Afghanistan - a mere fraction of the Pale Blue Dot

February 27, 2008 by gbrown 

What do we know about Afghanistan?

Probably very little. We all know of it’s existence, we speculate about its tentative links to terrorism yet very few of us understan what our historical links or reason for being in Afghanistan are.

I’ve started on Hamida Ghafour’s “The Sleeping Buddha” - a narrative on her return to Afghanistan after the “liberation”. Ghafour provides a personal insight into the distint land that lies beyond the Hindu Kush taking us beyond the initial stereotypes of women in chadaris, taleban riding shotgun in pickup trucks and opium traffick.

Ghafour reminds us that this remote central Asian province has provided the theatre for a clash of civilizations that spans centuries. The once imperial British masters and their viceroys have simply been replaced by those from a different land.

Strategically placed as a nomadic nexus between east and west, communist bloc and the “free world”, Afghanistan has been the platform for the egos of the world’s ideologies and beliefs to express the desire for significance.

Since the latest war, 6 million have reportedly fled their homes with a further 2 million dead or wound. Consider that in addition to the millions already displaced and killed by the prior Russian invasion. No wonder extremist ideologies find fertile soils in an otherwise barren and unforgiving landscape.

When Ghafour reminds us that Afghanistan was the otucome of so many ideologies struggling for supremacy I can only think of Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” (below) in which Sagan argues the sheer ignominity of all the bloodshed in history for the sake of dominance in a fraction of what transpires to be a fractional and rather inconsequential element of our known Universe - Earth.

“Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot” (Carl Sagan - ‘Pale Blue Dot’)


In the last 86 years, Afghanistan has had 9 constitutions and has been at one stage a constitutional monarchy, absolute monarchy, socialist republic, communist state, a theocracy and now, on paper at least, an elected democracy. For what purpose all this bloodshed but to satisfy the egos of those who begin with the words “I am…” and with it an ideology that helps them define absolute right and wrong, good and evil.

As Ghafour states, once proud Afghan tribesmen had been reduced to begging for alms in the filthy backstreets of Kabul because someone somewhere thought that their world view could bring them a better life and made everyone pay the price to realize their dream.

Filed under: Out beyond our ideas
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