Afghanistan, is there really no way forward . Im joined by three observers and analysts who all are very passionate about the future of afghanistan, beginning with mal malaiz daud, he says the security nosedive in afghanistan is due both to the withdrawal of International Combat forces and to russia and iran joining forces with pakistan to support the taliban. So with us, d. W. s own birgitta schulke, she had worked in afghanistan since someone and said the situation there has never been so bad. Nd a warm welcome to Susanne Koelbl from der spiegel. She said peace will only be possible if afghanistans neighbors settle their issues. Thank you once ger for being with me. Malaiz id like to begin with you. We had a peace conference with afghanistan with no tangible results. I saw an interesting quote from after an from an afghan woman who said, we can survive but we cant live. Does that sum up the fate of the Afghan People at this point in time . Malaiz i think it depends. With two events in kabul and one a month ago where close to , there rs were killed is a certain dramatic escalation in violence but i cant say there are people who dont live there, to be honest. You have places that are intensely contested between the taliban and the government, theres a lot of violence, but you have places like in the north which are relatively safe and people do live there. However, when it comes to this conference you talked about yesterday, it is one conference in a series of conferences. What happened was a few months ago, russians decided to h hold coconference between russia, china and pakistan, executing afghanistan and the u. S. That didnnt really sit well with the afghan government. And they said we should have owner sthoich process. So then they negotiated and then this conference happened. But for the past almost 10 years weve had seven meetings and even a lot of covert meet wgs the taliban, both formal and informal with the government, without the presence of the government, with politicians from all sorts of political groups inside afghanistan. You de wrote a book and described afghanistan as a beloved country but a dark country, would you say the mood is darker than ever now in afghanistan . Susanne it is definitely dark because the hope vanish. This is the major thing we see right now, most likely what this lady has in mind when she aid we live we are alive. Peter alive but dont live. Susanne what is lacking is a perspective, is the belief that this will go the right path that this will go forward. This is not what people say, its much better in times, lets say from 2001 to 2005 and from then on it really really turned the other way. And they dont see that its going anywhere. , mean, violence is rising political stability is less, the president i is an intellectual who is an amazing mind but at the same time he doesnt really convince the people that he has he has he is pulling the strings. Its like he is he puppet, not the puppet but hes actually reacting on things which are imposed on him. So this is how people perceive it more or less. Peter youve been traveling to afghanistan for 15 years, since 2002, i believe. On your most recent visit regular porting for dw, what did you learn . Birgitta for me, it was very interesting to see how people in kabul live in this bad security situation. So its a little bit like you see two sides. On the one side, there is this sense of constant danger, so people told us several times, if i get out of the house in the morning, say goodbye to my family, i have no idea if i will come back alive. So this is in their head, constant fear. They are scared. On the other hand side they try to live a normal life. And still regain hope after each attack. Its diminishing, its getting less, but they still try, try again, believe in their country. This was for me very interesting to see those both sides. Peter malaiz, how does this situation, this insecurity on a daytoday basis impact your family members in afghanistan . What do they tell you . How cothey live with it . Malaiz one had an interview and said theres a certain level of tolerance for violence for afghans. We have been through a war for the past 40 years. Again, you develop your coping mechanisms. When i was down there, one of the things i would do, in the morning i would leave to the office quite early so im not stuck in the rush hour and then come home when rush hour was over in the evening. You develop coping mechanisms and hope nothing bad happens to you. Peter does that reflect your experience when youre actually in the country . Do you have a sense of the situation, youve been going there for 15 years, that the situation has gotten worse in that time . Birgitta absolutely. When i started to go to afghanistan, we can sit outside in cafes, we could drive from kabul with a car. This is not possible anymore. E see fighting in 31 of 34 provinces. We are reduced in our possibility to reach out to people, to tell the stories we really want to tell. So and we always have this also the sense, it can happen if you are wrong time, wrong place, it can happen to you as well. Susanne i think the limits i think ed susanne the limited movement shows exactly how we stand. Its the perimeter where you can see how secure it is. S the as she said, in the beginning you could drive from kandahar, it was a little scary, might be criminals could cross your way but there were no bombs, nothing like that. So now you have to think, where do i go . You do not even tell the driver where you go in advancece. And you do not leave the city without having a point of contact prepared at the gate, when you leave the city. I mean you have to take Safety Measures w which you measurements which you have e n which you never did at that time. So its definitely that the freedom of movement is so limited d and yes, its very insecure. Definitely. Peter despite the insecurity we have just been hearing about, since the end of last year, the German Government has actually been organizing deportation flights carrying afghans who have been whose in cases for asylum here germany have been rejected, back to afghanistan. Lets get a short