Is it lawful to outlaw Hindraf?

When I read about the recent decision made by the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar to outlaw The Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf), I am again forced to question the mentality of our government. However, it comes as no surprise since this is not the first time the government has carried out such ridiculous move.

Although to be fair and to speak from a legal point of view, Hindraf has been operating illegally; i.e. it has never been approved by the Registrar of Societies. Nevertheless, this in return, begs the question of why its application has been denied in the first place? Isn't it a constitutional right for the people to form association?

Ah, but according to the Home Affairs Minister, Hindraf is a danger to public order and national security; saying it as if it is a terrorist group.

Now, personally, I do not agree with some of the things which have been initiated by Hindraf. For instance, while I consider the founders of Hindraf to be courageous and commendable in their attempt to fight for justice and the rights of Indians in Malaysia, to accuse the government of ethnic cleansing is not only untrue but also irresponsible. I am not sure whether they have actually sent an email to Prime Minister Gordon Brown regarding this, but if this is true, then Hindraf has to do much more than this to gain credibility from the local and international communities.

Ethnic cleansing is a serious crime and being a Malaysian, I doubt that our government has gone that far yet to advance the "Ketuanan Melayu" (Malay Supremacy). Discrimination against minority races, yes but ethnic cleansing? I would say no.

By filing a class action suit against the British government for allegedly bringing Indians to Malaysia and  failed to protect their rights in the Federal Constitution when independence was granted,  and not to mention seeking a compensation of RM1million per every Indian is  way too ambitious and unrealistic. Normally, you don't start to run before you learn how to crawl.

After saying all this, there are two questions which I would really like to know:

1) Why was Hindraf denied by the Registrar of Societies in the first place?

2) The Minister of Home Affairs justified his decision by saying that Hindraf  "exploited racial issues which caused uprising against the government and created hatred between them and the Malays..."

If this is the case, isn't UMNO guilty of the same crime?  Perhaps UMNO should also be judged for its occasional racist remarks which have been one of the reasons why the Barisan Nasional has failed to secure a 2/3 majority seats in our recent election. If you want to be pedantic,  we can also say that it has caused an uprising against the government and created hatred between the minorities and the Malays.

Written on 17 October 2008

Emails from Bamyan, Afghanistan (Part VIII)

Friday, April 23 2004

Bamyan, Afghanistan

Dear friends,

My warmest wishes to you all.

Another episode of my life here in Afghanistan is over. It has been more than six months since I have arrived. Many things have happened since then and many more would come in the next few months. For now, I can only share some of the more significant events or incidents that had happened.

Friday, May 7 2004

Panjao, Afghanistan

The previous “entry” of my life in Afghanistan was disrupted until now. As you can see, I’m now in Panjao, a district about 6 hours away on the road from Bamyan. I was deployed to Panjao on 26 April 2004. I have been here since then.

I am now the Provincial Civic Education Officer in charge of civic education activities covering Panjao, Lal Wa Sarjangal and Waras districts. There is no internet connection or phone line here. I’m hoping to send this off whenever I get the chance to do so. We have been promised internet connection in a month’s time but the prospect looks bleak as things; i.e. logistics implementation, are moving very slowly here.

As I have mentioned, many things have happened and I have often lost count of the days spent here in Afghanistan and don’t know where to start.

I think the last time I wrote was in March and I have written a lot about the International Women’s Day (IWD) in Bamyan. As it turned out, the celebration went well and I have not heard from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) since then.

One significant incident related to the IWD worth mentioning was the night before the event took place. Although the Department of Women’s Affair (DOWA) and Save the Women and Children of Afghanistan (SWCA) were meant to be the forerunners of the event, they never executed their responsibilities and at the eleventh hour, we had to take over the tasks which they have failed to implement. Hence, in the end we acted as both the donor and also the “beneficiary”.

It was a new lesson learnt for me and each subsequent event contributed to my loss of faith and also respect for these women.

However, to be fair, a lot of credit goes to Homa, who worked really hard as she put all her energy in the event. I did a lot of the office work and left a lot of the running around to her. But on that night, I knew that she needed support and assistance and promised her that I would spend some time in the evening to help her with the decorations, etc. We were at a crossroad, where we were forced to decide either to leave the DoWA and SWCA women to their own devices and had all the guests disappointed with the outcome of a failed event, or to clean up their mess and make sure it was a success. We chose the latter of course.

By that time, the workers had set up the tent (Rubhall) provided by WFP. I had a really long and stressful day and a lot of the stress came from the event itself. I was not too pleased that I had to spend the rest of the evening doing somebody else’s job. But when I entered the tent, the sight of some women and men working together really washed away all the frustration and stress.

There were tonnes of multi-coloured paper frills, balloons and heaps of other bright and beautiful decorative items on the floor waiting to be put up. Homa had gone to Kabul to buy all the stuff and I was amazed at how much stuff we can get from Kabul. Most of the decorations are meant for weddings and as poor as most of the Afghans might be, they have no qualms lavishing on weddings.

