How I coached a basketball team in Afghanistan and what went wrong
nplusonemag.com
nplusonemag.com
And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?
I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.
If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.
Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).
Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.
EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.
It's a fascinating problem because it's almost like dealing with a zombie apocalypse. Too bad that it's real.
Afghanistan is a country that has been fractured by civil war or the fight against invaders for all of its living memory and is struggling to find unity.
A zombie apocalypse on the other hand is a fictional event in which a horde of brainless demons tries to kill all humans.
Further, the problem of 'infection' is very similar. Even if you create a "safe zone" it's not necessarily safe. Consider the recent rash of killings when our Afghan "allies" have turned on US servicemen, killing them in cold blood in so-called "Green on Blue" attacks. (About 100 servicemen have been murdered in this way in the last 3 years).
This almost exactly describes what the Taliban did. Except in their moral system, the One Rule is different than in your moral system.
Read The Kite Runner for a gripping insight into what the Taliban was. There was no rule, only naked force in the name of religious fundamentalism. Enforcement was (and is) arbitrary and brutal.
The One Rule is totally, completely compatible with Islam. However, it is incompatible with any any belief, religious or otherwise that values anything above non-destruction. The big problem in the Muslim world is, in my view, that they are confused on this point. Enforcing a prohibition of the expression of blasphemy instead of enforcing a prohibition of violence and destruction is a critical mistake, and the entire nation pays the price in perpetuity.
If the universe has anything approaching a built-in moral standard, it's this, and it's implied strongly by the second law of thermodynamics. It's far easier to destroy than to create, and so any culture that doesn't give creation asymmetrical importance is going to relegate it's followers to a life of squalor and violence.
And I don't want that for anyone.
>Is it Islam?
The last time Afghanistan had any internal stability was under a fundamentalist Islamic government...so probably not?
Anyway, prescribing solutions from thousands of miles away for a culture and country with which you have no experience seems a bit arrogant.
I'm not trying to pull a generic "we're all equal, let's not judge" line on you-- I'm just saying that neither of us know much about Afghanistan. And the little we do know doesn't bode well for the success for secular institutions in that country (since the puppet governments of the USSR and USA never seem to get enough popular support to become stable). So, let's leave the solutions to someone with better experience and understanding than a forum of internet nerds.
I struggle to see how the solution to violence is more violence.
Second, my proposal cannot be imposed from the outside. It would take a group of like-minded individuals to band together and protect a geographical region, imposing this rule on all within it. It's a safe harbor where peace is enforced with violence. Pockets of peace could arise, and then connect, and grow. If they are peaceful enough, and productive enough, their ability to sustain and fight wars will improve, naturally turning them into more powerful foes.
This, essentially, is what happened in the West. And I think that's what could happen in Afghanistan.
Obviously that sets up a pretty bad loop.
I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.
Notice that neither of these really depend on the productivity of the population. So the powers-that-be don't need stability to keep the goods flowing. If their economy depended on large industrial plant and skilled workers then blowing stuff up and killing people would be expensive and the society wouldn't tolerate it. But who sits in office or who harvests the poppy hasn't much to do with the goods flow. And so the gains on wrestling over the spoils are higher than those on increasing the society's overall production. That means tribal co-operation "pays" a lot better than "national" co-operation. And that co-operation is far more trustworthy.
Unfortunately this traps them in a loop where 1) the weak and just are screwed and 2) they cannot possibly build a real economy.
It's just a theory, but it does seem to explain a lot. (And it's a vast oversimplification, just a very simple political / economic model to postulate how tribalism could be adaptive. Even if that model is roughly accurate, the actual operation has to be vastly more complicated.)
(As an aside: People in the United States just have no idea what a miracle this place is, how carefully its society and government was constructed, and how easily that construction could be undermined. We take a lot for granted here, but this place didn't just happen.)
The Taleban almost obliterated opium production in Afghanistan during their reign: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_production_in_Afghanistan...
I would offer that the more productive industrial society as a whole has become, the more unproductive parasites of multitudinous sorts have arisen. A nation dependent on foreign aid and foreign drug-dealing could only exist on the economic periphery of a more prosperous nations, right? The evolution of Mexico is instructive here.
We're lucky that in the US, the parasites at least don't have as much of an incentive to engage in violence.
Why do you believe this? It reminds me of people who think that just because something exists, it must be useful. Some things really don't serve any purpose, like nipples on men, or belly buttons, or fingerprints.
I don't think its tribalism itself that's the problem. Heck, if the tribe is big enough we call it a nation. It seems to me that it's possible to have a "good tribe" - one that defends it's borders well, and imposes something like the rule of law within it's borders. Perhaps most importantly, inculcates a culture of non-destruction - where initiating violence is frowned upon by everyone. This tribe, I believe, could thrive and grow, and prosper.
