Post via Islamic Emirate

Over the past few months we have seen a steady stream of Afghans leaving their country to take refuge in Europe due to the ongoing crises facing their nation.

According to media reports this year alone, approximately 800,000 Afghans left their country to head towards Europe. Of these approximately 3,000 asylum seekers drowned in the treacherous passage across the seas.

It is a point of contention whether it is in these asylum seekers’ best interests to rush to Europe and what kind of treatment they can expect there. For now we will only look the reasons that led them to choose this treacherous path.

After the formation of the National Unity Government and its dismal progress so far, the nation feels like it is in a state of paralysis. The Americans have used checks and balances to the letter in forming this government. The two heads of states – the President and the Chief Executive – have their powers so well balanced that both of them could check and annul the orders of the other. In such a mechanism it is impossible to make any progress in policy formation and implementation unless the two leaders fully agree with the proposals. Yet because the two heads of the regime are so different in outlook that it is impossible for them to agree on even the most essentials let alone the tedious policymaking required for running a functioning government.

Prior to his election, Ashraf Ghani ran a highly successful campaign based on revolutionizing the Afghan society. He promised social justice, the liberalization of the economic and government structure, opening of new markets, attracting foreign investment, progress in human rights and much more. All these convinced a large sector of the electorate who voted that Ghani would open great doors for Afghanistan. However now the ghosts of these extravagant promises have come back to haunt him.

He has not been able to fulfill any of the extravagant promises. He has found that while his promises can win him a campaign and look feasible on paper, yet in the thick of politics he is too temperamental and irresolute to enact any of them.

While his promises were inspiring, his fall from grace was even more so. His administration’s failures have dashed any hopes of progress in the minds of the ordinary citizens. As the old English idiom goes ‘the higher you throw a stone, the harder it will fall’. So now we see the hopes of the nation plummet to the abyss after they rose sky high.

The ordinary citizen, seeing the lack of a functioning government, the economic depression engulfing the state, the flight of capital, the abuses and injustices of governmental authority, the impunity of the warlords, and the complete mental inertia of the supposedly Great Intellectual see no hope for their nation.

For them even the perilous passage across the great lands of Asia or the Mediterranean look like a more profitable venture then staying to watch their country plundered by these strongmen whose motto is to fill their coffers while the going is good. At least the latest NATO decision to stay in Afghanistan beyond 2016 gives them a little more time to plunder the few remaining capital of this country.

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Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights/WOT and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad.  She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”.