Afghanistan

At present, Afghanistan has turned into a focal point of agreements between Western and Eastern countries. These Strategic Partnership Agreements (SPAs) that Afghanistan has signed with many countries of the world, including Germany are deemed as vital achievement for the country.

“Sometimes it seems as if it was all part of a big plan”, says Sulayman Qardesh. He smiles at his band colleague Siddique Ahmad. Number three, drummer Mujtaba Habibi, couldn’t come for our interview. It was a perfect match when these three boys of different origin happened to meet and found Afghanistan’s first indie rock band, the “Kabul Dreams”.

Have you ever thought about whether environment is an economic or a social problem? Or about how much a clean or contaminated environment does affect our economy? Perhaps, the widely held opinion is that environment is somewhat related to our culture and society, and there is no relation between environment and economy.

German involvement in Afghanistan did not begin with the attacks of September 11. In the 60s and 70s, Afghanistan was a key aspect of West German development aid. Aid efforts are still fondly remembered today, as is evident from the technical centres (Technikum) in Paktia and Kandahar.

The current situation in Afghanistan is difficult. The violence is increasing, and neither the international forces or the Afghan government seem to be able to prevent this. A peace process between the government and the rebels which regulates the distribution of power in the state, could pacify the situation.

In a Heinrich-Böll-Foundation organized conference NGOs and Afghan civil society organizations exchanged their views on the challenges and threats of environmental pollution in Afghanistan. Besides naming the problems they formulated political demands and proposed solutions to the most urgent concerns.

Some observers see incompatibilities between democracy, human rights and gender equality, on the one hand, and a world in which religion plays an active role in public affairs, on the other. Others ask whether it is useful to see religion as the nemesis of gender equality, and secularism as others ask whether it is useful to see religion as the nemesis of gender equality, and secularism as the precondition for it.

In December 2011, ten years after the Petersberg Conference, the future of Afghanistan will be discussed anew. How can Afghanistan increasingly become militarily, politically and economically more independent? And where does the Afghan parliament and civil society stand in this year’s Bonn Conference? Will they be included? Or will they – as is so often the case in international conferences – be excluded?