This week I sat down with Colonel Naweed Kawusi the Director of the Police Support Directorate in the Afghanistan Ministry of Interior Affairs. His department handles one of the most sensitive tasks in the Ministry. Colonel Kawusi provides us valuable insights into the current state of affairs in Afghanistan.
Q&A on the current State of Affairs in Afghanistan
Great to sit down with you. Why don’t we start with your daily routine? What is it like at the Ministry of Interior?
I wake up every morning like normal people do. I make coffee and get ready to go to work. Then I check my smart phone, like normal people do. Normal people might look at their emails or social media feeds. I don’t. I check for one particular email that I get every day at 8 am. That email tells me how many Afghan National Police personnel have been killed in the past 24 hours, fighting the Taliban and losing their lives to protect the Afghan people, the flag, and the nation. This is how my morning starts, every day — with news of death, injury, disability, and families subjected to inconsolable loss.
I give that perspective because for most people it is impossible to imagine that type of daily start unless you live in a country ravaged by terrorism, corruption, patriarchy, crime, tribal and ethnic politics, proxy wars, and the many other diseases that eat away at the soul of my country.
I follow your work Jason and I know, in your country, you too have your terrorism, your suicide attacks, your crime, tribalized politics, corruption, nepotism. And yet, in spite of all that, you are able to live life the way you want, how you want, work at jobs you like, do the things you love, pursue any career you want, say what you like, to whomever you like. And you do all that because you live in a democracy guaranteed by a republic and the republic’s defenders.
That is fair. I’ve worked on Afghanistan for nearly two decades, and yet I still cannot imagine that as a daily routine. I and many others get used to our bubble of security. So, what exactly does your team in the Ministry work on?
I run the Police Support Directorate. My department provides support to the families of the members of the ANP, whether they are alive and well, or not, at all times. So, when a policeman or woman is killed, I am the first to be informed, the first to reach out, the first to provide whatever support they need, be it emotional, financial, logistical or otherwise. This is our team’s job and this is often ignored in the times of war because the war always takes centre stage, but I think the work we do is the reason that people believe in our war. Because we take care of our own, alive or dead.
It sounds emotionally draining. What keeps your team going every day?
Imagine that your job is telephoning or calling on an elderly mother or father and telling them their son or daughter just died defending this country from murdering Taliban or other terrorists in a war that has been imposed on them for decades. This war, and these terrorists, have not only robbed those families of their best years, but have taken their children, too. Can you imagine the grief in their tears, in their sobs? Can you hear their voices choke as they thank their god that their child died an honorable death? Can you feel the mixture of pride and sorrow in their voices and in their faces? Not only parents. Wives. Children. Can you see, let alone understand, the pain in their eyes as they grasp the knowledge that they will never see their father or mother again? Ever? Can you?
That is the image and those are the voices that I live with every day. That I wake up to every day. I’m sorry I know that was not exactly the question.
So, what keeps us going? Life in Afghanistan is neither easy nor safe. After 40 years of war, this much is clear. Jason let me ask you this; if you look around your home and you see something that is dirty or broken, do you clean it, fix it? Or do you just keep talking about it, complaining about it, and not doing anything about it? I do the former. I roll up my sleeves and clean up and fix what’s broken. And I do it because this is my home. And that’s how we will fix this country, too. By taking responsibility for fixing and cleaning our home so that we have a future, a future for ourselves and our families, and for generations to come.
Sorry if I sound like I’m preaching. Maybe I am. But I am here, in Afghanistan, in my country, trying to clean it up and fix it. And this comes back to us, the people of this country. Our country is not at peace, it is not developed. It is at war. Even so, we are seeing blossoms of a future, the green shoots of hope that we have a future. It is up to each of us to help build this future. Nothing worth having comes free. Our future is no exception.
How would you describe being a police officer in Afghanistan? You told me earlier this was not where you started out in your adulthood.
Being a police officer is not just a job. If it was just a job, I’d be in an easier job, earning more money, bonuses, benefits, and enjoying the relative freedom of being a civilian in this country.
Being a police officer is my duty. A calling to serve my country and my nation. Yes, before I joined the Ministry of Interior, I worked for a UN agency with great pay on a contract that guaranteed safety and security for my family. I left that job because it did nothing to make things better for my country and for my people. It did nothing to make a difference. And after working there I had an epiphany, I came to realize that if I wanted to fix my country and stand with my people, then the UN wasn’t the place to be. I was needed elsewhere, somewhere that I could actually make a difference.
Here, at the Police Support Directorate, I am making a difference, of that, I am sure. When I enroll the children of police officers in school, children whose parent was killed by terrorists and I see them looking at me from behind their desks, dressed in their new uniforms, knowing that two days ago they had no hope of an education — believe me, this is what makes what I do worthwhile. Or when I make sure that a police officer who has lost a leg or hand while doing their duty receives a replacement limb and is able to use their new leg or hand — believe me, it’s worth it.
You seem passionate about your duty and mission. How does this affect your family?
This comes at a price, of course. I am still here, in Afghanistan, and still working for the future that I mentioned earlier, and I am not alone in this; my family is with me. I have a wife who teaches at a university and three young children who go to school. They all live with me here, experiencing life in a warzone and everything that implies. But what I aspire to teach them is that even in the darkest of times, there is always hope and there is always us. A family together doing their part for the future of a nation that is their home. And in a way, I am doing all this for them, I am doing this so that they won’t have to go through what I did, and not just them but thousands and millions of other children who are going through this war, living in worse conditions than my children. I am doing my bit to that end. A goal worth having.
The Afghan police are disparaged often by outsiders, and Afghans, that comment on Afghan security. What is your view on that constant negative critique?
Bear in mind that the Afghan National Police have been fighting on the frontlines of America’s War on Terror for the past 20 years with casualties in tens of thousands across the country. The nation’s police force has been pushed a long way from its original task of law enforcement and fighting crime, to fight scourge of terrorism alongside the Afghan National Army; at times the police force is far more engaged in fighting this war than the army itself. Constantly under-staffed, under-equipped and often times ill-managed, the Afghan National Police has always been overlooked in the favor of the Afghan National Army, and as such has never really been given the chance to do what it was mandated by the Afghan constitution to do. Until now.
Thanks for your time today Colonel Kawusi, any closing thoughts for our readers?
Thanks for taking the time to get the perspective of Afghans; it is appreciated. Let me give you one last perspective. I see the young people of my country leave every day, heading to Europe or the Americas for a future that will keep them safe and secure and give them hope. I am not judging them. Everyone has a right to decide their own life, and I am a firm believer in that. But is there really any other place on earth like home? Is there any other place like the embrace of your mother? Is there any other place on earth that pulls you to them with a promise of hope? For me, that place of hope, love and future is my home: Afghanistan.
