Thoughts On Caravans

Back in this post I said I was going to write a bit about each of the books I read in Afghanistan that related to the country. For this post I'll start with Caravans by James Michener, a fiction novel set in post WWII Afghanistan. Written in the 1950s, it's a great story and a must read for anyone who wants to have an understanding of the culture and people of Afghanistan. So here are some of the more interesting/amusing/revealing quotes from the book:


“In Afghanistan I expect no one to tell me anything, and what they do tell me, I distrust.”


While the people of Afghanistan can be welcoming and hospitable (assuming you aren't invading and occupying the country) they aren't going to be very forthcoming with information to strangers/foreigners. Makes human intelligence gathering a challenge.


“What danger can erupt in a Kabul bazaar?”


Heh...


"Whenever I was with Moheb I appreciated anew the fact that the future history of Afghanistan, if left to Afghans, would be determined by the struggle between the many bearded mullahs from the hills and the few young experts like Moheb, with degrees from Oxford or the Sorbonne or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology."


While this may seem like an amazing bit of Michener using a crystal ball, the same could be said of most nations. A country's future is often a struggle between the conservative rural and the liberal urban. Still, the current fight in Afghanistan can be viewed as a conflict between bearded mullahs (Taliban) and the urban elite, educated in the West.


“It’s difficult to comprehend our attitude toward women,” Shah Khan confessed. “We cherish them. We love them. We protect them. And we dedicate most of our poetry to them. But we don’t want them cluttering up our lives.”


We demand they stay in the kitchen...


“The point is, Miller Sahib, that brilliant young men like you come to Afghanistan and say, ‘Such a quaint land beset by such quaint problems.’ When I go to France or Moheb to America we make exactly the same observation.”


An interesting statement about cultural differences.


"In Afghanistan almost every building bears jagged testimony to some outrage."


An understatement on the history of conflict in the region. Sucks to be a strategic crossroads that is the battleground of greater nations.


"Don’t be afraid of looking stupid, because one of these days we could be driven into war across this terrain, and you’d be the only American who’d ever seen parts of it. Keep your eyes open.”


America invading Afghanistan? That would never happen...


"But the rivers of Afghanistan, like the people of Afghanistan, never attack the enemy head on."


If an Afghan is attacking you face to face, beware his buddy about to stab you in the back.


“So if I tell you, Miller Sahib, that we have an Afghan way of doing things, and it works, please don’t think I’m being obstinate. It’s just possible that it does work.”


While working at ISAF Joint Command we had a saying: "Afghan good enough". When occupying a country and dealing with an insurgency, your ways of doing things may not be the best. The solution that the locals come up with may not be pretty, but it will probably work better than anything you come up with. This is a lesson that is often learned over and over and over again, often at the cost of lives and treasure.


“It was a terrifying punishment, to cut off a man’s right hand. Automatically it banished him from the food bowl.”


Afghans, like all peoples, are social and meal times are a social event where everyone eats from the same dish/bowl. The left hand is the unclean hand (I'll leave it to your imagination why) so if someone's hand has been cut off, for whatever reason, he will not be allowed to eat with the group. He is now forever cut off from the social group.


"If you have a society where women are forbidden, men must volunteer for the female functions.”


There's a story of an American unit that pushed into a remote valley that hadn't been visited in years, if ever. All the men in the villages came out to greet the soldiers and were very friendly. Excessively so. It took awhile, but the Americans realized that many of the men were actually hitting on them. These were poor subsistence farmers who could not afford wives and rarely interacted with women. Homosexuality is banned by Pashtun and Afghan culture, however, it's only homosexual if a man falls in love. If there's no love...well...


“A German can be many things,” Stiglitz explained robustly. “A Catholic, a Jew, a Lutheran, a Muslim. But always he’s a beer drinker. I have a dispensation from the mullah … the one you saw today. He’s an understanding liberal.”


This just makes me laugh. Stiglitz's character is a German who fled to Afghanistan after WWII in order to hide and converted to Islam. Still, he has to have his beer.


"Do you know what I expect… seriously? When a thousand men like me have rebuilt Kabul and made it as great as The City once was, either the Russians or the Americans will come with their airplanes and bomb it to rubble.”


Maybe Mitchener did have a crystal ball after all?