La Vie Humanitaire – Part 2: Securitised

Leaving Kabul after a week of confinement at the NGO compound felt like a release from an internment camp. Not that I was a prisoner but the base was like a place where you are obliged to stay because those in authority think that this will be best for you. Often beneath this reasoning is a more honest layer of reality which means that it is safer for them if you don’t venture out because it allays their fears of perceived threats, gives a sense of taking responsibility and avoids possible lawsuits. It has always confounded me that that humanitarian organisations are so bureaucratically risk adverse when the nature of the work they do naturally puts their field staff in objectively unsafe environments. This is not to say that I or any other aid worker necessarily seeks out the adrenaline-fuelled highs we sometimes find ourselves caught up in, but, we implicitly accept that the work we do exposes us to situations that may cause us harm. It comes with the territory. Organisationally however, there is an attempt to create a security bubble around us that isolates us from the local context and in some cases makes it more dangerous to operate effectively because we are so removed from reality on the ground. UN and foreign diplomatic staff are an extreme example of this. Some work in Kabul for years but rarely, if ever, venture or even see beyond their compounds walls. The sense in which they are meaningfully experiencing living in Afghanistan is very limited (they could be anywhere) – much less so for me but on the same continuum. I call this phenomenon ‘securitisation’ – a noun but also verb done to such workers.

One might think that Medair, whom I work for, would fly me to project locations themselves because surely air travel is a core part of their work. Don’t let the name (or retro logo above) confuse you – we have no planes and offer no air service. Our work is not medical either. Although, health and nutrition programming does form an important part of our core activities. I flew out of the Afghan capital on a plane operated by United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS). As we rose above the city, the dirty brown cloud hovering in a polluted faecal haze was clear to all on board. This undoubtedly explains the origins of the mildly rasping cough I developed within a day of arriving. The plane headed west over dry, rocky mountains into thin, clear air and bright light towards Bamyan. This is where I will be based for my stay in Afghanistan and the prospect of clean air and relative calm will be a welcome change from life in the capital. All things being equal I will be relatively free to move around town and the province. I look forward to the prospect of strolling through the bazar, eating in local restaurants and even short walks in the Hindu Kush – Afghanistan’s central massif – which all fall outside the ‘No Go’ list of proscribed places. Of course, I will be accompanied by a driver and translator at all times regardless of my experience and local language ability. Like it or not, I will be fully securitised. Whether I will be safer as a result is a different matter.

C’est la vie humanitaire.

La Vie Humanitaire – Part 1: Bread of Life

Nân is the staple food in Afghanistan. Afghans eat this with most meals and so it is perhaps unsurprising that the word also applies to food generally. There are a number of varieties such as nân-e-roghanî (pictured above) which is made using oil which makes it sweeter and richer with a taste somewhat like a croissant. This is a generous comparison but when freshly baked it is soft and delicious. However, by the end of the day it is stiff and lost most of its tastiness. Bread is usually eaten the day it is made. However, not for the first time in Afghanistan’s history, many people in this country don’t have a choice and are fortunate to have nân once a day. Nân is indeed their daily bread and the country’s rhythms revolve around the daily preparation or purchase and breaking of bread together. Meals are invariably shared and at a minimum accompanied by tea which is often sweetened with sugar. This round flat bread is baked locally from Mazar-e-Sharif in the north to Herat in the West, and from Khandahar in the south to Jalalabad in the east. Naturally there are regional variations but it is nân that has sustained Afghans rich and poor for centuries. It is prepared and sold daily from small bakeries with wood-fired clay ovens or by the children of widows from woven baskets on street corners trying to supplement their meagre income. In the three years since I was last in Afghanistan there has been much hardship, conflict and inflation largely due to the staggering amount of foreign aid funds which have flooded in, much of it to sustain the US-led military project which began here following 9/11. Still, the price on the street of a nân remains ten Afghanis (the local currency and not a word used to refer to Afghan people). The enduringly low price of bread means that even the poorest people, of whom there are many, can afford this essential food item that gives life to all. I would love to say that today I could walk to my local bakery in Kabul and buy my own nân but I cannot. Working for an international NGO with very restrictive security protocols means I am cut off from everyday life on the streets by explosion-proof, sand-bagged walls and not permitted to venture out for such a simple task as buying bread and talking with my neighbours. This task is done for me whereas previously I knew the baker and happily took the same risks as the chowkidâr (guard) now takes for me. I’m not sure the risks are much higher than previously, although security across Afghanistan has steadily deteriorated over the past few years and more so since American combat troops left in 2014, but I simply don’t have the choice or pleasure of buying my own nân as long as my stay here is mandated by my current employer.

C’est la vie humanitaire.