“Moqaamat” = Resilience

The Merriam-Webster English dictionary defines resilience as: “the ability to become strong, healthy, or successful again after something bad happens.”

In about 2004 the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC), the preeminent U.S. health surveillance and protection agency conducted an assessment of the health of the Afghan population as input into the design of the first major USAID healthcare program in Afghanistan.  I remember glancing at the report at the time and was astonished by a statistic that has been with me ever since.  The study claimed that an estimated 68% of the population suffered from some form of mental illness, most predominantly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which the Mayo Clinic defines as, “a mental health condition that's triggered by a terrifying event — either experiencing it or witnessing it. Symptoms may include flashbacks, nightmares and severe anxiety, as well as uncontrollable thoughts about the event.”  Given that Afghanistan has been in a continuous state of war for 38 years (1978-2016), the longest running armed conflict of any country in modern history, the fact that 68% of the population suffers from mental distress is not surprising.  What IS surprising is the unexpected resilience of the Afghan people and why that should be.  Why do kids gather together in a ruined school to teach eachother how to read?  What is it that has not been entirely extinguished that leads those kids to that “school”?

While PTSD is a relatively new label to decsribe the psychological effects of war and terror that have stalked us all in the 21st century, I have to believe its actually as old as the human race.  War and terror have been around a long time.  The everyday wounds we inflict on one another are part of the landscape of human history and our lives.  Those wounds don’t go away, but they are somehow overcome by many of us. We move forward sustained by something.

Everyone of my Afghan friends and colleague have been affected by war.  There is no family, no individual that has not been “touched by evil.”  I remember when I first came back to Afghanistan in 2003 I was living in a small apartment and the man who served as the “chowkidar” or guard for the property lived below me in a room with one of his teenage sons.  As we got to know one another (a chance for me to practice my rusty Dari) he shared the travails of his life and his family through the years of war.  At one point he lifted the tee shirt his son was wearing during one of our conversations to show the scars that ran from the boy’s neck to below his stomach.  He explained that during the civil war in the mid-90’s when one of the combatants was raining rockets indiscriminantly down on the city from the surrounding hills, one of them landed on their house killing three family members instantly and severly wounding the boy who was four years old at the time.  The boy was lucky to surrvive.  Yet, this man and his son were among some of the happiest people I’ve ever met in this country and were thriving making plans for the son’s education and the marriage of another son.  But I know that other’s have not fared so well and have never recovered from the “bad things” that have happended to them and their families.

There was an interesting article recently in the New York Times that featured the struggles of an entire town over the decades of war in Afghanistan.  The town is Istalif which is situated northwest of Kabul and has been famous for its unique blue pottery for over a thousand years.

The article cites Istalif’s reputation for “resilience” because of its ability to survive and resurrect itself after repeated ravaging by one invader after another for a millennium, and more recently from 38 years of war.  During the Taliban incursions into the area in the late 1990’s, the article claims that that artisans buried their tools and fled believing that they would eventually come back to pick up their lives.  According to one shopkeeper interviewed, “We were not going to give up.  This has been our past and will be our future. My grandfather started this shop and my son will continue the business.”

People in the West who have the luxory to spend their lives studying and researching such things as “resilience” have identified a few key factors that can sustain us through the tragedies that befall all of us at some point in our lives.  I have seen all of these strategies for resilience practiced and lived by Afghan friends and colleagues over the years:

·       “A sense of future possibilities and positive expectations no matter what happens.”

·       “Achieving small goals every day that gives a sense of self confidence and efficacy, i.e. sometimes all you can do is keep breathing and put one foot in front of the other”

·       “A sustaining network of family and friends”

·       “A sense of ultimate meaning and purpose derived from a deep spirituality”