This Is This

  By Cliff Jones
  Published: 27 November 2007

  London, England

Of all the government officials of war torn countries, my hands-down favourite has got to be Nasrullah Stanekzai.

A former law professor at the University of Kabul, Nasrullah Stanekzai is Afghanistan’s deputy minister of tourism. This is a little like being a pimp in a monastery, or an X-Box salesman at the Royal Society For Children With No Thumbs.

It is, he acknowledges, not always the easiest job and certainly not the most popular.

…it says on a page on his government’s official site…

The first tourism minister installed after the end of the old Taleban government was beaten to death in 2002. The second was killed last year when his car was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade.

There is, Stanekzai says, still a lot to do before Afghanistan is really tourist-friendly.

It’s not exactly going to win over honeymooners, is it? But I love Dr. Stanekzai’s realistic and refreshingly honest attitude, which makes him my favourite politician in the world.

“We have some challenges for the tourism, first I think is the security, second we haven’t capacity for the hospitality,” the minister said. “We haven’t yet the tourism culture, we haven’t capacity for services for tourism.”

Or the roads. But fuck it, you know? This is Kabul. You’ve got to be tough. Much like the surface of the moon, when it’s hot, it’s fucking roasting, and when it’s cold, you can die from exposure. One difference is that on the moon, people don’t want to kill you.

The website, and keeping bearing in mind this is the official website of the Afghan government, goes on to say:

Chicken Street, a dusty stretch of small stores and outdoor vendors is Kabul’s best-known shopping area.

In 2004 a suicide bomber attacked the street, killing an American woman and an 11-year-old girl.

Today, shop owners such as Karim Azam say tourists are beginning to trickle back.

Yeah, I can see the pull. Is it called Chicken Street because kids dare each other to walk down it?

“As long as we have better security tourists will come. They used to come, lots of people would come. If they come we already have our stuff that shows Afghan culture,” he said.

Stanekzai’s office is helping kick off a five-year campaign to revitalize the tourism industry.

Then this from the New York Times:

In 2004, he told us, just 500 foreign tourists visited the country — fewer than two a day. This year, though, the number was up: 100 tourists — Russians, Italians, Japanese — were arriving every month, and even more would soon be on their way.

Stanekzai acknowledged that there were risks for visitors — two backpackers, one Swiss and the other Norwegian, were stoned to death last year — but he said there was also lots to see: historical sites, places of great natural beauty and attractions that might appeal to students of Afghanistan’s recent troubles. ‘’For example,'’ he said, leaning closer, ‘’Tora Bora.'’ He was referring to the remote mountain outpost near the Pakistani border where, in a network of tunnels, Osama bin Laden apparently escaped his pursuers in 2001. ‘’It is a very important place,'’ he said. ‘’Not only during the war, but during the Taliban period as well.'’

Hmmm. I’m either with you or against you. But isn’t the war still on?

He took a sip of tea. There was, he admitted, just one problem. ‘’Mines,'’ he said. ‘’During the war, there were a lot of mines.'’ Soon, however, de-mining would begin there, he said, and then he had plans to put in a hotel and a restaurant.

Can I have the bill please, and a exit strategy?

It wasn’t all work work work at the Ministry for Tourism. The Chicago Tribune, 31 August 2008:

First the Soviets invaded. After they were pushed out, the civil war exploded, settled only when the harsh Taliban arrived. Through it all, the doors of the Afghan Tourist Organization, the government-run tourist agency, stayed open, but aside from the occasional journalist, no one walked in.

“It was a really boring job under the Taliban,” said Abdulkhalil Oryakhail, the agency’s deputy president. “We wore our turbans and sat in the office until 1 p.m. Then we put our turbans in our desks and went home.”

In 2004, only 165 tourists visited the country, but this increased to more than 4,000 in 2007.

“We’re thinking for the future,” said Nasrullah Stanekzai, the deputy minister for tourism. “We haven’t got good services for tourists. We need to review laws for tourists. We don’t have insurance for tourists. It’s a real problem.”

“And we also don’t have tourists.”

The challenge to rebuild tourism is huge. Some Afghan officials are planning for future tourist packages, perhaps combining the war on terror and tourism. For instance, tourists could see where Osama bin Laden or his family once lived or they could tour the caves of Tora Bora, where major battles have been fought.

“It was a center for terrorism,” Stanekzai said. “It could be very interesting for people.”

When he’s not deputy ministring for tourism, he is a political pundit. The LA Times of September 17, 2005 ran:

No party or alliance is expected to win enough seats to dominate the lower house, analyst Nasrullah Stanekzai said.

“That’s very normal in Afghanistan, and we should all be prepared to see big battles in the parliament,” he added. “These could be fistfights or real, logical discussions.”

For all of these reasons, Afghanistan’s deputy minister for tourism deserves to be recognised as one of the most honest political spokespersons of our time.

Dr Nasrullah Stanekzai, I salute you.

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