idea of what that means for people deported from germany to afghanistan. In kabul, hes afraid, isolated and lorenly. He was one of the first refugees to be deported back to afghanistan. He still has photos of the Vocational School he attended in germany he misses his german friends. Now hes woworried about being killed by the taliban. The taliban murdered my father because he was a famous general. Thats why i fled. If they find me theyll killll me. Im m afraid. Its not safe here. Its too dangerous for him to go back to his home province and he doesnt have enough money to leave the couldnt reagain. Hes trapped between germany and afghanistan, between the past and the future. Will afghanistan ever be able to provide a safe and secure homeland for its people . Peter the policy of deportations from germany to afghanistan has been suspended temporarily but i fear it will go ahead. How can the German Government justify sending people back to afghanistan given the level of violence weve been talking about . Birgitta they are justifying it by saying there are safe places in afghanistan. I would say there are not because a place which is safe today might be a place of an attack tomorrow. And we met a will the of deportees who came back from germany and they feel highly insecure. They dont know the situation in kabul. They dont have work. They dont have a place to live. So theyre really in the middle of nowhere. And its not only the deportees from europe. Afghanistan is overwhelmed with about more than 600,000 refugees who came back from pakistan and from iran. So they get very little help. And thats the situation and also aid organizations who try to help are absolutely overwhelmed with the situation. Peter what do you make of this policy, its very controversial here in germany. Malaiz personally im against it. I dont think itit should happe i think its to the benefit of the german state in the future, these people could be productive for the german state. But when it comes to politics, politics is ruthless and in this country we have people who are against having the refugees who are going to make their voice count when it comes to ballot boxes. Of course the politicians will make those kinds of decisions. When it comes to our government, to be honest, our state has done a lot, theyre making every single effort to make sure the country becomes secure but they are failing to some extent, thats understandable. The 600,000 refugees that have come back are forced out of pakistan. Again, the government has been trying to devise plans and then get the funding to make sure that these people are reintegrated. One of the debates that is going on in afghanistan is that if the refugees come back from pakistan, with the level of violence because the afghans will not be able to be trained in pakistan by whatever forces and then come back and fight here. So on a personal level because i enjoy living here and i think the price of living in a free society like this one are way more than you can do there but of course politics is what is driving everything in this country. Peter when you talk about politics, given the level of violence were talking about, has not the time come for the International Community to admit that all its efforts have been in vain and that the project of bringing peace to afghanistan is simply a failure. Malaiz all would be harsh. Its not all in vain. Ill give you an example. Students 0 afghan have been trained in germany and hold bachelors dregs, masters degrees and even ph. D. s. Thousands of afghan students like myself have gone out, studieding come back, some are in the western countries, doing valuable things. So that would be harsh. But i think we needd to go back to the goal they set in the beginning. At the beginning they said, we only want to deal with the terrorism in that country. It was counterterrorism, then nation build, state building, so Counter Insurgency and then counterterrorism. If youre dealing only with counterterrorism and actually you forgot the country in favor of iraq for some time, this was bound to happen. But the problem that people ok at it only as intervention, not what the afghans do there. In our history, i dont remember this expansive policy that we have today in afghanistan. Different groups coming together, to be part of this. That had never happened in our history before. You either had one powerfulful Group Dominating politics or you had civil wars and violence between the different groups. susanne do you, troo too have a positive narrative for us . Susanne i have seen good and bad things in this country over the course of time. Certainly saw a lot of progress, especially young people who formerly lived in a completely isolated place and then connected with the world and i saw people, myself, i worked with, who never spoke english before, never knew how to use a computer or something and they picked it up to quickly and made their way. They found this founded companies. Amazing stories happen definitely. But this is happening at the same time as the political issues are not settled. And this is why its a parallel universe that pem live in there. Malaiz the problem, even the terminology is very problematic. For example, as a political scientist, state building, thats problematic. No bun builds no one builds a state for you. We talk about state formation. Look at the path of state formation in western country, the u. S. And europe took a very long time. And particularly in the sense of modern state to be able to have monopoly of violence in a country it will take a long time. So we have to put things into perspective. Peter were at an important juncture in afghanistan, esident trump is reviewing policy in afghanistan, he would favor withdrawing troops from afghanistan. Would that be a good idea . Susanne not at all. To withdraw birgitta no, to withdraw all the troops would make the taliban stronger, they would gain territory for sure. Even worse would be if the government would withdraw their funding because about 70 of the afghan budget is from international sources. So and we saw in the 1990s what can happen if all the help is