Remarks by the Hon. Flora MacDonald to the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs – Afghanistan

Thank you for your invitation to appear before you today. This is something of a familiar setting for me, although usually I was doing the questioning. This time I would like to talk with you about Afghanistan. In doing so I may say that I have read with care the mandate, as stated in the motion of November 20th, 2007, that you have set for yourselves.

First, let me mention that I have been going to Afghanistan regularly since March of 2001 when the Taliban still formed the government and had control over most of the country. This year in May I will be making my tenth trip to Afghanistan. Once there I venture out to the high central mountain provinces of Bamyan, Parwan, Oruzgan and further south to the provinces of Ghazni and Paktia. In these areas I travel with the local people, sleep in their mud-brick huts and eat their unvaried but healthy food. As a result of this long and intimate relationship with the people of Afghanistan I would like to state certain assumptions which have a bearing on your mandate.

1. Progress is being made in Afghanistan, although certainly not uniformly throughout the country.
2. A form of local governance is emerging although not particularly the one dictated by western thinking.
3. Rebuilding Afghanistan is going to take a long time – militarily to continue the containment of the militant Taliban in their heartlands of Kandahar, Helmand, Zabol, Paktika and other provinces in the south-east and north-east. But not all so-called Taliban are militant. Among them are people who also desire peace and stability in their country, and many would willingly share those views with others.
4. Rebuilding Afghanistan politically, economically and socially may take even longer than it will militarily. But Afghans themselves will be able to meet these challenges if they can count on a good measure of security.
5. In the broad sweep of history, Afghanistan has been around for a long time. It has suffered attacks, defeats, and partial occupation, but it has never been conquered. Even Alexander the Great had flattering comments to make when he traversed it about it 2,300 years ago.
6. When I first went to Afghanistan in March of 2001, there were very few cars on the streets of Kabul, few men and even fewer women. Today traffic jams are frequent. Some would call this progress in a materialistic sense. Buildings are now sprouting up in the four major centres of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar. A paved ring road connecting these four centres is well on the way to completion.
7. But what about rural Afghanistan were 60% of the population lives in their traditional villages? The first time I visited the Shahidan Valley in the Western part of Bamyan Province, a group of teen-agers who had been demobilized from the warlords militias, told us, very bluntly, that what they wanted most was to go to school. And we (the NGO Future Generations) replied: If you build yourselves a school, we’ll find you a teacher. They did; and we did. Education is one of the most sought after goals in Afghanistan.
8. The Afghan people are hard-working and ingenious. Most villages have no electricity so it means that once the sun goes down their mud-brick huts are without light or heat. Abdullah Barat, originally from Afghanistan, is a man I persuaded to leave his well-paid job in Ottawa to return to Bamyan and work with Future Generations. There he led the rebuilding of the devastated villages in his valley in Bamyan Province. In co-operation with another NGO, Norweigan Church Aid, we undertook a program of buying, installing and maintaining solar panels on the roofs of the little mud-brick houses. The energy collected in the solar panels is transferred to a battery inside each house and from there it is connected to a neon rod light in the ceiling. The artificial light immediately transforms the lives of the villagers. Children are able to study in the evenings, women can do weaving, and men can attend to their many chores. Many tasks are simplified by the use of battery power. In addition, wind and water power are also being harnessed to provide additional power; it is also filtered to provide clean drinking water. And one has to ask: How did all this happen?
9. Primarily, because the villagers came together under Abdullah Barat’s leadership to develop a work plan and discuss how they should proceed. They decided to elect their own local council or shura. These shuras meet on a weekly basis, discuss the needs of the village and select the priorities for action. Records are kept of each meeting. This exercise started in one village in the Shahidan Valley, other villages were impressed and decided to emulate them.
10. Today, all 75 villages in the Shahidan Valley have formed their own local councils. Their next step was to form a Valley Shura which meets monthly. And it is here that local disputes are resolved before they escalate into wider conflict – in the past four years since the shura system has been in place, hundreds of local disputes have been resolved through discussion and compromise. The shura members see this as one of their key accomplishments.
11. One year ago, the capital of Bamyan Province, Bamyan Town, elected its Shura and for the first time in the history of Afghanistan, a woman was elected to head the Shura. Four of the ten members of that Shura are women. This is a breakthrough indeed. Bamyan Province is the only one of the 34 provinces in Afghanistan to have a woman Governor.
12. To sum up. I think the international effort in Afghanistan is important to Canada. And not just militarily, although I support the work of our Canadian forces in Kandahar and elsewhere. But even more, Afghanistan needs long-term development such as Abdullah Barat and his teams of Afghan volunteers are carrying out. The accomplishments of these Bamyan people and their belief that they are making a difference contribute greatly to the stability of the province. This is not to belittle the work that is being done along humanitarian aid lines by the military and other organizations. But it is not long-term development. And to carry that out properly, Canadians have to gain a better understanding of the complexities of the Afghan people including the diversity of their religions, ideologies, ethnicities.
13. These are the things that make up their national psyche, and they are at the root of much of their internal discord. It is important to learn from Afghans themselves and about their capabilities. And that’s what I hope Canada and Canadians will do.
14. Afghanistan today is still a country caught between two potential futures – a fragile democracy that moves forward, or a failed state. Having survived so many obstacles in the past, its people have shown their tenacity, determination and courage.
15. Unfortunately, however, the jury is still out.

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