لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
June 11, 2012
Munich, Germany
By Tareq Kakar
They say if you want to destroy a nation destroy its history and culture. In fact, one of the multiple ways of bringing mayhem upon a people’s cultural fabric is to keep people away from the very essential means by which they not only produce and preserve culture, but also participate in it, i.e. reading, writing and calculating – all of which collectively form the base of what the Germans so beautifully term “Kulturtechniken” and are acquired through education.
Burning schools, intimidating teachers and students and even poisoning them, highly mysterious elements are intentionally targeting the remains of Afghanistan’s educational system since years. Probably nearly ten thousand of education targets have been attacked so far. It is as if the dramatic, war-driven destruction of Afghanistan’s relatively small, yet considerable, educational system itself was not already heartrending enough.
In one of the latest incidents of student poisoning, 40 school girls were reported to have been poisoned in Takhar province. Surprisingly, those who are routinely accused of targeting schools, the Taliban movement, have not only denied involvement, but have also condemned the attack promising to pursue the culprits and punish them. The questions that beg to be asked are: Who are such culprits? If they are on pay-roll, then who are their principals? And, what are their sinister intentions?
Whatever the answer may look like: They are Afghanistan’s national enemies and a stumbling block for the education of the Afghan masses, and the crystallization of social elites to run the country. By hindering Afghans to acquire essential “Kulturtechniken”, they are bent on paralyzing Afghanistan’s cultural output, jeopardize Afghanistan’s future and force it to perpetually take a back seat in the world of technological progress.
Before the situation gets worse, it is time for the Afghan actors on the scene, particularly elite political actors, both supportive of the current Afghan government and those fiercely resisting it, to independently, or ideally, collectively intensify propaganda against those who are bent on bringing further disruption into our national education structures. To counter anti-education forces in Afghanistan, awareness is needed on a national level. Afghans, regardless of various political strata they ascribe to, have to realize that education will be, as the US President Obama said, the future currency.
Modern education structures were first introduced to Afghanistan on a considerable scale during the reformist reign of King Amanullah Khan. Towards the last years of Amanullah Khan’s reign Afghanistan already had more than 300 schools. Due to tactlessness in the king’s reforms, the establishment of modern education structures was viewed by religious forces with skepticism. The cost of the Afghan modernists’ mistake to exercise foresight and the subsequent skepticism by Afghanistan’s anti-secularist forces has been immense to Afghanistan education system.
To avoid oversimplification, one has to admit that historically skepticism and, in some cases, stiff opposition to modern education was not only maintained by religious forces in Afghanistan. Fearing the acceleration of anti-monarchist liberalism and communism, monarchist circles in Afghanistan long very skeptically and too slowly invested in Afghanistan’s education system, so much so that Afghanistan for a very long time had only two universities in the whole country.
All in all, modern and post-modern Afghanistan, albeit having a rich cultural heritage and having been the birthplace of historic civilizations, unfortunately has never been a country of education enthusiasm while rejection and embracement vary very much from one region to another. For example, the people of Herat are exceptionally enthusiastic about education.
Only now, realizing the importance of education, it seems even in areas where war is raging people started to change mind. Therefore, it was an astonishing piece of news, when a regional Taliban commander last week ordered government officials to increase the number of teachers in schools or face a close-down of schools due to inefficiency. In fact, Afghanistan’s minister of education, Dr Farooq Wardak, has said that it is not the Taliban who are closing schools, but rather elements using the name of the Taliban.
Cooperation between Afghan government officials and resistance movements is not uncommon in areas where the Afghan government has not efficiently extended its writ to. Often the resistance fighters demand modifications in syllabuses. But such cooperation needs to be deepened and enhanced. It is time for the Afghan government and the resistance to get to the table and form a block against criminal elements and circles that are bent on further disturbing Afghanistan’s educational structures. This will not only be in the interest of Afghanistan’s school boys and girls, millions of which still have no access to education, but also a real trust-building effort between the warring parties. So what are they waiting for?
