Seeking a Common Future
M. Ashraf Haidari
April 14, 2011
When I first joined the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington , D.C. , in
2004, as director of government and media relations, the embassy lacked
everything from a basic management structure to carry out its routine diplomatic
activities to a website that could help facilitate customer service online. The
concept of public diplomacy through direct dialogue with the American people —
explaining to them our shared interests in securing the future of Afghanistan —
was unknown.
Indeed, like the rest of Afghanistan 's nascent state institutions, no one
was to blame for this fledgling status that I encountered in one of our key
embassies in the world. But it was apparent that unless the structural and
organizational problems were resolved to create a functional system, individual
diplomats, no matter how resourceful and skilled, could hardly be effective in
their duties to promote bilateral relations and a long-term strategic
partnership with the United States .
To help address these interconnected issues, we set out to revamp the
embassy's dysfunctional website so we could use it to present an image of the
Afghan people and culture that was not well known to the U.S. public. More than
two decades of war and destruction in Afghanistan meant that Americans had
hardly heard about the core values of freedom, liberty, and pluralism that the
Afghan people share with them. Nor did Americans know that the extremist
ideology of the Taliban (which would later extend to sheltering Al Qaeda), which
unfortunately prevailed in Afghanistan before the tragedy of 9/11, had been
completely alien to Afghans before the Taliban's 1994 emergence in their
country.
We wanted to raise awareness about a new Afghanistan , with one of the
world's youngest populations, which overwhelmingly continues to seek a future of
democracy and pluralism against totalitarianism and extremism. This took center
stage in our outreach efforts. To help institutionalize these and other
capacity-building efforts, I helped draft a five-year strategic plan, in which
we organized our very limited human resources around the implementation of our
core national objectives. In less than six months, consequently, the embassy
began functioning as a proactive diplomatic institution, where issues of
bilateral and multilateral interest or concern could be advanced or addressed.
We strove to fight against an image of Afghanistan as a "dirt poor" nation,
often portrayed by critics of U.S. involvement in the country. The fact is that
Afghanistan sits on about $1 trillion worth of minerals, and Afghans see this
abundant mineral wealth as a way to secure and rebuild our war-ravaged homeland.
In addition to using the embassy website, I initiated an annual subscription
to Global Business Gateways, through which we have tried to inform the U.S.
business community of the profitability of being among the first to invest in
Afghanistan's virgin markets, as well as our historical tradition of commerce
and cultural exchange that dates back to the era of the Silk Road. We wanted
them to know that with each economic opportunity that is seized, Afghans, as an
enterprising and resilient nation, can move one step closer to reconnecting with
the global economy and securing a stable and prosperous future.
At the same time, I understood that Afghanistan 's untapped human resources
lay outside the country in our large immigrant communities in many developed
nations, particularly in the United States . So, I published two detailed
articles in several prominent Afghan publications to highlight how resourceful
Afghans abroad could play a vital role in the overall rebuilding and development
of Afghanistan . I noted that they could do so by: 1) building institutional
capacity in Afghanistan , 2) investing in the country's new and emerging
markets, 3) strengthening the Afghan civil society, and 4) advocating to
maintain international focus on the priorities of rebuilding Afghanistan .
Years of exiled life with its attendant hardships mean that most Afghan
immigrants need to be motivated to make the first move, much like the "first
mover" investors. So, as a former refugee and internally displaced person myself
— who later learned at Wabash College and Georgetown University how other
nations, including the U.S. and Japan, had built their nations and governments —
I reminded Afghan immigrants of their debt of service to our homeland.
In an article called "Rebuilding Afghanistan: The Diaspora's Debt of
Service," I wrote, "Let us never ask what Afghanistan can do for us but ask what
we can do for Afghanistan. We can do for Afghanistan what the Japanese and other
post-conflict nations did for their homelands. We should begin right here and
right now in the West where we have the resources, the capacity, the know-how,
and the wealth to walk our talk about the challenges of securing and rebuilding
Afghanistan . Let us do our share and avoid going down in the history books as a
diaspora that never made a serious effort to save our homeland and allowed it to
be a pawn in the game of others."
I know from personal experience that the world hardly knows the soft and
generous side of the United States . Indeed, it is because of the tremendous
goodwill and generosity of the American people towards Afghanistan that their
government continues to spend billions of dollars in civilian and military aid
to stabilize and rebuild Afghanistan . In order to thank them in person for
their continued support of the Afghan people — with whom Americans share a
common future through globalized security and economic prosperity — and to
explain to them in specific, tangible ways how American taxpayer money had
changed the lives of Afghans forever in Afghanistan, I have vigorously engaged
in public diplomacy.
Between 2004 and late 2010 when my assignment ended at the embassy, I
traveled to more than 30 American states, speaking at universities, schools,
churches, think tanks, professional associations, and senior citizen clubs to
explain to the American people how and why security and prosperity in
Afghanistan equates to the long-term security of the United States. I reminded
them how neglecting the post-Cold War reconstruction of Afghanistan allowed
transnational terrorists and criminals to base their anti-American operations in
the country and to isolate Afghans from the rest of the world. I would explain
that had the U.S. invested a fraction of what it has so far spent on the war
against terrorism since 9/11, Afghanistan would have been a democratic and
developing nation, contributing, like South Korea , to the security of the
United States and to international peace. In individual conversations after each
talk I was heartened to hear from many Americans that they agreed that their
country had long neglected Afghanistan and they promised to support their
government in not making the same mistake again.
Moreover, I visited many American military bases to brief the senior
leadership of the U.S. forces who were deploying to Afghanistan . I learned
through my own participation in these military briefings how hard the U.S.
government continues to try and prepare its forces for effective military
operations in Afghanistan , even though I frequently impressed upon them the
strategic loss that we and our nation-partners would incur as a result of
civilian casualties. "Alienating or harming one Afghan, who supports your
presence in Afghanistan , would mean losing the support of his entire village or
tribe," I would often remind the U.S. forces.
Incidentally, the embassy website allows visitors to enter their e-mail
address into our online database so that subscribers receive our monthly
newsletter with updates on the achievements of the government and people of
Afghanistan , in partnership with the United States , as well as the challenges
confronting our two nations.
I understand that stabilization of Afghanistan cannot be accomplished by the
United States alone. We believe every country in the region and beyond must have
a high stake in the stabilization and reconstruction of Afghanistan — knowing
that, in a globalized world, the effects of violent extremism and insecurity in
one country can easily spill over beyond Afghan's borders. Of course, Afghans
must lead the way forward. But the burden of securing Afghanistan must be shared
by the whole international community; both to bring peace to the country and to
ensure a safer world for everyone.
I will soon return home to take up a new assignment at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Afghanistan , and I will draw on the past six fleeting years
of experience in the United States to help advance the shared interests of
Afghanistan and America toward a common secure future. I strongly believe this
shared objective is achievable through a binding strategic partnership between
our two nations, so that Afghanistan never again becomes a no man's land — a
fertile ground for extremism and terrorism from which the United States could be
attacked as it was on 9/11.
M. Ashraf Haidari works with the Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
formerly served as the deputy ambassador and political counselor of the Embassy
of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C.
The above article originally appeared in
The
Diplomatic Pouch. Reprinted here with permission from the author.
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