Cloud to Street

A group of talented Canadian friends have put together a project called "The Cloud to Street" - which aims to contribute the expertise and networks its members have developed in the fields of international politics and diplomacy, democracy promotion and communications to ensure that the networked power of Egyptian activists wields as much influence in offline political processes as they do online.  I'm proud to be involved with them

 

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Fil Motco was someone I was always glad to see; and when I called the Mazar office, he was someone I'd be glad to hear, partly because he was so helpful.  And cheerful, which not everyone would be when headquarters called up.  He was one of the many hundreds of remarkable people that were drawn to Afghanistan and gave its international community there, including the United Nations, a wealth of talent.  I don't pretend to have known him well on a personal level, because he was in Mazar-e-Sharif and I was in Kabul.  But without wanting to discriminate between the importance of different people's deaths, when I saw the pictures of those who had been killed in Mazar-e-Sharif on 1 April and I recognized his picture, it brought the events of that day home to me in a new way.

A tribute page has been created on Facebook to those who died.

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The events in Mazar gave me more questions than answers.  Writing articles seems like an inadequate kind of response.  But I did put one of my questions into a piece I have just written for Canada's Journal of Ideas.  It compares the first recorded encounter of Afghans and Westerners, back at the start of the 19th century, with this present and uglier experience, and I ask: are the inequalities and indignities of life in Afghanistan and elsewhere playing a part in these manifestations of religious fanaticism?

I am in Kabul myself now, and will be blogging from here more regularly than I was for the past month.  I have sadly missed Mark Sedwill, who has just left his position as NATO senior civilian in Kabul after an impressive performance there and as British Ambassador.  His recent speech at the Asia Society outed him as a supporter of reconciliation with the Taliban, in certain circumstances.

It did not go as far as David Miliband, who has written powerful and urgent arguments for a political settlement in Afghanistan, given that foreign forces are supposed to leave the front line of the fighting against the Taliban by 2014.  His theme is 'ending it not mending it' - quite rightly.

After Kabul I hope to continue researching my book for a few weeks in the Middle East, including with a trip to Pakistan to see the Kalash people.  

I've also been lucky  enough to hear Anthony Shadid come and speak here (off the record: sorry I can't pass on what he said!) He was invited by Emma Sky, whose recent piece at Foreign Affairs can be found here.  It calls for more U.S. focus on democratization processes in Iraq, as the troops leave.