By Mahmoud Baqeri, Political Analyst

Our situation is similar to a patient, whose disease in sot diagnosed yet. But we are trying to heal the disease, prescribing medicines. We pay for the medicines while we do not know about the main cause of the disease. Therefore, the time and budget goes wasted and the patient remains ill. To heal the disease, we are required to have profound checkups, proceeding with defining a mechanism for treatment of the patient.

Challenges of the post-Taliban Afghanistan are not exceptional and the country does not face a vacuum of historical experiences. There are numerous countries which had the same circumstances as Afghanistan has, but today they have overcome the challenges pretty well. Now it is upon us to learn lessons from such experiences in the world. One of the teachings of the universal experiences for the countries such as Afghanistan, which has witnessed horrible crimes against humanity, is different and wide-varied methods for administering justice and reconciliation. The most fundamental lesson we ought to learn from the post-conflict countries is that peace without justice is fragile.

But we have not yet mustered the courage and boldness to acknowledge our past mistakes and ponder on a better future. We are talking about peace; crying for reconciliation; but we do not give ourselves the space to think on how to obtain peace and reconciliation as well as preserving them. We also do not have the time and circumstances to learn from the experiences of the rest of the world.

The Afghan government is acting inefficiently in administering justice in the country and we have lost many opportunities. The government’s main slogan is peace and it sees justice as an obstacle to this goal, but today as a result of the faulty policy, we are now far away from both. Supposedly, if justice is troublesome for peace and since the government has not done anything for justice, today we must have achieved peace in the country which we do not have yet. So it is essential for us to review our policy-makings and our efforts in order to realize the main problems.

In past three years, the so-called reconciliation initiative has not gone forward even a single step. There is no transparent mechanism to define the framework of the reconciliation process. The National Consultative Peace Jirga also proved that it is not representing the will of the people, as the process of the selection of the delegations was not transparent. The Jirga was led in a way that even the demands of the representatives of the Jirga were not reflected in the final declaration of the assembly. The organizers were trying to get produced the pre-planned agendas of the government as the decisions of the participants of the Peace Jirga.

In absence of a transparent mechanism based on the law, talking on reconciliation and peace will not heal the sufferings of the people. We have not been able yet to prioritize our national goals. There are no sufficient efforts for eliminating corruption; no care for judicial reforms; the day-to-day need of the people is not met; culture of merit-based appointment is forgotten; and even the basic sanitations and edibles are not provided, but instead there are efforts to bribe the insurgents and to buy time.

The people think about a long-lasting peace in the country; they want justice; they want food to eat; they are seeking clinic with doctors and medicines. The people are exhausted of corruption; they cannot rely on police as the protector of their rights and they avoid working with police force and judicial agencies. Eight years ago the people were waiting for the next-months and next-years; they were coping with problems with a hope of a better future. But today the people are exhausted as they see the situation is retrogressively getting aback.

Our slogan for governance is that the government is by the people and for the people. Therefore, it is important that we consider the position of the people in our policy-makings and heed the people’s demands. Expecting supports of the people, without considering their demands is an absolute illusion. Absence of the people in vital national decision-makings would result to repetition of past histories.

The people send their children to schools, unsure of whether they would come back safely or not. They go to hospitals for treatments, facing lack of medicines and other medical facilities. The expatriates return to their own country, but face huge challenges in finding something to eat. They see those criminals who burnt their houses or murdered their relatives, now as a government official is governing on the people. Rather than to focus on legal security forces, the former militants are reactivated as the private security firms. While millions of dollars are spent on disarming the armed groups and civilizing the former militias, the government itself is directly supporting the so-called Arbaki militias, or the auxiliary police. Now there are talks on providing cash and residence to the insurgents, without considering that millions of the citizens need jobs, or pondering that the joblessness and poverty is a main factor of strengthening the insurgent groups. Is it not better to first care about the jobless people who have not taken guns yet? Is the policy, that whoever takes guns and fight against the government gains advantages, working?

Our tomorrow is depended on today, as our today is the output of yesterday. All of us regret the lost yesterday, without considering that our today is the yesterday of our tomorrow. Our yesterday’s negligence has risen as the obstacles to our today. And today we are repeating the same things which lead us to a tomorrow replete with difficulties. All efforts are focused on one thing: to pass only today.