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Afghans Puzzled by Latest Protests
Afghans attacked the CARE office south of Kabul last week, and protests continue over reports of U.S. interrogators in Cuba vandalizing the Koran.
(Reuters)
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Khaled said he spent much of Saturday smoothing things over with mullahs whose intentions were originally peaceful and issuing search warrants for those he believes may have had ulterior motives for organizing the protest. "There was one mullah who was saying, 'You should defend your Holy Koran, and even if you lose your life you should be proud of this,' " Khaled said.
Several people interviewed in Ghazni expressed similar dismay at such speeches.
"Everything that is wrong in this country is because of the mullahs," complained Ghulam Dastagir, who sells birds near one of the mosques from which protesters flooded the streets Friday. "They are receiving money from people who don't want Afghanistan to be a peaceful and developed country."
Bismallah, a 50-year-old tailor who, like many Afghans uses only one name, pointed out that citizens of most other Muslim nations did not hold protests about the reported abuse. "We should have waited for proof," he said. "Instead we have presented ourselves to the world as a stupid people."
But Javed Ahmed, a shoe-seller, had the opposite reaction. When he heard the news of the first protests, in Jalalabad on Tuesday, Ahmed said, he thought: "What has happened? Have we Muslims become too weak, that others are interfering with our religion?"
On Saturday, police patrolled the streets, strolling past several damaged buildings.
Yet while the damage seemed to reflect deep-seated anger, even those who said they participated in the protest expressed positive views of the thousands of foreigners living and working in Afghanistan.
Agha, the dried-goods seller, said that he was initially concerned that the start of U.S. military operations in 2001 meant the Americans intended to occupy Afghanistan, then he changed his mind after it became clear that a large contingent of other countries would be sending troops under U.N. auspices.
He said he was grateful for the billions of dollars in aid that foreign donors have pumped into Afghanistan but was disappointed in the amount of development it had bought.
"I thought that after 3 1/2 years we would be much farther ahead," he said.
