Caelainn Hogan – Features Editor
International ‘skype-athons’ are not what come to mind when one thinks of Afghanistan, but it is one of many innovative projects undertaken by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers (AYPV), who Farah Mokhtareizadeh travelled to Kabul to work with. Currently writing a PhD in Trinity focussed on female activism and women’s rights in Afghanistan, Farah claims “I got my start in all of this in Ireland because the flights would always stop in Shannon!”, having been a witness at the controversial Pit Stop Ploughshares trial. She travelled to Iraq with Voices for Creative Non-Violence, an organisation she has worked with for the past ten years, in its campaign against sanctions policy. The organisation’s objective is to educate the public about US Foreign policy in the Middle East and to give a true report of how it affects the civilians on the ground and also to oppose “any kind of violence, whether it be economic or military violence, in countries in the Middle East predominantly.”
After Iraq, Farah explained that “many of us felt badly that our focus had been so much on Iraq even though the first country the US invaded was Afghanistan, the US has been there for more than 10 years now.” She is careful to emphasise that since her experience of Afghanistan was limited to Kabul, she cannot say she has “an idea of what it’s like to be under the warfare of Afghanistan”, which is mostly in the Southwest. Although she and her group wanted to travel further afield “the UN had decided that they weren’t going to take us and we don’t know exactly why”. What she did experience of Kabul was a city that resembled a giant prison, with no sewage system in place, and air so polluted a reported 3,000 people died from that alone last year.
The AYPV is a small organisation set up four years ago, formed by young Afghanis, mostly from Hazara families in the Bamiyan Province. “Hazara’s were one of the most persecuted groups in Afghanistan before the invasion, because they’re an ethnic minority and also a religious minority, so that’s the amazing thing about them, that this group that has been the most discriminated against in their country is trying the hardest to bring together themselves with other groups.” The AYPV had read a report submitted by Oxfam to the Lisbon Summit titled ‘Nowehere to Turn’, which gave recommendation to the US and NATO forces on how to create security for civilians. While the report was largely ignored by the summit and the media, the AYPV identified with it, and decided “this is what we feel, this is what we see on the ground, and we’d like to go and interview the NGO’s”. Farah travelled with Voices to Afghanistan to help them with the interviews, getting a better perspective of the situation themselves and helping the AYPV complete their Alternative December Review, which “not only criticised the military policy but also focussed on the civilian infrastructure, such as education and healthcare” which was ignored by the December review issued by Obama last year.
The ‘skype-athons’ were a reaction to a statement by Hilary Clinton claiming Afghanis didn’t care about world public opinion on the war because they believed they were right and would continue with the same strategy. “So the boys were saying that no, world public opinion matters to us” and so Farah and the boys organised two 24 hour skype calls to reach out to people across the world and allow the AYPV to have their say on what their experiences were in their own country and how they wanted it improved. While in Kabul Farah also set up a Twitter and Facebook account for them as well as a blog, although in Bamiyan few people have electricity let alone internet access. From her experience she sees the 2014 deadline for US and NATO forces leaving the country as highly unrealistic. She emphasised the fact that “86% of the Afghan army is illiterate” and the shocking report carried out in the South part of the country revealed that “92% of men polled said they had never heard of two planes crashing into a building and thought the war was over Islam or the war was between Afghanis themselves.” Her opinion that “people are being fed misinformation about what’s going on in Afghanistan” makes her work with the AYPV even more relevant, providing a new and optimistic forum where young Afghanis can voice their opinions directly on an international scale about alternatives to the military strategy and needed changes for their country.
