journal.
All rights reserved. |
