I have just returned to my desk after a high-ish level ministerial meeting. I am frustrated, disheartened, and for lack of a nearby punching bag will rant here instead. It’s not the corruption. It’s not the incompetence. It’s not even the inefficiency. It’s the child-like lack of common sense that gets to me most.
The post-2001 government of Afghanistan is like Lord of the Flies. Teenagers stranded on a deserted island (or landlocked dustbowl in this case) and left to fend for themselves. They’ve seen others do it and mimic the adults’ actions with immature intensity and lack of deeper understanding of their consequence. But it’s not just Afghans. I’ve seen this phenomenon before – in precocious high school and first year university students who join intellectual clubs and societies, keen to hone their professional skills. Professional skills they don’t actually have (yet). They hold meetings to plan further meetings the purpose of which is to design a meeting agenda. They like meetings. It’s what they think adults do. It makes them feel important. Does anything get accomplished? That’s beside the point.
This, in turn, makes me think that (re-)constructing a country is a bit like raising children. Sound patronising? I guess it is. But I don’t just mean it in the hand-holding and spanking kind of way. I mean, in both pursuits you have to exercise extreme patience, foresight, strategic detachment, and consistently tough but fair guidance.
As my frustration subsides I become more philosophical. Perhaps all our capacity building is not in vain? Genuine progress is being made, and I have worked with as many capable, hard-working, efficient Afghans as I have worked with the Lord of the Flies kind. Come to think of it, the ratio of true professionals to true incompetents is probably the same as that in any country and industry – it’s just that here there’s so much more important work that needs to be done. And anyway, was it really all that long ago that I myself was one of these self-important first year university students playing grown ups?
This post was written by...
Julia Mahlejd – author of 10 posts on Registan.net.
Julia has lived and worked in Afghanistan since 2008.
{ 7 comments }
Julia,
It is a bit patronising, especially when one takes into account the type of governance Afghanistan had in the past. Even when ostensibly operating within the framework of a modern bureaucratic state (i.e., the communist period) it was still rule-by-strongman, and individual relationships dominated over institutional rules, procedures, and organization.
As a case in point, an Afghan general recently had his staff NCO check his email — because he was incapable of doing it himself — and then instead of using “the system” to request resources for an operation, he went outside and used his mobile phone to call a friend to do it. This demonstrated how work gets done in Afghan society: that is, not through the chain of command or the bureaucracy, but by whether or not you can reach your brother or friend or cousin in such and such ministry.
Changing from the older but nonetheless effective (in the short term, at least) system of personal relationships to a formalized professional system simply won’t happen overnight. And the path to that hopeful end will probably involve a lot of childish mimicry, something that is certainly not aided by the western mentors who do much of the same thing. Even the civil servant training college that is currently being established will not have immediate results, with the present system so thoroughly…well, Afghan.
This reads oddly when compared with some of the regular posters’ blogs. I need some background and context. Otherwise, anyone in an office could write such a piece and replace Kabul with Washington, ministry with agency, or warlord with K St. lawyer… Nothing here is particularly out of place in ANY organization.
I understand where you’re coming from, but it’s still condescending. I have worked on both sides (Afg gov’t and on the Western side). Many of these meetings are scheduled by Western Advisors, in the hopes to get things going (per the deliverables on their Western contract that the Afghan government had no input on). These projects may not be in line with what the Afghan Ministers and their staff need, so the meetings end up being a wast of time.
I agree with the other commenters here. This seems a bit off, more like something one would email close friends to rant than a Registan post.
ya gotta understand where they’re coming from! they’ve got a modus operandi which they’re just as used to as we’re used to email, and there are reasons for that. if we try to show people the benefits of doing things differently and they don’t do it, well, maybe that’s because it doesn’t work for them… i know there are older high-level management types both in the private and public sectors that dictate emails and document drafts, and follow up by phone or meeting to whatever extent possible.
we can’t discount the fact that although documents provide a certain accountability, conversation is vastly higher-bandwidth, and if somebody is used to thinking of problem-solving as a people-centric rather then process-centric endeavor, well, it’s up to us as outsiders to work with them on that. what if, say, phone-loving senior staffers get a kid to follow them around, transcribe whatever they say, and email it to themselves? this can stroke their ego, and provides a certain consistency and accountability which might otherwise be lacking.
my point isn’t that everybody who thinks they’re senior should have a personal secretary/transcriptionist, although perhaps they should – my point is just that we should be trying to think outside the box here…
there are many interesting elements in this post ,one being looking at oneself in the mirror,always a good thing.Since you are caught in such a messed up place,Afstan,it wont be belaboring too much to remind that Afstan’s foundation has been thoroughly eroded ,almost like a dead society now being revived by the West which has little experience doing it,hence the immense frustrations,hold on to your seatbelt!!!
Informative post and comments. But I must insist, what you are going through can’t be as bad as US inter-agency bureaucracy.