Translator: Robert Smith Reviewer: Ivana Krivokuća
You might have seen one of these before, it's what a lot of Afghan women wear.
This was a gift from one of the families
that I stayed with during my PhD research in Afghanistan.
I'm not here to enter into a debate about the burka,
I just needed to demonstrate in the short time we have together
what the war on terror has taught me.
So who am I?
Well, in relation to the war on terror, someone who can claim to have spent
more time than anyone from the West with the class of money-men accused
of channelling funds for Al-Qaeda, the funds that made 9/11 possible.
Random? Yeah, that's what my parents think.
(Laughter)
Ten years ago I ran for my life in a burka.
It was from a house in Jalalabad, Eastern Afghanistan.
I'd been hiding from a rioting mob
seeking revenge on westerners because of a Newsweek story
alleging that the Quran had been desecrated
by being flushed down a toilet thousands of miles away in Guantanamo Bay.
Earlier in the day, I had escaped narrowly
over the back wall of a building that was being ambushed, looted and burnt.
I had lost my headscarf somewhere on the way
between being shot at and scaling the wall.
Unfortunately, my situation remained hostile
because of the growing number of young men that was congregating in the house
to debate my ransom value.
So I knew I had to get out.
But it wasn't until hours later that I managed to communicate
through a child with some local friends who smuggled a burka to me.
With this as my new outlook, I then escaped the compound,
ran through the riot and reached one of my friend's cars
and from there we took a terrifying journey to the airport.
I ran across the tarmac and begged my way onto the last remaining
Afghan military helicopter about to depart.
Now the irony is that I'd only gone to Jalalabad for a change of scene
from what was a pretty stressful period in Kabul.
Instead, I experienced gripping fear, but I also had the opportunity to see
the world through a very different lens.
And what suddenly was brought home to me
as a non-Muslim wearing the burka is how everyone sees life
through the filter of their own very personal set of experiences.
Of course, these are what make each of us uniquely special individuals,
but on the flip-side, they can also act as a kind of cage or a set of bars
that limit our view of the world and cause us to be blinded
to other peoples' perspectives.
And because we're all captive to some degree,
it's extremely difficult to see things through somebody else's filtration system.
And this is especially the case
when fear rather than hope is the dominant emotion in a situation.
9/11 was not only the most shocking of attacks,
but it generated a culture of fear that was only deepened by what evolved
into the 'War of a Thousand Cuts', anticipated and named
by Osama Bin Laden himself.
This is fragmented, low-level warfare where Al-Qaeda fights on multiple fronts,
and its affiliates, wannabes and those who are inspired by their cause
create their own violent attacks.
So recent events in Sydney and Paris are chilling reminders of this.
Now, in such environments we readily demonize
the things we don't understand,
and yet understanding is what we need most.
The War on Terror has taught me that two key drivers for change
will be the way the West goes about building trust,
and how it discerns who to listen to, and when to intervene in a world
that is not all black, not all white, and not even fifty shades of grey.
(Laughter)
Both require nuanced understanding and I'm going to use a few examples now
from terrorism finance to show you what I mean.
In 2001, President Bush quickly linked the attacks on American soil
to an ancient money system,
demonizing it and connecting it inextricably to Islam.
Militarily, the strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan was to get rid of it.
It was referred to by an Arabic name, 'hawala',
simply meaning 'transfer' but sounding very alien to Western ears.
Essentially, it's a self-regulated system
made up of networks of money-dealers across the world,
who facilitate real-time international and domestic payments
through some pretty complex accounting,
and who deliver funds to some of the remotest parts of the world
where banks don't have a presence.
Now you might be wondering what on Earth inspired me
to go to Afghanistan and find out more about this system.
Well, part of my inspiration came from this dramatic poster
published by the US government's Rewards for Justice campaign.
It offered 5 million dollars - and still does -
for information that would help dismantle the financial support to terrorists.
I wasn't there for any rewards in Afghanistan,
I was simply there to understand how this blood money was flowing
and whether it really was blood money.
I took great pains to avoid recording people's names and taking pictures
so that I could build the trust that seemed so important
to gaining the access and therefore understanding of this very alien world.
And I also wanted to reduce the chances of getting killed.
You can probably imagine that looking into a delicate subject
like terrorism finance in war-torn Afghanistan
presents its challenges, especially for a single,
white female with no formal affiliation other than to a bunch of professors
at a far-away university.
And from the locals' perspective, initial perceptions of me
were that I must be a spy or a journalist
or a business person or - most dreaded of all -
a tax-collector looking for incriminating evidence.
The money-dealers clearly thought that my impression of them
was that they must be a bunch of terrorists,
so many actually offered tongue-in-cheek confessions
of being one at the start of an interview,
which was a great ice-breaker but also a little unnerving at times.
(Laughter)
So, the turning point with the issue of their stereotyping of me
and the perception that I might present some kind of threat to them
was when I narrowly escaped Jalalabad.
But we don't always have the benefit of such dramatic events
to shift the way we think, instead, it takes an enormous amount of effort
which we often can't afford with our limited time,
so our tendency is to retreat to our cage and keep things as black and white.
As a result of lacking nuance we risk making poor judgements,
and some difficult and sometimes awkward realities also get in the way.
So if I take the example again of terrorism finance,
we have issues with how we regulate money-flows.
Of course, intrinsically, money is neither good nor bad,
black nor white, we just label it as such according to its source and its use.
But herein lies the problem, every dollar in the pipeline looks the same,
and the same applies to a lot of commodities
like jewelry and gold, particularly that traded in the souks of the Middle-East.
