Afghanistan : The Mirage of Peace
ISBN: 9781848131163
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Zed Books
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: History;

The West has never understood Afghanistan. It has been portrayed as both an exotic and remote land of turbaned warriors and as a 'failed' state requiring our humanitarian assistance. Politically marginal after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, Afghanistan's strategic importance re-emerged after September 11th 2001, when the 'war on terror' was launched as part of a new generation of international interventions. Drawing on the experience of a decade and a half of living and working in Afghanistan, Chris Johnson and Jolyon Leslie examine what the changes of recent years have meant in terms of Afghans' sense of their own identity and argues that if there is to be a hope of peace and stability, there needs to be a new form of engagement with the country, which respects the rights of Afghans to determine their own political future while recognising the responsibilities that must follow an intervention in someone else's land.

Chris Johnson worked in Afghanistan from 1996 to April 2004, after which she left to work as Head of Office for UNDP in South Sudan. During her time in Afghanistan she worked first for Oxfam, then set up a joint UN/donors/NGO research unit ? the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit - where she worked until early 2002. She then undertook a wide range of consultancy work for different organisations concerned with the transition.Jolyon Leslie is an architect who managed UN rehabilitation programmes in Afghanistan betweeen 1989 and 1995. Between 1997 and 2000, he was the UN regional coordinator in Kabul, and returned to the country in early 2002, since when he has undertaken a range of consultancies, including the management of conservation projects in the old city of Kabul.

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