An interview with Abdul Haq Amiri
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“The Kite Runner tells you the life of every single individual in Afghanistan. People of my age ran through land mine fields that were thrown by helicopters and planes from the skies, which destroyed a lot of women and men, and maimed many boys and girls. The book outlined the suffering of the people, the atrocities committed by the parties to the conflict, the destruction of the infrastructure, of the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the country,” says Abdul Haq Amiri, the Chief of Section in the Operations and Advocacy Division in Geneva with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) covering the Middle East and North Africa.
How long has the war in Afghanistan been going on for?
I had just started grade nine when the communist revolution started in the spring of 1978. The young communists started arresting civilians, torturing and killing them on grounds that they were counter revolutionaries. There was a peoples’ uprising against the regime and a year later the Soviet forces invaded the country to save the regime. They entered by air and land. In my province, they entered through a neighboring district which today neighbors Tajikistan. I remember that it was during a very cold winter when the Soviets tanks and military entered my district. As a result of the invasion, I lost one year of school education. We were displaced to mountains with no means of transport, no food, and no help from anywhere. At the time there was no media, nothing to tell the world what was happening.
Have the drivers, the causes of the war changed overtime?
No, the causes haven’t changed. Afghanistan is a very unfortunate country that has spent much of its life since it was formed as a country at war either with its neighbors, the British, the Soviets or with itself. Like many other crises, the drivers are injustice, control for political power and resources, inequality and extreme poverty, accompanied by religious extremism, drug lordism and criminality.
And what in your view could be done to stop it?
I have come to the conclusion that the only way to stop the war in Afghanistan is to come up with a decentralized mechanism or system. You can have the central government, but allow the provinces and districts to establish their own institutions through democratic processes and link them to the national level. This’d enable a shift away from the capital and better distribution of resources, power, income and the budget. It'd also facilitate planning at the local level and over a period of time it’d help to reduce inequality and to build a cadre of technocrats at the provincial and district levels that could run their affairs, ending the war. As am speaking to you, the results of the elections have been announced, and we currently have three governments: The current government that has been declared by the election commission as the winner, the opposition, and the Taliban, who have their own government and are in negotiations with the United States and the international community. Basically, in this small country, you have three governments, and this is really driving the crisis to a point that we’re all worried.
If you step away from Afghanistan, and look at it at the global level, what do you see as the main drivers of humanitarian crises?
There are a number of issues I’ve learned from the various countries where I’ve worked and particularly during the so-called Arab Spring: Inequality, extreme poverty, dictatorship, control of power and use of power and resources to hold on to power and isolate others from having a say in the affairs of their countries, that lack of democratic institutions, I think, is ruining countries. Many countries have been shattered by conflict, majority of the youth who are well educated are unemployed, isolated and have no say whatsoever in the political affairs of their countries. This has left them discontent. The drivers of conflict stem from a combination of these issues.
What one action could we advocate for to stop these crises?
Asking member states who have influence on the conflicts to put their vested interests aside and put the wellbeing of innocent people who have suffered for so long as their priority, and work with other member states to find solutions to these crises. They should also encourage politicians in these countries to adapt a policy of inclusive dialogue to build democratic institutions, and respect the rule of law.
When it comes to advocacy, do you think there’s a role for stories, fiction, to help us advocate for the resolution of these humanitarian crises?
I think humanitarian stories have enormous impact on this. At the end of the day, politicians are human beings like us who have their own feelings and when they read stories that are well written, that explain the consequences of the decisions that are made by someone else, but impact the lives of so many children, men, women, and elderly, I think it can help them to make the right decisions. It’s easier said than done, but one has to keep knocking on the doors, keep bringing the issues to their attention by all means and ways possible. Fiction would have a really powerful message for politicians, but also for the general public who vote for the politicians.
What kind of books, fiction stories have you read that have achieved this?
I have read quite a number of books. I started with Leo the African by Amin Maalouf. This book is the story of a man called Hassan who was a 16th century traveler and writer. He was circumcised by a barber and baptized by a Pope. While he’s referred to as the African, he isn’t from Africa or Europe or Arabia. Through Hassan’s story, Amin Malouf writes about pirates, slave-girls and princesses in a state of religious flux, the fall of Grenada, the Othoman conquest of Egypt, and the consequences of war that forced the North African people who went into south Spain to either convert or leave the country.
I’ve read all the books by Khaled Hosseini, but I found two of them quite moving: The Kite Runner, which is about the life of a boy, Amir, a Sunni Muslim, his relationship with his father and his struggle to come to terms with an incident that occurred in his childhood. As the writer said, it’s a story of guilt, friendship, forgiveness, loss, and desire for atonement, and desire to be better than who you think you are, which are universal themes. But it’s a story set against the backdrop of war. In the book, Amir’s father had an affair with Hassan’s mother. Hassan’s family are from the Hazara minority, who were victims of cultural, tribal, poverty and class issues. Hassan was also Amir’s brother from a secret affair that his father had with his servant’s wife. Amir and his family migrated to the US after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A few years after the withdrawal of the Soviets, he returns to search for his childhood friend, but he learns Hassan was killed during the war, and his only son is in the custody of the Taliban. In my opinion, it depicts a picture that’s very grim.
