Home » Afghanistan, Cairo (Red Cross): “Our cultural colonialism has failed”

Afghanistan, Cairo (Red Cross): “Our cultural colonialism has failed”

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“One thing Westerners have never asked themselves is: let’s see what the Afghans really want. In my opinion this is original sin. We have imposed our model on them. We have not taken into account their culture which is completely different from ours. And it didn’t work. So, twenty years later, we are back with the Taliban in power. ” Alberto Cairo is a Piedmontese from Ceva. Physiotherapist, he has been in Kabul for 32 years on behalf of the International Committee of the Red Cross. For which he created and directs the orthopedic centers in Kabul, Mazar-i Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad, Gulbahar, Faizabad and Lashkar Gah which employ 250 disabled people and have treated over 80 thousand patients, almost …

“One thing Westerners have never asked themselves is: let’s see what Afghans want truly. In my opinion this is original sin. We imposed our model on him. We did not take into account the their culture which is completely different from ours. And it didn’t work. For this reason, twenty years later, we are again with the Taliban in power “. Alberto Cairo is a Piedmontese from Ceva. Physiotherapist, he has been in Kabul for 32 years on behalf of the International Committee of Red Cross. For which he created and directs the orthopedic centers in Kabul, Mazar-i Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad, Gulbahar, Faizabad and Lashkar Gah which employ 250 disabled people and have treated over 80,000 patients, almost all of whom are amputees. It is his mission, for which they also nominated him for the Nobel Prize. And this is why he, who in these 32 years has seen 5 governments in Kabul, including the Taliban, “obviously” remained in the Afghan capital.

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Alberto Cairo, now that the Taliban are back, can we say what we have done wrong in these twenty years?

“I believe that upstream there was an error of assessment, in the sense that we imposed some closed-box solutions. That did not take root because they were not part of this culture”.

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Can you be more specific?

“The whole project had come from above. For example, what form of government did they really want? Talking to Afghans they are not so convinced that democracy is for them. They are uncertain between a half-dictatorship and an Islamic form of government. concept that when there is an election with 51% in a democracy, it is difficult to understand. They tell me rather: we need to reach a consensus, discuss and find a synthesis, as we did in the traditional great assembly of the Joya Jirga. and so many saw the Constitution as an excessive opening to the West. They did not share the justice system. And for many, especially the uneducated people, who are so many here, recognize, for me quite rightly God forbid, full equality for women was going against traditions, an attack on their culture. These are not questions of goat wool, themes for scholars. They translate into distance from the state. And perhaps in the decision not to really fight to defend it from the Taliban “.

Chapter that of not opposing the Taliban in which the Afghan military has great responsibility ability …

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“I don’t know anything about military matters. But, let’s face it, the responsibility for the failure of these twenty years does not lie solely with the West. In fact, to its faults must be added those of the Afghans who thought that money rained from the sky, which in large majority did not they made efforts and did not want to give up anything. This generated everything, including corruption, which had spread to every level. The state we built was fragile, culturally distant. It was not ‘their’ state. first threats to shoulder, he collapsed “.

Was there a sort of cultural colonialism in wanting to impore our model?

“Definitely. Perhaps done with good intentions, but there was. Even in our humanitarian field, there is always this risk. But it does not pay. If you impose hasty solutions, which are not suitable for the Afghan context, once you turn around his back, the Afghan will go back to doing what he did before “.

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