I thought to myself that even if the event did not go well, I had somehow felt the satisfaction already. Men and women working side by side in Afghanistan is truly a rare sight and what matters most is the team spirit and solidarity amongst the people, which was clearly seen that night.

It took us a long time to set up the decorations as the tent was huge (it can accommodate about 200 people) and by nightfall, it was completely dark which made our task very difficult. Then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, 2 UN cars came to the rescue.

The tent had an opening at each end. Each car had then parked at each opening of the tent with their head lights turned on, illuminating the tent. It was all very surreal and exciting and we managed to finish our work by 9pm.

I can’t explain how it felt like. I guess it was somehow an event which had really brought all of us together and the most satisfying part was that I was the only foreigner and in essence, it had truly been their event. The consciousness of knowing how the team; whether they are drivers, translators, (and most of them were not even working for my programme) or educators, they all wanted to make sure that the event would be a success. Assistance of any kind was offered voluntarily without being asked for.

One person who surprisingly rose to the occasion was Halima. Halima is a very special woman. Not only is she a real beauty, she is humble, sweet, shy and if I can say, an introvert. She carries herself with a certain quietness and mystery in her, which is not surprising that she is an object of many men’s desire.

Since Homa has that leadership quality in her, Halima often remained in the background. But since Homa and I had been in Kabul for awhile, we had to put Halima in charge of the event in Bamyan. I think it was the best thing that had happened to the team. Halima managed to prove her potential by handling everything in her calm and dignified manner. While being left alone to drive the force in Bamyan, she has gained a lot of experience in playing a leadership role, which in turn has increased her self-confidence.

So, while observing the dynamics of my fellow Afghan colleagues working together, I couldn’t help but feel proud of these two women, who seem to have blossomed in their own special ways. Watching them giving suggestions, sharing ideas, laughing together with their male colleagues was a joy. They have finally gained respect from their male counterparts. In a way, you can say that it was a defining moment in my career in Afghanistan.

After we wrapped up, we all went to the local bazaar to have dinner together. I treated all of them to what had cost me very little but meant so much to them. We had a good laugh and forgot about what was looming in front of us. It had been a good day after all.

Needless to say, I was very impressed and pleased with the work done when I saw how beautiful the tent was in the morning. Our event was published on the Voter Registration Update newsletter in Kabul. It is really good to see Bamyan on the news after being constantly neglected by the media.

Although the event concluded successfully, the remnants remained a constant headache for me. DOWA and SWCA had washed off their hands conveniently and we had to pick up the tabs/bills for the workers and guests; food, transportation, accommodation, etc. It would have been easier for me to just leave everything to them but it would leave us with a bigger headache when UNDP starts chasing us for the financial report.

But the beauty of being the “focal point” for UNDP is that, I am in the position to write a monitoring report and to recommend whether the group/organization should receive future funding. And in this case, any future recommendation from me is close to a clear negative. I have only one comment for DOWA – TROUBLE, STAY CLEAR.

Working with these women was a challenge which resulted in major disappointment. Although the event was worth having, trying to empower and encourage them was in a way a failure. Not only they did not embrace the opportunity given, they took advantage of everything. Sometimes, I wonder whether it was my fault. Perhaps, I have not tried harder and if the circumstance was different; i.e. we were given more time, it might have been different.

A typical day for me at work in Bamyan was meeting with a lot of people that came in with problems and expecting me to solve it. I spent half of my day having different people; whether they are staffs or not, coming into my office with a bunch of problems. Instead of a civic education office, it slowly turned into a trouble shooting center.

I had a really small office in Bamyan. We call it the Cogim. It’s basically a sea container with about the size of 2m x 4m. We had 2 tables, 1 phone, 2 computers, 1 printer, 1 shelf, 5 chairs and tonnes of posters and materials in the container. Phillip and I shared the office with a bunch of other civic education staffs.

Usually the office had about 7 or more people in it; groups of NGOs, organizations, etc. coming in to talk. So, imagine the space we had. Phillip tended to ignore the people who came in and I would be the person listening to their woes. Frankly, I wished that I didn’t have to deal with these people because it wasted a lot of my time and energy.

However, it is part of my responsibilities to listen to them. All this left me with very little time to do my own work.

Things got worse when we had to recruit hundreds of new national staffs for the start of the second phase of registration. I was in charge of recruiting civic educators and for nearly 2 weeks, I was occupied with shortlisting of applications and interviews.

What had gotten on my nerves many times was when the applicants would come straight into my office to hand me the applications hoping that they could put in some good words for themselves and then expecting to be employed. We had somehow established a system whereby, all applications should be sent to administration and then handed over to me for shortlisting at the end of the deadline.

But no, nepotism and cronyism that are so rampant in Afghanistan made my life that much more difficult. After telling the security guards many times not to send any person applying for jobs to my office, they did it anyway. After telling my Afghan colleagues many times not to do the same, they did it anyway.

