Fence

Fencing the Border:

The Afghan border, that is. The article from the Institute for Afghan Studies' Dr. G. Rauf Roashan considers a recent Pakistani proposal to build a fence along the border. The Afghans are against it:

Many analysts wonder about the existence of a legal, true or viable border between the two countries as the so-called Durand Line of the colonial era -never approved of by any national assembly in Afghanistan-and imposed by Britain had a validity of one hundred years and that in 1993 its validity expired. The question was: If there is no officially recognized border between the two countries where is the Pakistani government putting the fence?

The article talks about the political process at work. One interesting section, however, is the paragraph where it considers precedents for the proposed wall:

Looking back in history there are precedences of building walls against invaders preventing their intrusions and attacks. Living examples of this are the Great Wall of China constructed against Mogul intrusions and attacks, the ancient Kabul city walls constructed on the ridges of the Asamaii and Shair Darwaza mountains during the reign of Kabul Shahan against Arab invasion and the Israeli concrete wall in Gaza against the Palestinian suicide bombers. The Berlin Wall, however, was built to prevent East Germans from escaping to freedom into West Berlin.

Several years ago now, George Will wrote a column that talked about the Afghans. He was impressed with their directness and honesty.

In a meeting attended by the Afghan minister of education, an Afghan academic asked Lewis if British universities would recognize Afghan university degrees as equivalent to those from British universities. Before Lewis could launch into diplomatic pitter-patter to blur the question, the minister of education curtly said to the academic who had asked the question, "Don't be silly. How could they possibly?" It was, Lewis says, a kind of candor rarely found elsewhere in the region.

Well said. On the other hand, this fellow was educated in Afghanistan in the very time period Lewis was writing about. How many academic institutions in the West could produce a paper that compared the Israeli wall to other walls in such a simple, honest context? It shouldn't be hard, since the comparison is honest. But it is hard.

I suspect the Afghans are going to go far, once the stability that has long eluded them is achieved. It may not be forever that we laugh at the idea of Afghan universities being as good as, or even better than, British ones.