Inequality

The Glass Kingdom, creepy and suspenseful from the start transforms to simple  horror by the end, masterfully detailing the resentments that emerge over inequality and the ways that individuals justify stealing from others: “It was a war between herself and the moneyed classes, and in that war all ruses were legitimate, all feints justified,” concludes Sarah soon after creating and selling a set of forgeries, presented as correspondence from her most recent employer, a famous author. Committing a crime eliminates social protections, and when encountering trouble later, Sarah cannot turn to authorities: “It was too late, in any case, to become an upright citizen and call the police.”

A reader must suspend belief about the plot and numerous character decisions. Why would the author retain her own handwritten letters to celebrities like Angela Davis or Diana Vreeland? Why would collectors sell them to the author and not to the other collectors seeking them and paying a premium price? Wouldn’t the collectors have direct dealings? And Sarah’s transport of a couple hundred thousand by air, crossing international borders, would surely be much riskier with more challenges than described.

Then again, people are odd, sometimes extraordinarily lucky or unlucky as the case may be. And loneliness – so familiar during the Covid pandemic – compounds the poor decision-making displayed throughout the novel: “The burden of that solitude had begun to crush her hour by hour.” Sarah fails to recognize the assuming manipulations of a new friend Mali who requires assistance in covering up another crime, not posing questions or objections after Mali suggests: “Let’s do it my way, OK? I’m sorry to get you involved, though,” quickly adding, “We’d both like that, no?” Finally, why would a young woman not quickly abandon a hotel losing guests, let alone a city with increasing civil unrest?

The dark and moody novel powerfully demonstrates how inequality makes trust or mutual respect impossible. Characters are divided not only by wealth and skill, but ethnicity and religion. A hotel maid concludes that the farangs, referring to foreigners, are “animals in their hearts, untouched by the grace of Lord Buddha” – and they exist in a “prison of their own making, and she entered that prison only to make a living. For in the end there was no other reason to enter it at all.”    

The book conveys that life is unfair at every level. Highly visible, cruel inequality ensures that sinister unfairness and corruption never end.

Shadow aid

YaleGlobal summarizes  an intriguing article by journalist Elizabeth Dickinson for the Middle East Research and Information Project:

“Across the Middle East, the United Nations is coordinating the largest operation in its history to help nearly 3 million Syrian refugees at a cost of $4.2 billion in 2014 alone….But on the side, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of start-up charities and regional donors have built parallel networks of aid.” Distribution is uneven, relying on select connections and networks, manipulated by politics and corruption....Dickinson concludes that the piecemeal approach to aid based on individual whims results in inefficiencies, waste, new power structures, inequality and conflict – all of which threaten sustained giving. Refugees might receive dates during Ramadan but their children have no schools to attend.

As a journalist, Dickinson gets to the heart of human predicaments. The inefficiencies and piecemeal aid she describes are not limited to Syria or the Middle East and can be found in countries as secure as the United States. Charities elsewhere have come under scrutiny, too. Malfeasance by a few hurt legitimate charities.

Allure of Deceit is the story of a fictional  charitable foundation, huge and influential, and its director who uses funds and programs in Afghanistan and India to figure out why a young inventor and his wife were killed in a terrorist attack. Afghan villagers are dismayed to be regarded as recipients of zakat, and in the book, a foundation employee is distraught, too, as he tries to explain the disparities to an Afghan man: 

.... so much charity was based on whims. “I sometimes feel as if all that matters is an administrator’s last conversation with a donor. A donor hears a report that children are going without shoes and soon we’re unloading crates of shoes, every size and style imaginable, most of them inappropriate for this terrain. So we look for storage, often paying to lease the space.”

Lessons of Allure of Deceit: Needs are great and transform abruptly over time, with shoes and coats desperately needed one day and not the next. Motivations, whether for generosity or murder, also transform over time - and too often, some regret their choices.

Photo of US Navy officer delivering shoes to children in Dijbouti in 2010 is courtesy of US Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Joshua Bruns and Wikimedia Commons; photo of a US Air Force helping a young Afghan girl try on donated shoes at Parwan Refugee Camp in 2008 is courtesy of US Air Force Master Sgt. Keith Brown and Wikimedia Commons. 

Tough road

Afghanistan does not have many roadways but the few it has are treacherous -  a result of both roadside attacks and poor maintenance.

"Since 2012, the United States has refused to fund the Afghan government’s road maintenance projects because it has no faith in the country’s ability to perform even simple tasks, such as dispatching a contractor to fill in a pothole or repaving a stretch of highway," reports Kevin Seiff for The Washington Post. He adds that the US continues to build new roads to assist the economy. "The new, U.S.-built highways seemed to be a godsend for this impoverished nation. But the projects became notorious for their exorbitant costs and poorly implemented contracts."

Taliban fighters target the roads, knowing that they are security priority. Military vehicles patrol the road and regularly clear them of IEDs. Highway 1 is the "lifeline," suggests a member of the US Army’s 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry in a report from Alexa Pena for Stars & Stripes. As US troops prepare to leave this year, responsibility for patrols and checkpoints is being handed over to Afghan troops.

More than two thirds of Afghans live within 30 miles of Highway 1. The highway, also known as A01 is 2,200 kilometers, circling the country, connecting major cities. In the sequel to Fear of Beauty, two characters travel Highway 1 from east of Lashkar Gah in Helmand to Kandahar, and only one returns to the small fictional village of Laashekoh.

Photo of Highway 1 reconstruction in 2003,  courtesy of USAID and Wikimedia Commons. Screenshot of the 137-kilometer stretch of Highway 1 between Lashkar Gah and Kandahar, courtesy of Google Maps.

Corruption

Each year Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index releases international rankings and for 2012, Afghanistan has landed in last place along with North Korea and Somalia, reports Frank Vogl for the Huffington Post.

"There is a brutal message here for the architects of Western geo-political strategy in general and for those most responsible for the Afghan debacle in particular," Vogle writes. "Despite all the diverse experiences of decades, the harsh fact is that Western powers have a zero success rate in establishing decent governance in poor countries embroiled in conflict that have no history of democratic institutions."

Public trust and respect is minimal in such countries, Vogle explains. Human rights abuses and violence are high. This does not bode well for security - for Afghanistan, neighbors in India or Pakistan, or anywhere else in the world.

Image courtesy of Transparency International.