Often, they would bring their friends into the office and then asked me whether they would be employed. Not to mention, some mornings when I entered my office, I saw stacks of job application staring at me from my table. My instinctive reaction was to tear the applications and throw them into the bin. But thank God for that inner voice in me that constantly reminded me to be patient.

Some of my Afghan colleagues even send me letters recommending their friends for the job. I never entertained them and that, I did throw into the bin. I even received private emails asking me to recruit friends and people stopping me on the street to talk to me, etc. There were a couple of people who had the nerve to come to my accommodation to speak to me about jobs. These kinds of things really annoyed me.

(I realise now that I had been overly-protective of the whole process. My inexperience in life as well as idealism had prevented me from understanding the cultural context of the situation. Instead of dealing with the whole thing calmly, I made a big deal out of it, to my own detriment. From this, I have in a way learned a lesson. I failed to put myself to the test and instead chose to judge others. I should have asked myself whether I would have done the same, if I had been in their position.)

Being sort of like a local “celebrity” by virtue of the power entrusted on me to recruit people may all sound like fun, but it wasn’t. I have never been a person who relishes in power.

Fortunately though, I had no qualms telling people quite bluntly that I will not take any applications directly from them and I will not entertain any lobbying. Shortlisting was hell because a lot of the Afghans tend to make decisions based on emotion.

We had a shortlisting panel consisted of our own civic education team (local and international), a representative from UNAMA and UNOPS. As we are doing this Afghanisation process, we are trying to include the Afghans in a lot of the decision-making. But often enough, I had to interfere because they would shortlist people based on the applicant’s financial status or if they are their friends/relatives.

In the first phase of registration, we did a lot of mistakes by recruiting a lot of family members. It wasn’t intentional because we were new and we did not know the people there. They can be quite sneaky as well. Most of the time, they would not put their full names; i.e. their father names on the applications which made it impossible for us to identify whether they were related to each other.

Another problem we faced was the limited pool of educated and qualified people in the Central Highlands. It is easy to recruit qualified people in bigger cities like Kabul, Jalalabad and Mazar-e-Sharif. But in Central Highlands, you get 14-year-old female teachers and secondary school graduates.

We would then put up the names of shortlisted candidates for interviews. Again, people would march into the office and demand why they had not been shortlisted. Some would start bitching about those who had been shortlisted and questioned me why so and so was chosen and not them.

I swear many times I wished I could tell them that that kind of attitude reinforced our decision not to select them. I usually have no patience and tolerance for such attitude. I would just tell them that applications do not warrant an automatic employment and it was not up to them to select people. It was up to us and they should not argue with the decision. Period – end of discussion.

Some of my international colleagues would spend considerable amount of time entertaining these people which infuriated me. Yes, it’s a rat chase and everyone is fighting to get a job but let's not forget we have a job to do ourselves.

Things wouldn't have gotten out of control if it wasn't the UN's fault as well. The UN is paying big money to these people and it’s stupid. Other NGOs are paying national staffs USD200 per month and the UN is paying USD500 per month! The UN is spoiling the market and also making these people go money-crazy.

The Ministry of Education and health care NGOs are pleading to us not to “poach” their staffs. We have come up with a policy not to recruit teachers and health care workers. It used to be a dilemma for me because I really believe that people are entitled to apply for new jobs especially if it’s a better job with better pay. But after a lot of discussion with my other international colleagues, I soon understood the negative implications if all teachers and healthcare workers leave their jobs. Most of the educated women are in these 2 professions. During the Taliban regime, the women were deprived of education and healthcare and my conscience does not allow me to recruit these women. Once these women receive such a high salary, they often refuse to go back to their old jobs and tend to migrate to bigger cities.

Because of a tight budget, the UN authorizes very limited national staffs to the Central Highlands. For Panjao, I am only entitled to 22 Civic Educators for 3 district; Panjao, Lal Wa Sarjangal and Waras. The estimated voter population for Panjao district alone is close to 30,000 people. We are given only one month to register these people. Now, tell me how on earth are 10 Civic Educators going to educate 30,000 people within one month??!!

So, someone on top there is really smart to pay USD500 per person instead of USD500 for 2 persons. We could have doubled up the number of educators by paying them the market price. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure this out.

UNOPS, the agency responsible for the payment of national staffs is paying the national trainers and educators the same salary. The trainers are supposed to train and supervise the educators. So in essence, the educators are the trainers’ subordinates but they are receiving the same pay scale. This is demoralizing for the trainers and many of them are beginning to feel the “humiliation”. The UNOPS chief is screwing up a lot of things for us here and it just pisses me off to know that person is being paid probably more than USD10,000 a month to make bad decisions like this.

Anyway, interviews were another joke to me. I had spent days “entertaining” lies and deceit. Many times, I would discover in the interviews how the applicants have lied in their CVs and some went to the extent of sending someone else for the interview. I had to answer to question like, “I need to go to Kabul on my interview date, may I send my brother for the interview instead?” This kind of question is a potential threat to one’s mental health.