As for the economics of the thing, I think that such a tribe could do very well. Heck, if you're right about capital flows (and you probably are) such a tribe could get (covert) American aid, etc. I imagine we'd even look the other way if they wanted to grow poppies. But still, this would be a small island, and I'm not sure if there are enough people to really man the battlements and make it work.
BTW -- You (on average) ate through your belly button for months 2 through 9 of your existence. Just because you aren't using it _now_ doesn't mean it never served any purpose.
So I'd say it's worth it (though highly infeasible).
And then we call tribalism, nationalism. And the results aren't pretty.
While the Talibans certainly rely on drug trafficking money to stay afloat nowadays, they had essentially wiped it out while they were ruling the country.
You make some good points. I'd like to mention a couple of additional things: - Lack of institutions and the rule of law. As long as the administration, the police, the courts are easily bribed, why would you work along official channels? Your interest is better served by leveraging your clan's resources and bribing your way forward. - Lack of a feeling of national unity. In particular, the 1996-2001 civil war in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the predominantly Pashtoun, Pakistan-backed Talibans cannot have had a positive effect.
For reference, you might be interested to look at the following:
http://current.com/community/92514111_afghanistan-in-1950s-a...
My instinct says, "just leave 'em alone for a few generations, they'll figure it out". And that's what we tried, but then the Taliban set up a safe-haven for Al-Queda and we got 9-11. And then we got an 11-year-long war, the longest (and probably the most expensive) in US history.
Perhaps, though, that remains the best option. Just somehow keep an eye on money and arms that flow into the nation, and strike any training camps we detect. E.g. exactly what it seems like Israel does with the West Bank and Gaza. Of course that sucks, but our options are few.
There are far easier ways of preventing another 9-11. For example, why don't we start by enforcing intelligence sharing between the various TLAs? After all, that's why we couldn't stop 9-11.
There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's. Israel is right up against the border of the West Bank and Gaza. We're on the other side of the world.
Agreed. While this is the first and most important step, attacks will get through, and we need a credible response.
>There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's.
Yes, of course there are differences. But there are similarities too. The key similarity is that neither the Palestinians nor the Afghans have a strong central government that can keep it's promises to the outside world. The core pattern in Israel's interactions with Palestine has been: Palestinian authority (used to be Arafat, now Hamas) promises not to attack; some random Palestinian faction decides to launch rockets into Israel; Israel says to the world, "See?" and then viciously counter-attacks. The Israelis argue that if Palestine can't control it's people, then it gives up the right to sovereignty. And this, essentially, was Bush's justification to invade Afghanistan. He knew the Taliban wasn't directly responsible, Al Queda was. We attacked anyway.
P.S. I have very mixed feelings about Israel, so I'm not justifying anything, just describing the situation the way I see it.
The right thing to do would have been to send special forces into Afghanistan to assassinate the Al Qaeda members responsible for 9/11, not get into a decade+ long war.
A mob by definition is unpredictable. A mob is inherently incapable of meting out justice, it can only mete out indiscriminate punishment. A mob is susceptible to the words of a demagogue, even if those words are lies. People will always try to manipulate the mob to their own advantage.
Where does the concept of having a trial come into this proposal of mob justice? How will a mob, a concept of organization that is based entirely on conformity and the emotion of anger, be able to hold a fair trial? I don't think there has ever been a case in history in which a mob of people have held a fair trial and carried out a fair punishment.
Sure, in an ideal world mobs would be capable of being fair; however, we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where people are irrational and where the mob suppresses rational discussion by suppressing dissent.
Furthermore, there is something self-contradictory about a mob destroying people who destroy. A well-functioning system of justice can never be built on retribution and violence.
The idea of a mob pitching in to hire enforcers is even more ridiculous. Now what you have is a gang. Even if under this proposal these mobs eventually institutionalize into the "police" and "courts," there is now the problem of corruption.
Afghanistan is doing just fine: https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
3.5x population increase in 50 years.
Totally absent were USG organizations like DOD, USAID; the UN; various NGOs; ISAF; etc. The UN water pumps were helpful, but those I think mainly pre-dated the 2001 conflict, and in no way approach making up for the harm caused by the UNODC drug control policies.
SSF, Fab Lab, the guest house, Tim, etc. all did some worthwhile stuff, but were really an exception. In general, the only people doing anything helpful were locals and religious people.
This was slightly less true in Iraq; there were some limited positive works done by NGOs and by specific military commanders (using their under-$100k local budgets), and some worthwhile projects from CA.
The problem is that our expenses for that network are all recurring. We can get occasional injections of money for things like gear and generators, but it is hard to find someone who is willing to pay for the bandwidth or Afghan salaries on an ongoing basis.
