The Afgans keep teaching the lesson that no army against it seems to learn. Written in the great year of 1987 this account of the Muhjahadin, by Doris Lessing, one wonders what could stop military intervention in Afganistan as the growing history of defeats and failures makes no dent to imperial enthusiasm for domination of that land.
As a professional underdog and fighter for life Lessing is the ideal writer to be able lend a sympathetic ear to those under resourced warriors while being clear eyed enough to describe their situation without undue romance. They are a people who are born into the struggle of life taught to fight and defend themselves from birth. At the time it was the Russians who were trying to invade. Their aircrafts destroyed with home made grenades by the resourceful Afgan Resistance. It was of their ongoing survival through winters, of which some lose toes to frostbite, and famine, managing for long periods on nothing but grass, that impresses Lessing. They fight continually against all that attacked them on not much more than determination to retain their freedom.
An unnamed military man in the Afgan army of some superiority explains the motivation of the fighters: "You will have heard, I am sure, more than you need of Jihad, but in my view Jihad is too simple a concept, used as the West tends to use it. The Afghan fights first of all for himself, his family, his village, his own people. He fights for a combination of these reasons, and he fights for his religion. When you hear the word 'Jihad', and you will have heard it a thousand times a day, remember how complex it is, this Holy War"
It is a short book that goes straight to the people involved in the day-to-day battle, the 'most independent people in the world', composing a clear picture of the difficulties of their life in permanent fight. There is beauty and heroics in the background of ongoing suffering recorded with control and strength.
Lessing's part in the war is her fight against the media portrayal of Afganistan in such moments as this, which I will quote in full:
"Two years ago I was in Toronto, and the Wall Street Journal asked to interview me. The young woman who came said she would like me to talk about what interested me. Impressed by this novel approach by a journalist, I said I would like to talk about Afganistan, which had been fighting the Russians for five years, with little or no assistance from the outside world. Her face showed she was already losing interest. I said it was unprecedented for a war to be fought for five years by virtually unarmed people against a super power, while the world took virtually no notice. She murmured, at once, 'Vietnam'- as I expected she would. I said that the Vietnamese had been armed, equipped. I said that a million Afghan civilians had been murdered by the Russians. There were five million Afghans in exile- it was as if a third of the population of the United States had taken refuge from an aggressor in Canada. At this she announced that it was all very hard to believe. The interview then continued on all too familiar lines. When it was printed, there was no mention of Afghanistan. Since then, the Wall Street Journal has been, as we say, 'very good' about Afghnistan. But anyone involved in this business knows that there is a wall of indifference, both in Britain and in the United States, and this is so strong, so irrational, one has to begin asking why"
Cassandra is invoked at the beginning of the book and Lessing imagines a scene:
'It is amusing to imagine (because the thing is so unlikely) a secret conference called by the nations, who have agreed to set aside all the slogans and battle cries and the circling for better positions just for the duration of the conference, which will discuss: "What is the matter with us, what is wrong with mankind, that we can't listen to Cassandra? It is as if the world, as if we, were being dragged along by some undertow of stupidity too powerful to resist, and all the sharp, frantic, desperate cries of warning are like gulls glinting as they wheel over the scene, and then dip and vanish, screaming, If you do this, then that must follow- Surely there must be something we can all do, together; perhaps we can learn to listen..."'
Cassandra is invoked at the beginning of the book and Lessing imagines a scene:
'It is amusing to imagine (because the thing is so unlikely) a secret conference called by the nations, who have agreed to set aside all the slogans and battle cries and the circling for better positions just for the duration of the conference, which will discuss: "What is the matter with us, what is wrong with mankind, that we can't listen to Cassandra? It is as if the world, as if we, were being dragged along by some undertow of stupidity too powerful to resist, and all the sharp, frantic, desperate cries of warning are like gulls glinting as they wheel over the scene, and then dip and vanish, screaming, If you do this, then that must follow- Surely there must be something we can all do, together; perhaps we can learn to listen..."'
For one curious to understand what refugees go through and how they face the demands of life this is a good starting point to deeper reflection.