Some classic examples which would probably send most of you in stitches or even incredulity are as below:

…to be continued in Part IX…..

Taking the "piss"ful approach

Not many people can take criticism. Am I correct to make such a conclusion?

Everybody hates to be criticised. Am I correct to make another such conclusion?

How many people hate to be criticised but yet can take it? I think this is the fundamental question.

You see, I think, in effect nobody likes to be criticised for isn’t pride and ego part of human nature? I for one, do feel the sting if I have been criticised and it also depends on how the criticism is being carried out; is it out of malice or sincerity?

I often feel anxious and nervous whenever I have to present my work to my superior for comments or feedback. It’s never nice to have someone else, especially one whom you have high esteem for, points out your weakness or flaw. But at the end of the day, I just have to live with it and accept the fact that I am not perfect and we share this world with many other people with individual opinion and preference.

The concept of democracy probably derived from this understanding that different people hold different views and opinions and not just that, every individual has a right to exercise his or her opinion and participate in the decision making process. Freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are also derived from the same concept.

By having such concepts, it is to acknowledge the basic essence of being a human being. They are not developed for people to challenge authorities or to gain power. It is merely created to protect what is fundamentally human; that we are not inanimate objects with no souls but borne with the ability to think, to question, to agree and to disagree. To suppress these characters which define us as human beings, would be like castrating men, denying him of his basic primal nature.

If you look at all the international conventions pertaining to these rights, the word “everyone” is usually adopted. This indicates that the provisions which are carefully drafted are designed for individual human being as its core subject. It is not meant to topple government power or to threaten national security.

However, many governments have misinterpreted these rights as a direct challenge to them. They think that if they allow people to freely express their opinions or to participate in peaceful assembly, they will lose popularity and subsequently power.

In the end, they also fail to see the big picture. They fail to anticipate that while they may be able to assert and maintain power over the people, the time will come when things will change (they always do). After all, as I’ve mentioned, this is human nature. By going against nature, is to invite disaster. The days of dictatorships or disguised democracies are slowly numbered.

Not only they are foolish not to understand this, I find it an insult and disrespect for human beings.

Many countries in the world are still continuously exercising its power to silent opposition voices. Not only do they hate criticism, they cannot learn to take it as well.

When I look at our neighbouring countries, such as Thailand with its recent political crackdown on demonstrators, ending in bloodshed and violence, I think the Malaysian government should be grateful that we have not resorted to that level. We are still people who can express our protest in a civil and peaceful manner.

However, when certain politicians threatened not to challenge the patience of UMNO, be warned that they too should not challenge the patience of the people. Times have changed and hence it is also time for governments to adapt to these changes if it wants to progress.

Written on 15 October 2008

Emails from Bamyan, Afghanistan (Part VII)

Friday, March 12, 2004

Bamyan, Afghanistan

Upon returning to Bamyan, I quickly asked Homa to check around and see whether AIHCR was angry with us. True enough, they were pissed off but still try to keep their pride by rejecting our offer to help them out with other stuff. We received an invitation card from AIHRC to attend the IWD on 8^th March and everyone asked whether we should attend after what happened.

I had no doubt that I had to attend just to indicate to them that we would still support their event no matter what. Most importantly, I just wanted to take the opportunity to distribute some posters on women’s rights to vote on that day. Yep, these are crucial strategies for us and whether I like it or not, I need to seize every such opportunity. Thankfully, AIHCR was gracious enough to allow us to do that which was very admirable of them.

Anyway, I attended the event and was bored to death. They made me a VIP by asking me to sit on the front row, right in front of the podium with the rest of the “International Community”. I wanted to sit right at the back on the aisle so that I could sneak out whenever I wanted to. I have attended one too many Afghan official ceremonies and know how long winded they can get because they love long speeches and never make any attempt to translate for us. This is one of the most annoying parts of being in Afghanistan.

As hospitable as they may be, they never bother translating anything for foreign guests, which is really illogical. What’s the point of making us VIPs if they don’t expect us to understand or participate in their events? The whole morning was wasted on long and may I add, mostly uninspiring speeches to express their gratitude and showcase what they had done.

Peter Maxwell, our UNAMA Head of Office, gave a speech on behalf of UNAMA, and a female Kiwi soldier gave another on behalf of the Provincial Rehabilitation Team (PRT – military-based humanitarian team). The rest was in Dari. So, anyway, I really did sneak out at the end of one of the speeches because it was really a waste of time for me to be there and I just didn’t care if anyone was offended. If anyone thought I was being rude, I was just going to tell him/her that if they didn’t bother translating for me, it probably meant it wasn’t important for me to listen.

So, later on in the afternoon, I received a call from Peter Maxwell summoning me into his office. When I entered his office, he wasn’t alone. Sitting there was Mr. Mahmoody, the Regional Director of AIHCR. Earlier on in the morning, Mr. Mahmoody had greeted me with pleasantries and such a sweet smile which surprised me. Now, sitting on that chair in Peter’s office, he had the most patronizing smile on his face that crept me out.

