A rather random number of items, based on the fact that I met some Dari Afghans last week - they spent the night here in fact - and were fascinating to talk to....It was exciting to hear about Afghanistan from a non-Taliban perspective - they were devout Muslims - but very liberal - disliked burqas and were shocked to see them when they arrived in London!
A lot of what they said explained things to me - especially the role of Pakistan in Afghan politics and how they resented it. I told them how we had had a Saudi student here and what he had said - this made them laugh a lot! They are not fond of the Saudis, the Taliban or any other manifestations of unhelpful Islam. They were also exceptionally courteous - I can't say how much I liked them - I felt I was getting the story of Afghanistan from "the horse's mouth" except that this horse looked like the kind of man you would see on a 3,000 year old bas-relief from Persia. It made me happy to meet them - because what they were saying felt right. They were justifiably annoyed at the way the West portrayed Afghanistan as an "ungovernable, primitive" country - Z pointed out reasonably, that Afghanistan had been well governed by a peaceful monarchy for centuries - and it was generally incursions by Russians, British etc. that caused the trouble. Of course I know little of Afghan history but this certainly chimes in with what I understand. Rather like medieval Scotland - once there's a power vaccuum, lots of great lords come out to try their hand... and there've been appalling power vacuums. They also said that Khasi (spelling?) was NOT a good thing - and very personally corrupt.
I was able to run these ideas past my friend A tonight - and he agreed with that they had said (he's an "old Pakistan hand" i..e. BBC Correspondent there for a while) and that the Dari were Persians and that Persia/Iran held the key to everything in the ME now.... this could be confirmed, because one of their complaints was that the US was obsessed with Iran and keeping it down, while the Paks rampaged freely in Afghanistan, spreading nasty versions of Islam.
Friendships
A was of course fascinated to hear of my latest friend bust up...he crowed "I told you - first about the witch and then about....".... "You are not as good at spotting these baddies as me!". I said that basically I gave people more slack than he did, I tolerated lots of things more. I suppose my dislike of conflict means I don't respond so much to provocation, I pull my punches - and sometimes I have a slightly arrogant feeling that it doesn't matter what they think, because it doesn't in any way begin to challenge what I think. Obviously, these people are not fools - they know they are not getting the full version of what I think...and they feel snubbed by it. So they react. At the risk of sounding like that Randy Newman song - "My life is good!", even though I have fewer people to dally with, I don't find my life is terribly impoverished by the fact that I've shed a few friends in the last year (it's been far more impoverished by deaths: Strat, Paul C, Marion). One can't get everyone to agree - one hopes that friends will accept that, and change the subject, but if they insist.... the fact is, however much I value and enjoy someone's support and interest, if they cannot accept that I'm different from them, then fundamentally there's no real friendship there: there may be kindness, affection and all sorts of things - but to me friendship is about support, and maybe occasionally a bit of critique, but fundamentally about mutual acceptance, warts and all. Once one person stops accepting the other's warts - there's an end to it!
 |
| The Panjir valley - home of my visitors. |
A lot of what they said explained things to me - especially the role of Pakistan in Afghan politics and how they resented it. I told them how we had had a Saudi student here and what he had said - this made them laugh a lot! They are not fond of the Saudis, the Taliban or any other manifestations of unhelpful Islam. They were also exceptionally courteous - I can't say how much I liked them - I felt I was getting the story of Afghanistan from "the horse's mouth" except that this horse looked like the kind of man you would see on a 3,000 year old bas-relief from Persia. It made me happy to meet them - because what they were saying felt right. They were justifiably annoyed at the way the West portrayed Afghanistan as an "ungovernable, primitive" country - Z pointed out reasonably, that Afghanistan had been well governed by a peaceful monarchy for centuries - and it was generally incursions by Russians, British etc. that caused the trouble. Of course I know little of Afghan history but this certainly chimes in with what I understand. Rather like medieval Scotland - once there's a power vaccuum, lots of great lords come out to try their hand... and there've been appalling power vacuums. They also said that Khasi (spelling?) was NOT a good thing - and very personally corrupt.
I was able to run these ideas past my friend A tonight - and he agreed with that they had said (he's an "old Pakistan hand" i..e. BBC Correspondent there for a while) and that the Dari were Persians and that Persia/Iran held the key to everything in the ME now.... this could be confirmed, because one of their complaints was that the US was obsessed with Iran and keeping it down, while the Paks rampaged freely in Afghanistan, spreading nasty versions of Islam.
Friendships
A was of course fascinated to hear of my latest friend bust up...he crowed "I told you - first about the witch and then about....".... "You are not as good at spotting these baddies as me!". I said that basically I gave people more slack than he did, I tolerated lots of things more. I suppose my dislike of conflict means I don't respond so much to provocation, I pull my punches - and sometimes I have a slightly arrogant feeling that it doesn't matter what they think, because it doesn't in any way begin to challenge what I think. Obviously, these people are not fools - they know they are not getting the full version of what I think...and they feel snubbed by it. So they react. At the risk of sounding like that Randy Newman song - "My life is good!", even though I have fewer people to dally with, I don't find my life is terribly impoverished by the fact that I've shed a few friends in the last year (it's been far more impoverished by deaths: Strat, Paul C, Marion). One can't get everyone to agree - one hopes that friends will accept that, and change the subject, but if they insist.... the fact is, however much I value and enjoy someone's support and interest, if they cannot accept that I'm different from them, then fundamentally there's no real friendship there: there may be kindness, affection and all sorts of things - but to me friendship is about support, and maybe occasionally a bit of critique, but fundamentally about mutual acceptance, warts and all. Once one person stops accepting the other's warts - there's an end to it!
No comments:
Post a Comment