“With all the destruction happening down there, it’s so easy to forget the beauty that’s up here. The sky is so beautiful after rainfall”. From the book: As Long as the Lemon Trees Grow.
The current conditions in Afghanistan are an international concern. Afghans cannot afford to see the beauty and clear sky down over there.
After the US-led army withdrew from Afghanistan territory after 20 years on the battlefield, pursuing their wake of all revengeful ambition towards the 9/11 attacks, and probably to reduce Islamic extremist regime impact, Taliban, has put more negative effects on Afghan people especially in rural areas that got attacked by Taliban.
Afghan’s people suffer from hunger because of war which causes instability in the government that leads to lack of access to welfare facilities, such as education and hospital centers. This eventually becomes worse by the fact that it is structural poverty, not just an individual phenomenon.
In this view, people are in poverty because they find themselves in holes in the economic system that deliver them inadequate income. People that live in the middle lower or lower class experience both good or bad time each year, so people don’t actually sit in the same hole forever. But, the holes don’t disappear. This means, impoverished people are not the same people every year.
Thus, the only way to address poverty is to alter the economic system.
Imagining structural poverty is like a road where potholes are everywhere. At the start of the road, only a fraction of people starts their car with an endowment vehicle (rich), or a certain starting point with few holes (social privilege), or even on levels of driver training (education). This is the structure of circumstances where individuals have to make decisions about how to navigate without falling into a pothole.
Getting people out of potholes is not as simple as in real road, as telling the drivers of old BW to stop hitting potholes. Some are really stuck; many get themselves out only to fall into the next one. No one wants to be in a pothole.
So, the only solution is: Government must systematically change the structure of the road by filling in the potholes, which will allow individuals freedom as they choose what road they want to run without getting afraid of landing in potholes anymore. But, it’s not that simple.
Now we face another problem:
Afghanistan’s government cannot take any revolutionary action since its instability is caused by the never-ending civil war. Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed over the past year, especially after the Taliban takeover. According to UNHCR and World Bank’s report, the combination of a prolonged drought, declining GDP income by more than 20% last year, soaring food prices and job losses have pushed around 25 million Afghans into poverty, with more than half the population now rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Afghanistan poverty originates from a lot of aspects and social sectors. One of them is social fractionalization, which has been built over centuries causing both political instability and government consumption.
In the end, poverty in some countries is very complex and cannot be looked down upon nor can we judge that they have never tried to make their life better, it’s systematic. We hope war and conflicts will stop and reassurance of Afghan’ civilian peace will happen real soon.
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