I did not know what to expect. Well, I found out that he had come to complain to Peter about how the Electoral team abandoned them and how we did not support their event by not presenting anything about the election to the women. He said that in the beginning, we were supportive of everything and decided to have the event on 8^th March but suddenly everything changed. They were left to bear the cost of the event which was such a burden.

Then, to "slap the icing on the cake", he started saying how UNAMA and AIHCR have always been in such a good relationship and now why did we abandon them? Then, as if it was totally his own wisdom, he started telling Peter that if there is another IWD event on 14^th, there would be duplication of programme, etc. What a f***ing double twisting #@%*!!! I was the one who had forewarned AIHCR that.

I was really shocked with his accusations and was of course fuming by then. He really did put me on the spot in front of Peter. Peter is an elderly British man with hair and beard as white as snow. The Afghans speculate him to be more than 100 years old!!! But I think he’s just close to 70 years old.

He’s well respected by the locals mainly because he would be considered as an Elder here. The elders are older men with white hair and beard (just like Peter) and are considered to be wise and influential in the community. Because of his mature “aura” and the position he holds in UNAMA, he stands out as a figure of authority especially with his typical British “dignified” style. Hence, it was intimidating to be questioned like that in front of him.

(I always found Peter to be an intriguing and interesting person from the amount of stories I heard from other colleagues. There was one particular story which tickles my heart. According to Hari, one day while he was travelling on a car with Peter to Kabul for a meeting, they came across a traffic jam on Jalalabad Road, in Kabul. After travelling for more than 6 hours, they were understandably tired and irritable. The thought of being held back another hour in a traffic jam was too much for Peter to bear. He walked out from the car to investigate what was causing the massive jam. As soon as he identified the problem, he immediately took to the task of directing the traffic right in the middle of Jalalabad Road!

Hari said that he was speechless as he watched this distinguished elderly white man, waving around madly but of course, it worked. He managed to take control of the situation. We just couldn’t stop laughing as we heard this story.)

So, anyway, I let Mr. Mahmoody, the drama king, poured out his grief without any comments from me. In such a culture, whether you like it or not, being a woman, it’s best not to interrupt a man when he is speaking. But, I swear to God, while he was speaking, I was loading my own machine gun waiting to retaliate as soon as he stopped to breathe.

So, when he finished, as calmly as I could, I told Peter in brief points, 1^st – this event was not organized by us, JEMB Secretariat alone – it was a joint effort. 2^nd - the decision to postpone it was not made unilaterally. The only party that disagreed was AIHCR; having told us that they would be able to carry it out on their own without anyone’s help. 3^rd – We had offered help and support but they insisted that they did not need our help. They did not send us any notice or invitation to present a speech on the election. Because this was their own event, we could not possibly butt in and say that we want to speak. They need to initiate, not us. 4^th – I disagree that there would be a duplication of programme because when I attended the event in the morning, I believe it was just speeches with no activities; role-play, etc. The event on the 14^th would have a more interactive and entertaining flavour.

Yes, I think I really need training in diplomacy but those were my explanations to Peter, in the presence of Mr. Mahmoody. I figured, screw diplomacy when I could give a straightforward answer without all the melodrama.

After saying all this, Peter, intervened and concluded things in my favour. I was relieved and glad that Peter could understand my position. He told Mr. Mahmoody that the next time, he needs Electoral’s support, he would need to send an invitation. He also said that for IWD, the DOWA would take priority in the event rather than AIHCR. If it were International Human Rights Day, then AIHCR would be a priority. THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT!!

Then, he ended by saying, “And as usual, I agree that UNAMA and AIHCR should maintain good relationship” as a sign that it was the end of the conversation.

I hope Mr. Mahmoody has learnt his lesson not to mess with foreign women. I think that he thought he could get away with his malicious and juvenile act because I am a woman. I am beginning to feel the pressure and frustration of working in Afghanistan simply because I am regarded as a second-class gender. It has been a constant battle trying to work with our national male trainer, Aliase and language assistant, Zafar. Both Aliase and Zafar can be a huge challenge as both are quite proud and chauvinistic. They hate receiving instruction from me and would just ignore me when they are not happy with it. By right, I should not even have to deal with them but because Phillip is completely opposite from me; i.e. he is easy going and laid back, I have to do the pushing. He does not push them to do things. I am the bitch from hell and he is Mr. Nice Guy.

What I could not stand is the way how these men treat the women here. I cannot change the patriarchal culture here but I certainly cannot tolerate such behaviour in my office. Aliase constantly manipulates Homa into doing trivial stuff thinking that it is a woman’s job. Aliase hates translating things for me because he thinks being a translator is a second-grade job. Zafar treats our female Civic Educator, Halima, whom he is completely and utterly in lust with, like dirt.

