Today’s article includes of a number of real life stories with aim of seeing the things from a different angle. Such an understanding is much important for Afghans who are slowly and gradually emerging and excelling towards stability, prosperity and civic understanding and etiquettes. The stories belong to a friend of mine who lives in Kabul.
During the civil war, his family was also among millions of other Afghans who had to leave the country and get refuge in Pakistan. They went to Peshawar and rented a house in the most expensive and luxurious part of the city, the Defense. A high-ranked army officer owned the house and he had asked the property dealer to rent his house to a foreigner. They rented the house and started initial decoration and renovation. After a couple of days, the owner of the house came and got angry on the property dealer that he had given the house to locals and not foreigners. When he was informed that the family was not local and were Afghans, he got even more upset as he did not have good perceptions about Afghans. The head of the family intervened and offered to empty the house in three days’ time to find and move to another house. The house owner noticed that new tenants had already made some expenses on renovation and decoration so he did not agree with that but he came up with two tough conditions; the tenants would pay in advance the rent of a year and there would be 10% increment in the rent of the house every year. The family head accepted the conditions and they started living in the house. In two years, they came to know each other and both the families discovered the good qualities of each other that he did not increase the rent after the second year and he stopped collecting the rent in advance. The rent remained the same for more than a dozen of years until the Afghan family decided to return to Afghanistan in 2010.
When the family moved to the house, neighbors came to know about it and as a traditional and cultural practice; they sent the food for many days and did not let them cook in their house. Similarly, a neighbor used to send them with a lot of vegetables and fruits from his farms.
One day, one of his brothers had to go through surgical operation. The house owner learned about this after the surgery and was very unhappy, as he was not informed on time. Later on, he refused to take six months’ salary, saying it a gift from his side to the sick family member. It made a huge sum of money in those days and the family refused to accept this but this request was not entertained.
When the conditions started worsening in Peshawar and the family decided to leave the house and move to Kabul, the head of the family called his sons and directed them to renovate the house before leaving. They polished the tiles, replaced all the broken items, added some new and much-needed items to the house, painted the house and made the house look like a new one. It was the reason that, when they left the house, the house owner had one condition to the property dealer, ‘find me a tenant who should be Afghan.’
My friend told me another story about his visit to India with one of his friends. They went to India for visiting a factory and ordering some products. When they arrived to India, they found out that the factory was in another city and there was no direct flight to that city. However, the factory owner had reserved a special compartment for them in the train. This air-conditioned VIP compartment of train was more comfortable than an airplane. The journey took slightly more than three hours and they spent all the time in eating different things sent to them by their host. They got special treatment of VIP guests. When they arrived to the said factory, the factory owner said, ‘Before you decide upon your purchase, I want you to visit all the factories of the city, check their quality and prices and then come back and if the quality and price of my factory’s products still attracted you, you can purchase from me but if not, you can make your purchase from wherever suits you the most.’ He then accompanied with them a luxurious car with a driver who took them to different factories where they checked the products and learned about the prices. They found out that the prices and product quality of the factory owner was the best in the city.
At the end of this visit, he said, ‘The reason for my special treatment of yours was not to ink a business deal. I wanted to make a good friend from Afghanistan as well.’ Indeed, he was successful in his effort and they are still very good friends.
After hundreds and thousands of years, sayings of great scholars like Aristotle, Confucius, and others surprise the readers. Their small sayings carry mighty messages for leading a good life. Thousands of us read them, admire them, share them with others but hardly ever implement them in our lives because it needs efforts more than reading books. It needs a special character, a positive attitude towards life, better attitude while talking or making deals with others and ignoring temporary and material losses for permanent and meaningful gains.
Speech of President Ashraf Ghani at the American Congress was an example of this strategy on political level. He poured the US president, taxpayers, military personnel, army generals, and relief workers with praise and appreciation and members of the congress showered him with standing ovations and long rounds of claps. This resulted in the improvement in the relations between the two countries that had fallen to its lowest level in last couple of years of Mr. Karzai’s government. Both the sides complained against each other. If Americans were not happy of the corruption, mismanagement and other drawbacks of Mr. Karzai’s government, Afghans were also not happy of the ineffectiveness of US government and forces in tackling militancy. However, it remains a fact that Americans may or may not need Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is in desperate need of American and allied powers’ support and assistance until the country becomes self-dependent. The accusations and blaming only resulted in the widening gap between the two countries and did no good for either Afghanistan or USA.
Apart from the relations of Afghanistan and USA, same wise strategy can be used to improve our relations with different nations of the world and bring the people closer inside the country. Our country has been through decades’ long war and destruction and we need to take every step with calculation and consideration.