And then there is A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is about the life of a woman from one ethnic group who wants to get married, and what happens to her. It shows the impact that Afghanistan’s violent history has had on civilians, in particular the women and girls. It’s fiction, but you can see how the actions of others, politicians, tribal leaders, clergies, relatives have an impact on the life of a young woman who has no or very limited freedom in terms of choosing what she wants to be or who she wants to marry and so on. You may have read Emma’s War written by Deborah Scroggins. In this book, you can feel love, affection and warlordism, and how it impacts people, and the politics of the distribution of relief and so on.
In your view, how would Kite Runner for instance help to raise awareness and hopefully spark action to address the causes and drivers of conflict?
The Kite Runner, depicts how families escaped the country along the borders guarded by Soviet and Afghan soldiers, and what the Soviets were doing, and how the people were taken from their vehicles and killed, and how they ended up in Pakistan, and what happened there. When Amir came back to search for his childhood friend and step brother, he learned that he had been targeted and killed by the Taliban, however he left a son behind. The Kite Runner tells you the life of every single individual in Afghanistan. People of my age ran through land mine fields that were thrown by helicopters and planes from the skies, which destroyed a lot of women and men, and maimed many boys and girls. The book outlined the suffering of the people, the atrocities committed by the parties to the conflict, the destruction of the infrastructure, of the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in the country. It also reflects on the injustices and social differences that existed in the country for centuries.
How did you end up in humanitarian aid?
When I finished high school in 1984, the Soviet Union and the communist regime wanted to take people who had graduated from high school to military service to fight the rebels for 3 to 4 years. We had a conscription system for military service at the time. A group of us decided that this wasn’t a good option for us and we ran away to the rebels areas. One night, the local commander sent his people for me. When I got there, I found three people who had been injured by rocket launchers. They had shrapnel in their bodies and the Commander asked me to operate on them since I had graduated from high school. You can imagine, as a very young boy at the age of eighteen, the last thing you want to do is to operate on anyone, I couldn’t. I couldn’t even sit in the room. When they were taking the shrapnel out and the person was crying, at that time it occurred to me that if I ever have a chance, I’d use my life for something that helps other people otherwise my existence wouldn’t mean anything. War was raging in Afghanistan when I completed my education, but I said to myself, if I don’t go and help my own people, how can I expect others to do so? That’s why I went back, and that’s how I started.
What do you enjoy the most about your job?
I am convinced that what we do, no matter how small, has an impact on the lives and wellbeing of many people whose lives have been shattered by conflict and disasters. This is one thing that I carry with pride, and has really helped me to stick to this job. Another thing is that we speak on behalf of people who are voiceless and no one can understand that better than myself. When you leave your country through land mines, through mountains, walking all night to end up all alone in another country with no money, with no future, with no hope, I’ve lived that.
Tell me about a person or a situation you have encountered in your work that has had a profound effect on you.
In 1997, I took a group of Ambassadors to Faizabad province in northeastern Afghanistan, controlled by Northern Alliance. We went to one of the few girls school that were still operational in the country. The Taliban had banned girls from going to schools. The Swedish Ambassador who was also the dean of the Ambassadors spoke about the humanitarian situation and what the donors were doing to help. One of the girls asked a question that has stayed with me throughout my life. She asked the Ambassador why the world was so indifferent to their plight. What I liked was the Ambassador’s answer, which was very honest. He said, You guys are suffering because the interests of the member states that have influence in your country aren’t aligned and as long as those interests don’t come together, the war and suffering in your country will continue. He also said the UN couldn’t do much because the UN has to bring people around the table, and provide a venue for discussions, but as long as the member states don’t agree on a mechanism, there’s no solution, and this is what I’ve seen elsewhere.
What is your greatest hope for the people affected by humanitarian crises?
My hope is that the crises and suffering end quickly, that people have the freedom to go back home to regain their land and property and their lives, and that their children can go to school like normal children, like everybody else, and they can rebuild their lives, their country, their homes, that I don’t hear of any more suffering both in my own country, but also in the countries in the region, and elsewhere in the world. I think this is wishful thinking, but we have to wish for the best.
What one action do you think someone who’ll read this interview, who’ll listen to it, can take to resolve crises?
They can do two things: one they should say enough is enough and put pressure on their politicians to find solutions to these crises. It’s critical to put an end to the continuation of conflicts and the suffering of people. In many countries, it has gone on for far too long and it’s enough. The second thing is that they need to help us, humanitarian workers, to help people in need. The crisis isn’t the making of civilians, civilians are the victims, they didn’t create it and yet they’re in desperate need of food, water, shelter, and so on. At the minimum, we need to be able to provide these basic needs to people. We as human beings, each and every one of us, has a role to play in this and can contribute something and the sum of all our efforts will be quite significant.
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