The Conversion Rate…
Ahmed then pointed at a map of Afghanistan.
If it could happen in Russia, the same could happen in Afghanistan.
They were the new Bolsheviks.
Sticks and stones break the soldier's bones.
They break Ahmed's courage and the persuasion in his languages to see how things could be so much more different. His literary message came to Kabul with mixed reactions, finding an audience in a secret, communist society, yet beyond that, the message of communism and socialism conflict too significantly with the established quo of Islam, Islamic teaching, and the influence of madrassas. Ahmed, spearheading a communism conversion initiative greenlit by his Soviet authorities, ran into resistance after resistance. He wasn't forcing an ideology upon his brethren; he was forcing them to change their minds, which was an even more complicated task. Even when speaking to operatives in Kabul about the facets of communism, they seem too uneducated to understand to understand his work.
This paralyzes Ahmed, who discovers a nasty truth through his theorization. If communism, or socialism, should work throughout Afghanistan, the people must be educated enough to grasp what state-enterprise and welfare-state even mean. His propaganda-fueled education could never be disruptive if Islam remains dominant in people's lives, just as it did in his. Islam would have to be dismantled, mosque-by-mosque, throughout the increasingly occupied country, full of unrest and outrage at the Soviets.
He would start with Kabul, then fan outwards. But they outright refuse when he raises this point to the secret society, which has grown more visible. Ahmed couldn't believe it, standing among comrades-in-arms, yet they were no true comrades, just passive men disguised as sycophants. He demanded to know why they couldn't, so one of them came forth from a village in the south.
He spoke plainly in Pashto about why they couldn't do what Ahmed demanded.
"ځکه چې په ټول افغانستان کې د اسلام سیستماتیک له منځه وړل به انقلاب ته بلنه ورکړی."
"Because the systematic destruction of Islam throughout Afghanistan will invite a revolution."
Ahmed saw how the others nodded like obedient fools. He snarled and pointed at them all.
“هغه څه چې دا هیواد ورته اړتیا لری د اسلام په وړاندې انقلاب دی. یو کمونیستی انقلاب! زما په خبره ځان پوه کړه!”
"What this country needs is a revolution against Islam! A communist revolution! Understand me!"
Another one of the men, grey-bearded, elderly, scholarly, and educated, sighed at Ahmed’s frustration.
نه احمد دا کار په افغانستان کې هېڅکله نه شی کېدای. تاسو باید خپل ځان ته بیا کتنه وکړئ. "
“This can never be done in Afghanistan. You have to re-examine yourself. "
Ahmed searched around the meeting room for any supporters who would defend him.
He felt nothing but stolid stares, these silent men with terse lips, so Ahmed flared his lips angrily.
He told the men that Russia, the Soviet Union, used to be a tsarist backwater, the laughing stock of educated Western Europe. Religion controlled it, had no social welfare state, and lagged behind the West in modernity. It, by all accounts and measures, was a frail animal. Until communism arrived on its doorstep. Engineered by the Bolsheviks, they seized government during a period of turmoil, transformed Russia into a new state, the Soviet Union, and made once a frail animal into a mighty, powerful bear.
Ahmed then pointed at a map of Afghanistan. If it could happen in Russia, the same could happen in Afghanistan. They were the new Bolsheviks.
The men then murmured to one another, considering Ahmed's exasperated rhetoric. Getting these men to agree on something has been the bulk of work in occupied Afghanistan. 1983 became 1984, yet the invasion became a quagmire with each passing. A Vietnam. It was an uphill struggle, wrestling sovereignty from those who would never give it up to the Soviets. To those who betrayed their nation for communism, to people like Ahmed. He has been damned multiple times by multiple imams. He had stones and slander thrown against him.
But he will not break. He will remain defiant, honest, and passionate. He will be atop his hill.