Politics also presents a problem.
Terrorism finance investigations have the habit of revealing
politically uncomfortable truths about the nature and the depth
of the global Jihadist movement,
the listing and de-listing of individuals
and entities designated by the US State Department as terrorists
is an interesting one to watch.
Yet another problem is in how NATO countries
have really struggled to build trust in the counter-insurgency
and stabilization campaigns of Iraq and Afghanistan.
It's extremely difficult to get money-dealers on side
when at the same time you're smashing down their doors,
making arrests and seizing their records
which you don't even necessarily understand.
Lastly, good information is at a premium,
so with all the armchair critics and commentators out there,
where do we even start in separating the wheat from the chaff?
Who really understands the income sources of the different Jihadist groups
and how money is raised, moved and stored?
Is it the media?
Or perhaps the companies whose products are being traded
on the black-market of groups like Islamic State or ISIS,
ranked as today's best-funded terrorist organisation.
So what would you need to know if you were the UN in Afghanistan,
faced with the decision about whether to use the hawala system?
Well here's 4 points to consider: 1. Customer base.
Its customers range from - yes - militants,
traffickers and corrupt politicians,
but also to legal traders, families and aid organisations.
2. Achievements.
It's achieved some incredible things
that have actually gone relatively unnoticed to most of us,
like implementing an entire currency changeover within two months of 2002,
involving 800 million new notes weighing 500 tonnes and filling several planeloads.
3. Secrets.
The business practices of hawala dealers remain secret to most people
and so it's exceptionally difficult to access their accounts.
4. Trust.
Its high, if not impeccable consumer rating stands in stark comparison
to the record-lows of Western public trust in highly regulated banks.
So with this new information as the UN in Afghanistan,
what would you do if you were faced with the responsibility of administering
3 billion dollars worth of salary payments
to the Afghan National Police since 2003, but the challenge of not having
an immediate or even near-term method for delivering those funds
other than using the hawala system?
Well, the decision was made not to use it.
Instead, the UN experienced technical issues in moving the money,
and as a consequence, local policemen across the country have gone without pay
in some places for up to 5 years at any one time.
And like any security force anywhere in the world,
no pay has a direct negative correlation with the motivation to protect civilians
and in this case, also the interests of NATO.
If there was more time, I would like to pose similar questions
about NATO's poppy strategy which was also to get rid of it.
This has cost Western tax-payers 8 billion dollars since 2002
and produced these results:
cultivation is at an all-time high and supplies the Taliban
with double the amount of income than in 2005,
when a feasibility study was presented
on legalising the crop for the production
of the world's most important pain-killers like morphine.
The point is that authentic engagement with key influencers
within the local business community on both of these challenges
was an inconceivable prospect when looking through a black and white filter.
Decision-makers in the West could only see the locally accepted method
for moving money and the source of income from opium as bad.
So again, when we fear things, we demonize what we don't understand,
fall into stereotyping and risk making poor judgements.
Looking back to 2001, it wasn't obvious at the time
that international and American banks
handled much of the money that allowed 9/11 to happen.
This is in an addition to chains of fundraisers and recruiters
of volunteer Jihadists who acted as cash couriers and still do today.
So what's the wisdom?
Well, the Bush Administration's immediate fighting response
to do what it takes whatever the cost is completely understandable.
The problem is, Bin Laden was much more strategic and he predicted
that the US would be baited and provoked to fight unwinnable wars in foreign lands.
In 2004 he clarified in a video released on the eve
of the US Presidential Elections that the plan behind 9/11
was for the US to "bleed until bankruptcy".
And the message was directed to the American people
whom he warned would be the ultimate losers.
And he's right, we've been bleeding billions
while the blood money still finds a way to flow.
A part of the reason for this is that we've been chasing hawala dealers
down the alleys of Afghanistan
rather than tracking the fundraisers in the Gulf States
and negotiating head-on with those governments and businesses
able to influence the situation.
There is some good news, key actors are showing signs
of becoming more strategic about the funding of terrorism.
We are waking up and we are beginning to see things differently,
particularly in the area of law-enforcement.
Looking ahead, the focus should be on how to build mutual trust
and discern who to listen to.
From my experience, I know that trust can be built,
and the process can be relatively quick.
However, it can also be destroyed in mere seconds.
So the first step is unveiling your preconceptions
by putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, but importantly,
not losing your own unique perspective in the process.
This means not going completely native.
I'd like to suggest that one way to achieve this is by standing
beside that person and sharing between you what each of you sees,
this would build a much richer picture than if you were to sit on your own
and work out answers to exceptionally difficult problems
like how to stop acts of terrorism.
Now, when it comes to the economy, policy-makers must be more discerning
when considering who we should be standing beside
and one thing to think about
is that we've had almost everyone but business people
and theologians involved in what is in large part
a financial and theological challenge in the War on Terror.
To break the vicious circle of playing catch-up with the protagonists,
we must improve our ability to anticipate their next moves,
which in turn requires us in some cases to reconcile
the way we see things with the way they see them.
Decision-makers will then be much better placed
to discern when to intervene and when to step back.
Now, as for the rest of us, whatever we're looking at,
whether it be terrorism, an epidemic, poverty,
your mother-in-law, race or religion,
we must think about what kind of filter we're using,
and then think about what kind of agenda that sets for the decisions that we make,
whether subconsciously or deliberately.
Thanks for walking in my shoes for a while.
I hope that I've encouraged you to keep challenging the way
you and others view the War on Terror.