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Afghan Whispers: Kabul Express, 5 More Years, and Lack of Legitimacy

Categories: Central Asia & Caucasus, Afghanistan, Ethnicity & Race, Film, International Relations, War & Conflict

Dialogue 3 talks about an Indian film, Kabul Express [1], which has created a lot of noise in Afghanistan without being shown on Afghanistan. The blogger says according to what is heard in the movie, very negative comments are made about [2]the Hazara ethnic group [3] such as that these people are as violent as Taliban or that all of them are killers[Fa]. He says this film hurts national unity in Afghanistan.

Afghan Warrior writes that the international community should pledge to support Afghanistan for five more years [4]. The blogger says ,

We don't want to be a charity case. Afghans are proud people who want to make their own way in the world but at the moment we need the support of the free world. We need more emphasis on training the Afghan army so that Afghans can take over the fighting. We need enough support to defeat the Taliban. We don't have a shortage of brave Afghans – we have brave people and we can defeat the Taliban with the support of the free world. The Taliban are not strong enough to create any civil war at the moment. Therefore they carry out terrorist attacks which mainly kill innocent civilians, and if we have the support of the free world we can defeat the enemies soon. But if the world community abandons us, Afghanistan will go back to civil war. We don't want to be part of the 3rd world. We need the support of the world community at least for 5 more years.

Askar Gu Raiz talks about the fragile legitimacy of Afghan government [5]. The blogger writes,

at a time when the public is becoming increasingly disillusioned with the state…parliamentarians spend the day which marks their first anniversary as a house not with their constituencies or the general public, but reporting to ‘donor countries and their representatives’… While I understand it is vital to have the donors on board, and less in Afghanistan is possible without them, the satisfaction of donor community with parliament’s performance need not be confused with what the motives of having a parliament in place are for either side; the Afghan state as a whole, and the countries involved in Afghanistan.