Once Zafar was angry with me simply because I said that I did not want unrelated people in the office while we were doing the shortlisting of candidates. Nepotism is rampant in Afghanistan and I take the recruitment process very seriously. Many of the national staffs have been helping their friends in the applications, etc. I don’t care how my other colleagues are handling the recruitment of their national staffs, but I want to make sure mine is done in a fair and just manner.

So, I insisted that the shortlisting was done in complete privacy and no intervention from unrelated people. Zafar got angry that I had refused to let him stay in the office. When I asked him a question, he refused to look at me and he mumbled bitterly; simply trying to make my life difficult. I asked him who were in the shortlisting panel the day before; he mumbled something. I was very angry but at the same time, stubborn as well. So, I would ask him the same question again and again until I could hear him coherently. This was done in front of everyone. I was thinking that if he was going to behave like a child, I would treat him like one.

He finally provided me with some names but proceeded to wave his hand limply around trying to point at someone in the room indicating the last person in the shortlisting panel. I started asking him whom he was pointing at. He refused to mention the name but continuously pointing. Again, I did the same, asking him repeatedly until I could get a satisfactory answer. He finally pointed at Halima and said, “She”. During all that time, Halima was standing right next to him. I just looked at him in the eyes and said, “Next time, please refer to her by her name.”

He stormed out the office and slammed the door. There was complete silence in the room. That was the first time I had such a confrontation with someone publicly. It’s a wonder that I ever survived Afghanistan unharmed.

I just don’t get it. He was upset with me but why was Halima getting the brunt of it? Why must life be so difficult here? I really want to tell Zafar that he is fired because I have every single reason to do so. He has been rude to me, completely lazy and disappears half of the time without informing Phillip. The only reason that stops me from firing him is that ultimately it would have to be Phillip who could “chastise” him.

This is Afghanistan. A woman does not tell a man what to do but then again, what do I really know about that anyway?

I don’t know how long I can endure this kind of behaviour. I have constantly asked our Logistics Officer to provide the women with a separate office. If I cannot work with the men simply because they refuse to cooperate with me, why should I share an office with them and tolerate their misogynistic behaviour? I cannot close a blind eye when they are sitting on their chair doing nothing or treating their women colleagues with no respect.

So, things have been stressful and I just cannot wait to be re-deployed to the Province.

At the moment, I am back to organizing the IWD for 14^th. It is stress-city again working with the women. It has been a trying effort to try to make the women understand the importance of planning and budgeting. Being uneducated, they have no organization skills at all including the Director of DOWA, whom I believe is not more than 26 years old. Female teachers here can be 15 or 16 years old.

I was the one asking them to form an Organising Committee for IWD and urged them to elect a Chairwoman; thinking that this is early exposure for them on the idea of election through absolute majority, etc. But none of them wanted to because they kept saying that everyone should be equal, etc. I tried to explain that it is important to have a Chairwoman who can lead discussions and meetings and follow-up on things. But, the idea was never accepted.

Then, I tried to tell them that they need to delegate tasks to different people and each person should honour the task they are delegated to. These women spend most of their time in meetings gossiping or catching up on each other’s daily news. They also have a tendency to be very tardy. Michael (the head of IOM office in Bamyan) and I really had our patience tested when we sat through hours and hours of meetings with these women. Although we both constantly share the same thought of why the hell are we doing this? Why are we wasting our time and energy here? But deep down, we know that we need to be patient and understanding if we want the event to happen.

Sometimes, these women really drive us insane by just being irrational. I am more sympathetic towards the women but Michael, being a typical American (“I’m American, I am smarter than you. Let me tell you what to do” – attitude) can get really sarcastic and sometimes pissed the women off by his bluntness.

So, anyway, just spent my Friday supervising and inspecting the site for IWD for Sunday. I have borrowed a huge tent which could store about 400 tonnes of food from World Food Programme (WFP). This tent is going to accommodate about 250 guests for IWD. I have hired about 16 men to set up the whole tent and it would take 2 days to put it up.

I don’t know whether my involvement and presence at the site would somehow tell the Afghan men that women can perform any job as well as any man but with me, clad in my black pants, hooded vest and a cap, with a shovel on each hand, definitely provided an imposing sight.

Gee, 14 pages! I hope you have enjoyed the stories I tell. I suppose in a place like this, putting thoughts into writing is about the only therapy anyone can get.

I wish you all well, my friends.

Ka Ea

….to be continued in Part VIII…..

Emails from Bamyan, Afghanistan (Part VI)

Tuesday, March 10 2004

Bamyan, Afghanistan

So, my frustration begins to mount when I find out that the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) Secretariat, which we are now officially called (no longer UNAMA Electoral Component), has just recently issued a new operational plan with the time frame of 3 weeks to register the rest of the population in Afghanistan. The estimated voter for the whole of Afghanistan is about 8 million people and we have so far registered more than 1 million people in Afghanistan.

