Journeys to democracy

This article, published in The News on Sunday, Footloose page, Nov 1, 2009 , is an expanded version of my previous report for IPS on the Kabul trialogue

Kabul looks battered. Dusty brown hills form the backdrop wherever the eye turns. Yet it is a city struggling to regain its former glory

By Beena Sarwar

Locals cycle past the ancient wall of Kabul

It was once known as the city of flowers, said Zahira Khattak, the ANP activist who grew up in Kabul. Now, the only flowers visible in the city provide splashes of colour through the all-pervasive dust at a few isolated roundabouts — and at the splendid, renovated Bagh-e-Babar (Babar’s Garden) on the city outskirts, the last resting place of the first Mughal emperor.

The city still looks battered — but often that’s because old buildings are being knocked down to make way for high-rises. Some gracious old buildings still stand tall in the midst of the dust and rubble. A series of upmarket high-rise apartment blocks emerge from the dust on the road from the airport. Air-conditioned shopping malls and boutique restaurants cater to the crowds of expatriate workers resident in Kabul, and the Afghani rupee has a better value than the Pakistani rupee. Noisy, unruly traffic bumps non-stop over the unpaved streets. Traffic lights are conspicuous by their absence. There are security barriers everywhere and few women are visible on the streets. The markets close early, but this city is nowhere close to giving up.
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Filed under: Afghanistan | Tagged: Afrasiab Khattak, Aneesa Zeb, Bagh-e-Babar, Bushra Gohar, Dr Alema, Ghazal Srinivas, Hazrat Bahauddin Zakaria, Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, Jyoti Malhotra, Kabul, Killid media, Nafisa Shah, Najiba Ayubi, Nargis Nehan, Pakistan India peace march 2006, Pakistan Women Parliamentary Caucus, peace jirga, Renuka Mishra, Shukriya Barakzai, Tajik women concert, women parliamentarians Pakistan Afghanistan, women peace trialogue, Zahira Khattak | 3 Comments »