withdrawn. The government collapsed. We had civil war which brought the taliban later on. I think it was absolutely, it would be a catastrophe if the International Community would tep out in this radical way. Peter trump said before, when he was elected, he said this is a decision his Defense Department and state department have to make. And what we get from that is at the military says we need more american trainer and then of course the Coalition Partners also pledge some more troops. And just recently, two or three the secretary of state said taliban are fighting against the civilized world. The narrative has changed from what the Obama Administration asked for, they were going to go and fought on. And the defense secretary said the same thing. From his previous experience, general mattis is saying theres no way you can enter political talks with the taliban, you have to fight them. One other thing, to put everything into perspective. If you look at the region from me middle east to china and west in general, the only country you see where despite intervention the u. S. And the world still does really well is afghanistan. So thats the last outpost you have left there. And if you lose that, then what happened in manchester, in london, that will even increase. Peter is it time to talk to the taliban . This is a strategy thats been much muted at this point in time. Susanne governments talk to the taliban all the time. I remember once i did a profile on president karzai at the time, 2006 or 2007, so i spent a couple of days with him. The taliban, high level taliban, has been visiting him all the time. So contact is there. Thats not the issue. And i think there could be a settlement with the taliban. But the political issue is bigger. So its not only about the taliban and the government. That could be settled, possibly. No, its a regional conflict which cannot be ignored. And the taliban cannot act independently. They are dependent on and supported by the neighbors. And so you have to take in account what their interests are. Peter at the peace conference earlier this week, the president said the Afghan People will be victims of bloodshed but will survive they will fight on that kind of spirit, weve got three examples of that spirit. Lets have a look at that. We are tired of war. Thats why i wanted to do something different. Something cool. I love riding bikes and want to inspire others. I also want to do something to promote general equality in gender equality in afghanistan. This is our country. We have to rebuild it. Nobody is going to do it for us. Maybe ill go and study abroad for a while but ill come back straight away to support women in afghanistan with what ive learned. We dont want to have thehe symbol of wars anymore in our country. You see ant everyday these things, so we restore it to show that war has fin herbed, nothing should remain from the war. Wewe are going fororward. And rebuilding is going to appen. Peter that last woman, a remarkable woman, tell us a little bit more about her and her story. Birgitta shes an architect, helping to restore the old kings palace, and the palace is a little bit sort of, can we say symbol of war. Its absolutely destroyed from 40 years of war. But it never collapsed and this is a little bit how people see it. Its like afghanistan. Its destroyed but it hasnt collapsed and this is how the hope they have. But on the other hand side if you say we want to show theres peace, the whole reconstruction is taking place behind huge walls for security. And high security. So this already shows, she ies to keep the hope but she told me in the car later on she has experienced three times, blasts very close to her. And she said after that, im always so afraid when only cars are approaching me. But then she said again, but we have to live, we have to go on. So she tries to cope. Peter give us a word on how important women are for the future of afghanistan, how important they can be. Susanne women have always kept the society together. At the end of the day, the men are out, fight, the women are keeping the Families Together and raising the kids and everything. And theyre very strong. Its not that they are really weak and we have to say we have a complete new generation of women whoo can speak other languages, who are trained, who go to university, or went to university, and even the security is getting worse now, this doesnt go away. Its a new consciousness about what life could be, we are not isolated any longer. What possibilities there are in life. And you have a lot of media. You have newspapers. You have everything. And you have role models which show this is possible. Why should i not be one of those women in the future . So and this will stay. It will not go away. I dont know exactly what theyll make out of it. But theres a change. Peter the peter the man to your left has been nodding. Malaiz very interesting c commander or hes o was recently of putting attacking womens faces when he was in school. When he was reconciled, his wife was there, his dadaughter was there. He has gone from that kind of person to defying the role of women in public. The reason is he can see women can do a lot of good things when theyre in public and second he he cannot go against the way things have changed. Women have a place now in the society. Bush ing the second afghan war, the Afghan Forces were defeated in maiwand, and there was a woman who came up and theek flag and she led the forces. So we have those kinds of stories in the history too. Peter were drawing to the close of our discussion. Where will afghanistan be in five years time . Birgitta i think they will still struggle. I think the conflicict will not be solved by then. But i very hope, very much hope for the country that they still work on a political solution. Susanne it completely depends on what america and china decide. Malaiz i think well muddle through, but well survive. Peter ok. Weve been discussing the fupe of afghanistan. We hope it is a happy future. Time alone will tell. Thanks for joining us here on quadriga this week. Byebye. 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