The time frame for Phase 2 of the registration process is from 1^st – 21^st May 2004. This means, we will have to register about 7 million people in just 3 weeks!! If anyone needs a miracle to happen, it would be now.

(One of the lessons learned from the UN-administered Presidential election in Timor Leste was the implementation of registration method. In Timor Leste, the UN spent millions of dollars providing laptops, CD ROMs, high tech computer software and training to digitally register voters. After the election was over, the UN left behind hundreds of thousands of CD ROMs containing voters’ data and thousands of laptops but only a handful of Timorese who actually know how to use and maintain the system. Needless to say, the exit strategy, or actually the lack of it, was far from being ideal in an under-developed country with low level of literacy rate. Hence, in Afghanistan, eligible voters are registered manually which in essence makes a lot of sense since the implications are huge; more cost effective, less time needed to train registration staffs on how to operate the software, less headaches trying to recruit staffs who have at least minimal computing skill and most importantly, easier to manage and maintain by the local people after. However, it also results in longer registration time per voter.)

One of the reasons we have changed our name is because we are finally doing the much-delayed “Afghanisation” process. The JEMB Secretariat now consists of 7 Afghans and 6 international UNAMA staffs. It is headed by Dr. Farook Wardak and no longer Reg Austin, the International Chief of Electoral. Reg is now the Adviser to Dr. Wardak. This means, all international staffs will now be playing an advisory role rather than an active role in all positions.

For instance, my position as a Civic Education Officer might soon be changed to Civic Education Coordinator. Each of us will have an Afghan counterpart during this transitional period. Imagine how exciting this would be! Mark my sarcasm on this because the process of Afghanisation cannot perceive to be effective for only 2 months (if we by some kind of a miracle manage to recruit everyone by the end of this month).

Sometimes, I don’t really understand what the people in Kabul are doing. I feel that they just sit in their comfortable chairs in a fancy office with a fancy bukhari (their bukharis are imported from Canada) and probably spend their nights partying away and then wake up with a huge hangover the next morning. I mean, what took them so long to come up with an operational plan and then tell us 2 weeks before the whole process and expect us to implement them come rain or shine due to their lack of planning?

For me, that is poorly done and the worse thing is, I am not mad with the fact that I am banned from taking holidays from 15 April onwards until June or that I have to work my ass off for the next couple of months. No, I am mad with the fact that we are all forced to rush everything to the detriment of giving a real impact on the people in really understanding the process. Because of the extremely impossible time frame, we now have to do our jobs at a piecemeal level.

For the last few weeks, I have been involved in the organization of the International Women’s Day (IWD) due on 8 March and it was a mess. I don’t even want to go into the politics that went on. The bottom line is, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHCR) in Bamyan now has a bone to pick with us; i.e. the Civic Education team.

I have managed to get several international and national institutions as well as civil society groups to come together to organize this big event for IWD. The Organising Committee consisted of the Department of Women’s Affair (DOWA), AIHCR, UN Habitat, a local NGO called Save the Women and Children of Afghanistan (SWCA) and of course us.

I left Homa to organize the event with the rest of the women. This is my “Afghanisation” attempt and also a perfect opportunity for empowering the women to do something for themselves. But I took charge of the solicitation of fund which didn’t take too long because we have UNDP’s support for civil society project. Unfortunately, UNDP’s grant is limited to USD1, 000 per project only. So, I had to find another donor because we couldn’t cover transportation cost to send women from other districts to attend the event. In the end, I managed to get the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) to fund the rest of the project.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

Bamyan, Afghanistan

So, everything was set to go for 8^th March 2004. Meanwhile, Homa and I had gone to Kabul for training and were due to be back in Bamyan on 7 March 2004. You could imagine my anxiety being involved in the organization of IWD and at the same time not being able to be there to supervise things. So, I was constantly calling Bamyan trying to check on things.

A bombshell was dropped on me when I was told that the Department of Women’s Affairs had to postpone the event to 14^th March instead of 8^th March. The Ministry of Women’s Affair (MOWA) has specifically requested all their DOWA Regional Directors to be in Kabul on 8^th March for the national IWD celebration and then have their subsequent regional celebrations after in order for the Minister of MOWA to attend the regional events.

So, the Organising Committee had a meeting to discuss the possibility of postponing the event. AIHCR and SWCA disagreed and insisted on having the event on the 8^th. By right, majority rules but DOWA cannot go against MOWA’s instruction. So, DOWA would have to pull out from the Committee.

Hence, a conflict arose.

Meantime, IOM has been requested by its Gender Officer in Kabul not to fund any IWD event, which clashes with MOWA’s request. IOM had to do that because part of its mandate is to establish links and cooperation with governmental bodies. Hence, a dilemma…whether to have it on 8^th March, without IOM’s funding and DOWA’s involvement or have it on the 14^th which of course was not acceptable for AIHCR and SWCA. Without IOM’s funding, we won’t be able to pay for the traveling allowances of those women coming from other districts.

