What is an extreme environment?

By Lucile Hoarau

Review: When Bamboo Bloom, An Anthropologist in Taliban’s Afghanistan, by Patrica A. Omidian

In the book When Bamboo Bloom, Patricia A. Omidian recounts her experiences in Afghanistan during the timme when the Taliban controlled over 90% of the country. She wans in Afghanistan for a research and training assignment as an applied anthropologist working with various NGOs. All her work experiences took place from the time of her arrival in Afghanistan in 1997 until she was forced to depart in 2007 due to security issues.

I decided to read Ms. Omidian’s book for a few reasons.  First of all, I wanted to read something true, something that could give me an idea of how hard it is to conduct training work and have to deal with many obstacles daily.  I wanted to get the point of view of someone who spent fourteen years of her life working in a context of war far away from her family. I wanted to know what difficulties NGOs can face on the ground and what challenges staff might face in an extreme environment where people are oppressed because of their ethnicity or their religious affiliation.

Upon first reading this book, I was not clear about the degree of impartiality and neutrality, being that these values are highly regarded in humanitarian intervention. I first felt that Patricia was not taking any clear position in regard to the local population or the Taliban. I got the impression that she was keeping a neutral stance. I was wrong. Humanitarian intervention is not neutral at all. When you get hired to work with an NGO in Afghanistan, you pick your camp and you are working for those who want to make “good things” happen.  As a consequence, you are not totally neutral.

At first glance, the title is the main element that draws my attention to a book. When Bamboo Bloom does not reveal much about Afghanistan, but the subtitle does. My first thought was to establish a relation between Afghanistan and Bamboo. Later on, I figured out that Bamboo does not grow in Afghanistan. Then, I found out that Bamboo could symbolize hope—hope for justice and peace to someday come. What struck me the most in the book is how Afghans are so patient and hopeful even after all these years of war. Despite having endured decades of war, suffering, loss of family members, material loss, on-going violence, and pressure from their “government”, they are still hopeful.  ‘Bloom’ should symbolize the growth toward peace.  Is peace really likely to happen in Afghanistan? I do not know the answer.

I think humanitarian action is either not well defined enough or is represented in an overly positive manner, as if it is a good thing simply because aid workers are helping countries that need help. I agree with this suggestion, however my question is: what is the real relationship between the helper and the beneficiaries? To me, there is an imbalance of power between the two that can prevent the beneficiaries from saying no to a program in their country. I also think the helper tries to keep poor countries dependent in order to force acceptance of their presence on the territory or to justify their actions.

When America was under attack in 2001, the Bush government and NATO decided to invade Afghanistan, and the reason why they did it was to run after the Taliban and to get those who planned and funded the attacks. But soon it was clear that this was not the only reason…soon the U.S., NATO, and many Western NGOs arrived to push their culture and way of living on the Afghan people. So no matter what Patricia did in Afghanistan with her collaborators, the goal of humanitarian actions was in essence to change a particular society, and make this society become “like ours”. By helping Afghan people, the US, NATO and foreign NGOs changed Afghanistan and exported their point of view, imposing their ideas about the best way to run the country.

Aside from these aspects, I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the generosity of Afghan culture, about their resiliency in the face of the many difficulties they have faced and those they have still yet to overcome. Finally, their capacity to maintain their cultural values in spite of the pressure imposed by the Taliban at the time is a remarkable testimony of the Afghan people’s bravery and courage.