Peacebuilding and peacekeeping — Canadian style, close up — that's what I witnessed as one of ten Canadian educators invited by the Department of National Defence to Operation Athena in Kabul, Afghanistan. Through their lens, I was impressed by the expertise and generosity of our troops, there as part of the NATO mandate to secure the environment in the capital of Afghanistan's fledgling democracy. Kabul is the most “secure” and “wealthy” place in the country, yet it's difficult to convey the disparity in privilege, safety and opportunity that separates our two countries, especially for women and children. These photographs offer only glimpses of a people struggling to recover from decades of war, still on the brink.
Marilou McPhedran Co-Director International Women's Rights Project University of Victoria Centre for Global Studies Victoria, BC
Figure. A hierarchy among the marginalized. The woman in this photograph who is not wearing a burqua appears to be a Roma woman who is plying her begging trade; the Afghan women appear disinclined to stop and give. In truth, the women in burqas have little to give. Undoubtedly, conditions have improved for many women and girls since the violently oppressive days of the distorted Taliban orthodoxy — schools for girls are opening all over the country (many with the support of Canadian peacekeepers), women in Kabul can leave their houses without the formerly mandatory male escort — but most women still seek the relative safety of anonymity under a burqa (usually in this beautiful shade of blue polyester, but sometimes in red, black or green burqas). There are still reports of women being harrassed, kidnapped off the streets and sexually assaulted as punishment for showing their faces in public. Dr. Samar noted that perpetrators can commit such aggressions with impunity because resources are concentrated on security forces, with little left to invest in the complementary justice mechanisms needed to hold assailants accountable. Hence her message, “no peace without justice,” drives home the need to bolster civil society as well as the military. Photo by: Lord Strathcona's Horse Reconnaissance Squadron
Figure. Hazards of peacekeeping. As we left Camp Julien in our “Coyote” armoured vehicle, en route to meeting Dr. Sima Samar, the courageous surgeon who now presides over the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission headquartered in Kabul, we were approached by clusters of men and boys meandering or just standing beside the road. The boys looked a lot like the one in this poster, which was issued by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the multinational NATO force contracted by the UN to provide security in Afghanistan. The poster was displayed in offices, dining areas and mess tents throughout the camp where we were “embedded,” alerting troops to the very real risk of being involved in a fatal accident. Many Afghans, young and old, are unfamiliar with the lethal momentum of these huge vehicles; the result has been accidents that have injured or killed Afghan civilians. In explicably, on the day we departed Camp Julien all the posters were being removed; it was “an order,” I was told. Photo by: Marilou McPhedran
Figure. In the Kabul market. When we stepped off the massive Canadian Forces “Herc” airplane on our arrival in Afhganistan, we were quickly escorted into completely enclosed armoured carriers known as “Bisons” and so saw nothing of Kabul as we hurtled through its dark, rain-soaked streets. Thus I was thrilled the next day to be allowed to “ride sentry” from the manhole of an armoured “Coyote” and to see the congested Kabul cityscape as we made our way through sunny streets like these. However, I was cautioned to be alert with the sad reminder that, months before, Canadian Cpl. Jamie Brendan Murphy had been killed by a man who stepped out of a cluster of people, jumped on a military jeep and detonated a bomb strapped to his body. Photo by: Lord Strathcona's Horse Reconnaissance Squadron
Figure. Afghan boys looking through barbed wire into the Queen's Palace enclosure. The Canadian Forces' Camp Julien is built on de-mined ground overlooked at its northern edge by the condemned building that was once the King's Palace, and shadowed on its southern tip by the bullet-ridden, now deserted, Queen's Palace. Each abandoned palace is encircled by layers of barbed wire, reinforced by sharpshooters from NATO countries on 24-hour guard under Canadian command. The Queen's Palace was usually strictly off limits, but here, as with every stop we made, the moment we emerged from our heavily armoured Coyotes, young boys (never girls) materialized and called out for money, gifts or to have their photo taken. The only way to take their picture was through barbed wire. Photo by: Marilou McPhedran