New Internationalist. The people, the ideas, the action in the fight for global justice.

If I got a pound for every time someone asked me to take care as I talked about visiting Kabul I’d be a millionaire by now. I do promise to take good care of myself, and I mean it, but as soon as I reach my city of birth I feel safer than ever. This safety is not logical, of course, because statistically Kabul is getting more and more dangerous with the rising number of suicide bombings, kidnappings and armed robberies.  Perhaps my feeling of safety comes from sentimentality; pure irrational love and deep sympathy for my city. I love everything about my city, its people, its ever increasing paved roads, its ugly glass buildings, the great kabab, sheer yakh (Afghan ice cream)...

My relationship with Peshawar has been hatred on first sight. I was 6 years old when I visited the city for the first time and confronted the heat, the pollution and the tense environment that compelled women to cover each inch of their body and stay indoors. It was 1989 and I vowed never to return. I have repeated and broken the same vow every year ever since. Peshawar always finds an excuse to pull me back – funerals, weddings, and escape from the Taliban capturing my city in Northern Afghanistan...

Here’s a question, something that has been bothering me for some time now: How does Tony Blair sleep at night?