The poor suffer the bitter cold without a beam of hope from the government. The homeless beggars search every nook and cranny for a safe haven to survive the excruciatingly cold season of winter. Perhaps, the sporadic alms of the passersby will be their only bread and butter to bear and grin it. Their voice will fall on deaf ears and their complaints and diatribes about the officials will be construed no more than an incoherent muttering.
The nominal remuneration of the workmen can hardly make the ends meet. They sweat on their drudgeries from dawn to dusk to feed their own flesh and blood, yet sleep with empty stomachs but swollen hands. The heads of the families are inundated with many problems which have been multiplied by the winter’s frigid weather. However, the phlegmatic officials are not yet moved with the tearful eyes of the hungry children, painful groaning of the widows on Kabul streets, the teenage vendors, who are trembling with cold in the early morning, the children who abandon the idea of going to school and polish the people’s shoes with their small hands and childish innocence, the beggars who beseech the passersby for a single afghani and the opium addicts who wander the streets hopelessly to solicit a morsel of bread from a merciful individual.
Foreign troops are leaving Afghanistan, marking an official end to 13 years of conflict, in which more than 13,000 Afghan soldiers have lost their lives and the war widows of the Afghanistan are fighting tooth and nail against poverty to survive the hunger – especially in the cold season of winter.
Based on a BBC report, Tajbebi lives in Kabul. Her husband was a translator for the American army and was shot on his way to work in Logar province seven years ago. She only found out what had happened when his mutilated body was brought to her front door.
“It had started to snow, and I heard a car arriving,” she says. “My children called out, ‘It’s our daddy.’ I went outside and saw his body surrounded by soldiers. He had been shot in the heart, and his uniform was full of holes, like a sieve.”
She says she doesn’t know how to access what government support is available to military widows.
“When he died I lost his ID and all his papers,” she says, “I don’t know how to claim a pension for widows and orphans. If someone has a man they could make a claim, but without a man, how could I do it? I used to be the wife of a big man, but now I suffer – I look like a beggar.”
The high inflation during winter, which seems that the cartels and officials have turned a blind eye to it, is unfair. The sporadic or fortuitous attention from the government will not mitigate the backbreaking burden of the poor citizens. Hence, the government is supposed to stop paying lip service to the challenge and take a serious step to end the problems.
The environmental pollution in Kabul is multiplied in winter. The citizens use coals without any inhibitions by law. Since the citizens cannot afford to use gas due to high inflation, they are justified to make use of somewhat cheap sources. But the government will have to prevent from the high inflation so as to curb the environmental pollution.
The lax security plays a negative role in economic issues. As a result, the Taliban insurgents have narrowed the freedom and opportunities for the national and international investors through heavy attacks. To the citizens’ unmitigated chagrin, Afghan police and civilians, including foreign troops and noncombatants, came under severe attacks by the insurgents after the last year’s presidential election. In other words, the terrorist attacks victimized a large number of the citizens from the start of the Unity Government up to now. However seemingly, the government has not adopted a definite policy to deal with the militants. Hence, insecurity is a great cause behind financial problems and unemployment.
The rich are too busy to think about their poor neighbors and humanitarianism is hardly felt in the people’s social life. In other words, the schism between the rich and the poor has widened and those who have buried themselves in the flamboyant world of wealth will not be touched with the excruciating pain of their underprivileged fellows. Those who eat sumptuous meal and live in expensive apartments and skyscrapers, have never, actually, imagined about the empty stomachs of their neighbors and their numbness caused by cold weather. Most probably, same is the case with high-ranking officials. The officials who ride on the most updated and costly vehicles guarded by armed bodyguards, their families lack nothing and their children study in foreign countries, never bothered themselves to help or visit the poor. So, one will conclude that injustice is rampant across the country.
The Afghan President, who assured the citizens during his electoral campaigns that his economic agenda would alleviate the financial constraints, is supposed to obviate the problem via putting his plan into practice. The lurid reports of the country’s economic challenges and mass unemployment, which were affected negatively by the withdrawal of foreign forces, investors and some of the NGOs, should make the officials seek for a proper solution and effective mechanism.