Beer festivals and elections: the new face of Afghanistan

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The Independent
By Justin Huggler in Kabul
02 October 2004


"Drink as much as you can," says a tubby man in lederhosen as you push your way through the narrow entrance. It's not the sort of thing you expect to hear in Afghanistan. Inside the doorway, there is a small beer garden crammed with people who have taken his advice to heart. Foam is flying as drinkers try to dance to the music and cradle their giant beer mugs at the same time.

Deafening traditional oompah music blasts from a stereo, and a large group of men piston enthusiastically to the beat. From a table, someone strikes up a German folk song, and soon a crowd is joining in.

One woman is wearing a Bavarian barmaid's blouse with plunging neckline, and has squeezed herself into too-tight shorts. She would raise eyebrows in Piccadilly Circus, let alone Kabul, where outside, Afghan women still scurry past hidden in the all-covering blue burka. Welcome to the brave new Afghanistan, complete with German beer festival and, in a week's time, the first democratic election. However, scan the crowd at the beer festival again, and all is not as it seems. The drinkers are all "internationals". The only Afghans present are waiters pouring the beers. Only foreigners are allowed to drink in Kabul.

Arriving at Kabul airport, the first impression is striking. It is no longer the familiar war-ravaged city of bombed-out buildings. Construction sites are popping up all over town. The upmarket districts where the internationals live are spick and span. But it's only skin deep. Just drive out to the edge of the city and amid the dust-blown tents of refugee camps, you can find the old Afghanistan. It is unchanged, say international human rights monitors. The poll is being heralded as a major triumph in Afghanistan's path to peace and democracy, and the Western-backed President Hamid Karzai is widely expected to win.
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