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http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2005/08/good-news-from-afghanistan-part-15_09.html
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Good news from Afghanistan, part 15
Note: Also available from "The Opinion Journal" and Winds of Change. To James Taranto, Joe Katzman, and all of you who support the series, as always, many thanks.
Recently, a group of talented young Afghans found themselves abroad as great ambassadors for their country for both good and bad reasons:
Four young Afghan students did more than merely stun their competitors when they came away with some of the top prizes at an international mathematics competition held recently in Almaty, Kazakhstan. They also changed how students from 22 other countries perceive Afghanistan.
Ahmad Mustafa Naseri and Mustafa Naseri, both 17 (and unrelated), students at the Turkish-run Afghan-Turk School in Kabul, won gold medals while Omid Sadiqyar and Mohammad Rafi Firoz, also 17 and students at a similar school in the northern Shiberghan province, were awarded silver medals following a day-long algebra competition in May.
Ahmad Mustafa said that while he was proud of his gold medal, he was saddened to discover that students from other countries thought of Afghanistan only as the home of terrorism, drugs production and internecine conflict.
One competitor from Australia told me, I was very surprised that Afghans were taking part in this competition we always hear that Afghanistan is a major drug producer and a country for terrorists who are always fighting one another, " said Ahmad Mustafa.
But now, Ahmad Mustafa said, the Australian promised to return home and talk of the talented and brave Afghans he had met.
The Australian student is not alone the negative image of Afghanistan is quite widespread, as the latest Harris Poll shows:
While the U.S. public has been paying a fair amount of attention to the situation in Iraq, they have not been paying as much attention to Afghanistan. However, when asked specifically about the situation in Afghanistan, U.S. adults, on the whole, feel quite negative about the prospects for success.
Sadly, there simply aren't enough gifted math students in Afghanistan to send abroad to unmake the negative image of their country being perpetrated by the Western media. Focusing almost exclusively on drugs and violence might make for exciting news, but it does great disservice both to the people of Afghanistan, who already have to work under great disadvantages to turn around one of the most impoverished nations on earth, but also to the international public, on whose strong support the Afghans are relying to rebuild their country.
Below, the past four weeks worth of stories from the other Afghanistan.
SOCIETY: The parliamentary election is on the horizon, looking to repeat the success of the last Octobers presidential poll. Voter registration has been steaming ahead:
The Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) claimed estimated 50,000 people register as voters on a daily basis across Afghanistan.
JEMB's international spokesperson Bronwyn Curran reckoned about 600 thousand voters had been listed hitherto. Thirty-six percent of those registered as voters are said to be women.
Of the 1,052 voter registration centers set up across the country, eight (three in southern Zabul and five in Kandahar) remain closed for lack of workforce.
These are, of course, all new registrees, in addition to the millions who have already been registered prior to the presidential election last year. And the Joint Electoral Management Body has also launched a separate campaign to register returnees. The registration officially ended on 21 July, with women constituting 40 per cent of new enrollees.
The first ballot papers have arrived:
The first shipment of millions of ballot papers for legislative elections arrived in the Afghan capital Friday, about eight weeks ahead of the polls that will see the war-torn country take another crucial step toward democracy.
The papers, flown in on a giant Antonov transport plane, were the first to arrive of some 40 million that have been printed in Britain and Austria ahead of the Sept. 18 elections.
"The arrival of these ballot papers marks an important milestone in our plans to hold" the elections, said Bissmillah Bissmil, chairman of the UN-backed Joint Electoral Management Body. "It heralds the start of the huge logistical challenge that we face in transporting these ballot papers safely and securely across the whole of Afghanistan."
From the capital, Kabul, the papers will be transported to polling stations by air and road. Donkeys will take them to more remote locations.
You can read the official campaign regulations here. The electoral commission has also established a separate media commission for the upcoming elections: "The Media Commission is composed of three Afghan and two international commissioners who are tasked with monitoring the media coverage of the election campaign; addressing complaints of unfair reporting and coverage, or other violations of Afghan media law; and setting-up and overseeing a sponsored advertising program that will provide each candidate with equal radio and television air time during the campaign period (14 August to 15 September)."
Foreign election assistance continues to arrive. NATO, which currently has 10,000 troops on the ground in Afghanistan, will be boosting its presence to 12,000 to increase security for the election. There will also be 93 Austrian troops.
An EU Election Observation Mission (EOM) has now been deployed in Afghanistan. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe will be sending a 50-strong election support team. The Japenese government is contributing $8 million towards the cost of the election.
United Nations Development Fund for Women is assisting with electoral education:
To raise awareness and understanding of the parliamentary process, UNIFEM has published a manual titled "Parliamentary Manual: Institutional and Legal Principles," which has been distributed widely among government offices, Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) staff, and through the JEMB's provincial offices to more than 6,050 candidates in Dari and Pashto. English, Dari and Pashto versions have also been distributed among journalists, UN agencies, gubernatorial offices throughout Afghanistan, embassies, and some international and local NGOs. Additional copies of the manual are available from the UNIFEM Afghanistan office or website...
UNIFEM is partnering with Afghan National Radio and Television to produce a TV and radio program, based on the manual, to inform parliamentary candidates and the general public about fundamental constitutional and parliamentary concepts. Expert Afghan resource persons debate and discuss the material drawn from the manual on 30-minute weekly shows that are aired each Thursday from 9:30 to 10:00 p.m. on Afghan state TV, and rebroadcast every Friday from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. The shows then go on state radio on Sunday from 9:00 to 9:30 p.m.
The program, which began broadcast on 23 June, has 11 episodes that cover topics such as constitutional state structure, the Afghan legal system, constitutional rights, election law principles and procedures, constitutional rules and regulations, parliamentary structure, constitutional law making, and public and constituency relations. The last program will be aired on 12 July, and will focus entirely on answering audience questions.
Another program is aiming to educate women throughout the provinces about the coming election:...lots and lots more....
