As the US and Taliban hold peace talks, a veteran reporter says the war in Afghanistan is degenerating with the frontline now “everywhere”.
As a teenager, Bilal Sarwary was watching television when he saw footage of a plane flying into one of the World Trade Centre buildings in New York City. At the time, he was a salesmen in a jewellery store at the Pearl Continental, a five star hotel in Peshawar, a colourful and ancient town on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A day later, the world’s media descended on his hotel and Sarwary’s life changed forever. An Afghan refugee who’d fled the civil war as a small boy with his family, he’d learned English at school. These skills quickly came in handy. He soon became a fixer for journalists and before he knew it, was offered a job with Abu Dhabi TV. He crossed into Afghanistan as the Taliban were being bombed by the Americans.
“I don’t know where I would be if 9/11 had not happened,” he says.
Nearly twenty years on, the fighting has not stopped and Sarwary is still reporting. He’s worked for every major network in the world, including the BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera, and has amassed 97,000 followers on Twitter. He posts about everyday life: miserable bombings and attacks, political meetings, gorgeous snapshots and videos of Afghanistan’s spectacular natural beauty and sizzling kebabs.
But behind all of this, while there is some optimism surrounding the talks between the US and the Taliban, Barwary wonders how much more brutality and violence Afghans can take. President Ashraf Ghani announced recently that 45,000 ANDSF were killed in the last four years. In 2018 alone, it was a bloodbath for civilians—nearly 3,000 were murdered and over 5,000 were injured.
“There’s a really thriving coffin making business. So many Afghans are getting killed,” he laments. “I think the society cannot take it. The long-term impact will be huge.” He adds that while nobody wants to discuss the casualty and death toll of the Taliban, their “bodies are also going back to the villages and the valleys and the weight of these coffins fall like a tonne on the society.”
“This country is crippled with the numbers of orphans and widows. What happens to the wife of a Taliban guy? She’s usually 15, 16. Her life is destroyed. Nobody will marry her. That tragedy breaks my heart in many ways.”
Sarwary says the biggest shift in recent years is that the frontline is now “on the doorsteps of the people of Afghanistan”.
“Everywhere is a frontline. Where has not been attacked? Schools, clinics, mosques, restaurants,” he says. “Cities, villages, highways—nowhere is safe.”
“What is very heartbreaking in my view —and it’s a very dangerous and brutal trend that will continue for a long time—is it now takes seconds, not even a minute, for entire families, dreams and aspirations to be destroyed. In one big attack, an entire family will vanish,” he says. “Weddings turn into funerals because there is a suicide attack or a roadside bomb. Or there is an airstrike. And then people go to a funeral and then funerals are also blown up.”
Sarwary has had brief spells away from the violence— from 2006 to 2010 he moved to Vermont, where he had a scholarship at Middlebury College. But he never wanted to migrate permanently.
“In my own view, when I came back in 2001, I also brought my coffin back. I want to live here and die here. There are many people like me. There are people who have the chance to go and they don’t. There are many people who have a better life in the West but they have given it up and they are coming back and contributing to Afghanistan. Then there are the political tourists—the Afghans who’ve just simply come back as a vacationing ground to make money and to go back.”
Weary of the corruption and keen to “give back”, last year, the 36-year old ran for a seat in the parliamentary elections.
I was personally very worried when he was running. It seemed like a suicidal thing to do, particularly as candidates were killed. I asked him if people thought he was crazy for running.
“People did say that to me—that you are crazy. Do I listen to people or do I do my own thing? I also felt like it was a risk worth taking. If we the younger generation do not want to put our own ducks in a row or step up to the plate, then who will? I didn’t win and I took great personal risks but I don’t regret it at all.”
He says the experience gave him a strong sense of purpose. “Parliament is the heart of Afghan politics. And that heart right now needs a clean surgeon with clean gloves and doctors that can do the surgery. If you have a doctor with dirty gloves, he can’t do the surgery. That’s the situation with these politicians and the judiciary these days.”
That said, Sarwary says there are a lot of younger and more capable people, particularly women, who have taken on key positions in the government. These includes Roya Rahmani, the new Ambassador to Washington and Adela Raaz, the Afghan ambassador to the United Nations. But these sorts of changes could potentially be undone, particularly with the Taliban now controlling more territory than before and militarily stronger.
In talking to the group, Sarwary says the higher echelons believe in finding a solution.
“The Taliban are quite complicated as well. Yes they are Afghans, yes they have roots in Afghanistan but they also have many godfathers from Pakistan to Iran to Russia. So there are other complications that are beyond Afghans, that are beyond Afghan politics,” he says.
Afghanistan has changed a lot since they were ousted in 2001. It is home to one of the youngest populations in the world and there is a generation of big city dwellers who are used to using smart phones and the Internet, and going to university and local cafes. I wonder how the Taliban will control the country again.
“The Taliban will probably come to their senses,” says Sarwary. “This is a very different country. This is a very different reality. I don’t think they really could really have their draconian rules again. Nobody would accept it. You’ve got a massive presence of Afghan media – very vibrant TV and radio, Afghan having access to 3G and there is more exposure to the outside world. Then there is the issue of Afghan women controlling key positions in the government.”
He says the Taliban would need to “think twice” about ruling in their old ways. “I don’t think it’s the right time to make predictions. Those are fears that ordinary Afghans have. They are asking ‘What will they do? What will happen?’”
For now, Sarwary spends his days talking to his huge network of contacts, ranging from government officials to tribal elders and Western officials. He estimates he sometimes has up to 20 cups of tea a day. He listens to the BBC World service. He tweets, often using using the hashtag #everydaylifeinAfghanistan. (The cauliflower tweet on the right is a lovely one!)
Painfully, it is now too dangerous for him to travel to the provinces to do stories. And if there is a day without violence, which is rare, he tries to “tweet something positive about the country, whether it’s the natural beauty, somewhere in Bamiyan or other parts”.
He’ll also pop into a popular kebab shop, which is opposite the Emergency Hospital. While he tries to lead a normal life, he reflects sadly that Afghans have become desensitised to pain.
“We’ve seen too much. Or we have just accepted it. The tragedy is still there. The fact that you have people accepting it shows you how much of it has been happening, and for how long it has continued. Or perhaps it’s a situation where there is no culture of Afghans going to see a psychiatrist. In my view, the whole country should be talking to a psychiatrist.”
War spot 
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