At the beginning of a new Afghanistan

I have spent the morning in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

How so? Well, courtesy of the Canadian High Commission, I was invited to chair a major Afghan conference addressed by government ministers and others and, indeed, the governor of Helmand, who featured on Channel 4 News the other night (see Tuesday 24 February).

It was a more interesting event anthropologically than politically, because I witnessed more than 150 bright, engaged and motivated Afghans talking about the future of their country. Half of them were Canadian, British, even German Afghans, and half of them were Afghan Afghans.

And, of course, the vast majority of them hadn’t seen each other in 20 years. Cast into exile by war to the four corners of the earth, their chances of engaging with each other were deeply affected by the disintegration of their country and the assorted Soviet and American endeavours to reshape it.

I emerged from the conference feeling we were at the beginning of the journey to a new Afghanistan, certainly not anywhere near either the middle or the end.