All of us in SSF have no income from our work over there but we all continue to support our friends in Jalalabad in every way we can. For an indiegogo campaign to be successful it actually takes a fair amount of effort and is only a stop gap solution to the problem. So we are all focused on trying to sustain ourselves while actually solving problems. I can't speak for everyone in our crew but most of us don't have the time, energy or heart to do a full fund raising campaign that we know is only a temporary solution. What we really need is a sponsor to take over bandwidth costs and the salary of our fantastic Afghan crew who works on the ground over there.
So on the off chance anyone reads that and knows of someone who might be interested in becoming a sponsor, I can be reached at trevor.ellermann@gmail.com Feel free to direct any inquiries my way.
If there is any question of my identity and involvement in Synergy Strike Force, I have ways of authenticating I am who I say I am. Also, I would not ask for any money directly. There is a large, well known, non-profit that everyone knows that would be the entity dealing with any financial transactions.
Also, if you just want to nerd out over a cool network we run outside the barbwire in afghanistan hit me up.
The group was founded by Dr. Dave Warner. He was hired by to go over there and help start several schools* in the area. While over there he ended up finding the Taj Mahal, taking over the lease one it and founding the Synergy Strike Force. SSF grew into much more then just schools and has been involved in many different humanitarian projects. We are all just freelancers trying to dodge the bureaucracy that get's in everyone else's way and make a difference for the people over there.
* The schools have nothing to do with cups of tea in case anyone is curious about that.
We often just say the letters SSF.
You could organize regular fundraisers in a systematic way to cover monthly recurring costs... although the feasibility depends on the amount of the costs. Can I ask how much (ballpark) the monthly costs are for bandwidth and Afghan salaries?
I can only speak for myself and this is where I am at with this right now.
I don't know if you have ever done fund raising but it is very time consuming and frankly unpleasant. Also, if you start including pay for yourself in the cost not only does the amount needed go up drastically, but people start questioning your motives. That makes it even harder to raise funds. So between working jobs and spending our free time trying to make a difference in a very difficult situation, I just don't have the cycles to spend raising funds.
I think it boils down to the fact that I am an engineer and want to spend my time solving problems over there, not in endless meetings and hoping for little bits of money here and there. That is what we have been doing and for me personally it's starting to burn me out. At this point what we really need is bandwidth costs and a small salary for the Afghans keeping it running. And we need the money to be painless for us. It's a hard to find a sponsor like that.
It sounds like you guys are at a point where you'd like to raise a year's worth of funds upfront, or you're leaning towards burning out and canceling the entire project. This is an ideal situation for crowdfunding: people have a real incentive to donate, as they know their funds will truly make a difference.
I would recommend doing an Indiegogo campaign for $25-30k to get things started. As part of it, you could promise regular updates on how things are going in Afghanistan. At Kiva, people really loved hearing from our entrepreneurs on how the loan was going.
As for marketing the piece, Peretz is a really wonderful writer. Would he be willing to write 2-3 shorter stories about the network, and the impact that it's having in Afghanistan? Then we could share them here on HN (and elsewhere), and link to the crowdfunding campaign at the end of the piece. It also wouldn't be too hard to get an article or two written about this, either in HuffPo, TC or maybe PandoDaily (I haven't worked with Pando before, but it's probably similar to TC). That would definitely drive significant fundraising... plus there are poverty alleviation blogs and social media gurus who would definitely help out.
If you're interested, I'd be glad to help you with the marketing and PR gratis... a project like this makes it incredibly easy to drive publicity and fundraising.
Either way, I wish you all the best with this important project!!
(Hint: 1972 Olympics)
As an avid sports fan, and very active basketball player and cyclist, the major shifts in current thinking towards evaluating the world of sports through statistical and business eyes is to me quite unfortunate. To those that make their money through that world, fine, but as a fan, I want to marvel in the achievements of athletes, not be debating whether a pitcher is over-rated because of his exFIB.
Basketball is about the battles against racism of Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, the soaring style of Dr. J, the elan of Magic, the blue collar work of Bird, the competitive viciousness of Michael Jordan, and the physicality of Lebron.
Cycling is about the will of Eugene Christophe, the ethics of Gino Bartali, the ferocity of Eddy Merckx, the spirit of Bernard Hinault, the pain of Marco Pantani, and the insanity of Jens Voigt.
Even if we can't reach that level ourselves, it is that approach to what makes sports great that allows for events and stories like this article. Without that spirit, there wouldn't be any reason to have amateur sports to begin with. Leave everything else alone.
I think the question to ask is, if you're part of this existing traditionalist social structure, what's the benefit of adopting a more Western way of thinking? It is not obvious to them that Afghanistan was less fucked under Soviet influence, or is less fucked under US and other NGO influence now.
Better to ask the tribal leaders, "what sucks about Afghanistan for you?" and try to find the intersection of that with something along the path away from revenge killings and stonings and toward full-fledged democracy and liberty. Then iterate.