Anyway, I was left to make a decision whether to support AIHCR and SWCA or DOWA. In actual fact, I don’t need to get involved because it was really up to the women to decide. We were just playing a supportive role and if the women want to split up and have 2 celebrations, we will support both events. But because I act as the main liaison person for UNDP’s grant (yep, let us not forget that we have 2 donors involved) I need to advise whether UNDP should provide the funding or not. I was left to weigh the circumstances on my own because Hari, my Regional Coordinator is on leave and he has entrusted the whole project to me. I was also forced to make a decision under tremendous pressure because I was stuck in Kabul and I was supposed to dedicate myself to the training.

In any case, I would like to have the idea of having just one celebration with all the bodies mentioned before involved. I don’t want to have duplication of programmes and the same target audience for 2 events. It risks people getting bored. It would be a wasted effort.

Plus, we have specific interest for the women from other districts to attend the event. We could provide civic education to these women in advance before they return to their districts with the hope that these women would then talk to other women for that cascading effect to work. Also, we can make recruitment announcement at the event so that we can start identifying potential candidates from other districts. Hence, IOM’s support is crucial for us.

So, I called one of our national civic educators in Bamyan to get all the women together and discuss this again. I wanted them to think carefully and weigh the implications before making a decision. I also asked the civic educator to persuade them to postpone the event, as DOWA really has no choice. At the end of the day, DOWA has specific and relevant interest on IWD and not AIHCR. If it were the International Human Rights Day, then AIHCR has priority.

So, they talked and again I was told that AIHCR was adamant to stick to the 8^th although they managed to persuade SWCA to change their mind. Hence, AIHRC was now alone in its stand.

I talked to the UNDP Liaison Officer for Civil Society Projects in Kabul and he told me that UNDP would not be keen to fund a project which has in a way “fallen apart” and with only AIHCR as the only actor. So, I sent a message to Bamyan, giving AIHCR an ultimatum that either they agree to postpone the event or they would have to do it by themselves without any funding at all. AIHCR proudly announced that they would do it on their own and they did not need anyone’s help.

So, fine. I had a relatively peaceful week in Kabul after that.

…..to be continued in Part VII……

Embracing Happiness

I was watching the movie “In Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith on HBO last night. It tells the story of Chris Gardner, a single father, a struggling sales man who was top of his high school class and above all, a man who is resourceful, determined and while being hurled a series of setback, maintains a pleasant and positive disposition.

While I was watching the movie, I felt somehow stressed when I watched what he had to go through. His wife lost respect for him and eventually left him, his struggle as a portable bone density scan machine salesman, juggling between his work and providing his son a “normal” life, being evicted from his rented apartment and then his hotel, queuing up at the shelter building, running after his stolen machine while lugging his remaining machine along, being subjected to all sorts of pressure as an intern for a stockbroker company, etc.

*Whew* just listing all the trial and tribulation of his life made me tired. I would have broken down way before he did. And yet, he managed to go through everything with grace and dignity, and along the way did not screw up his son.

And then, like most viewers, I cheered him on, waiting for him to succeed in the end. Well, it’s an American movie. You’ve got to have a happy ending although I am not sure whether it was based on a true story.

Will Smith played the role well and one of his finest acting was the final part, after he was told that he had been selected to work for the company. He was teary when he heard the news and then he walked out from the building. Not having anyone to share this big moment with, he celebrated by himself right in the middle of the crowd. The triumph and happiness were evident on his face and body language. It was really the defining moment of the whole movie. He finally got his happyness.

Then, I started thinking about the whole movie. In pursuit of happiness, what does it mean? Sure, everybody wants to be happy but in the end, how do you define happiness and whether it is achievable?

Now that I am older, I have come to realise that most people I know, if not all, are somehow unhappy about their lives (myself included). There is always something wrong, or something to complain about. Then, I came to the conclusion that, nobody is 100% happy. But then, you know what? I also realise that nobody is 100% miserable as well. There is always something which we can all be thankful for.

So, then, maybe in our life, while we are not able to pursue 100% happiness, there are certain moments in life which will give us some form of happiness, even momentarily. Perhaps, we all need to understand that life is a challenge and we cannot hope or expect to have everything that we want, but happiness does knock on our doors and we need to learn to see and appreciate it.

For Chris Gardner, the feeling of pure happiness came, when he was selected out of 20 interns, to work for a reputable firm. He will continue to face new challenges but at that moment, he had it.

Happiness comes in different ways and at different times. It comes when a child is invited to play, when a girl is asked for a date by a boy she has a huge crush on, when a man marries the woman he loves, when the sky clears up after a stormy night, when a baby is borne, when a child does well in school, when a sick mother gets well, when a father receives a letter from his daughter in college, when someone receives gratitude, etc.

We will all continuously face difficult times throughout our whole lives, but it doesn’t mean we can never be happy.

I think happiness is when you don’t seek to pursue it, but to embrace it when it comes.

Written on 12 October 2008