An illiterate
construction expert locally called as “Gilkaar” was building two big towers in
a remote village in Afghanistan with mud and straw. The word Gilkaar is a
combined word made of two different words “Gil” which means “mud” and “Kaar”
which means “work” and it is literally translated as “Mudworker” to show that how underdeveloped is the
construction sector in Afghanistan, because most of the buildings are made of
soil and water (mud) and sometimes stones in the foundation. It is maybe
because of extreme poverty and weak and tribal government and political
institutions.
Gilkaar was
making the two towers as high as possible. The materials were not strong enough
to bear the weight of the height and the way he was building it was very
unprofessional.
The two towers
had fallen down many times and the man was rebuilding it again and again with
different techniques to make sure it will not fall down next time. The two
towers were not straight but a little bit bowed due the fact that he did not
have enough equipment and tools to measure the height, width and other
dimensions of the two towers.
An American
journalist came by and interviewed the old man for his project which was about
to end after many years of hard work.
Journalist: You
are doing a great job. How long have you been working on this project?
Gilkaar: Since
2001.
Journalist: What are you planning to make?
Gilkaar: The highest muddy towers for Afghanistan
and I call them Afghanistan Trade Center.
Journalist: Why are you making it from mud and
straw in such a poor quality?
Gilkaar: I don’t have money to invest on these
towers. I am making them from the soil and water which are available for free in
the working site.
Journalist: But they are so weak and
unprofessional and even not straight and they will eventually fall down and it
can kill people, don’t you think it is all a waste of time and resources what
you are doing?
Gilkaar: No, if they fall down, then we won’t blame
and attack and occupy another country for it, the same way you Americans did to
our country, and then he laughs. You thought us good lessons. But we don’t go
that far to create religious extremist groups to kill innocent people in other
countries too. We have lost so many lives and family members because of your
towers and now it’s time for us to build our own towers and even if they fall
down and kill some people, they will die for the Afghanistan Trade Center, not
for another countries trade center. You people from the western countries are
so bad. When your people come with guns in our country, we accept you and let you
live here but when my sons immigrated into your countries without guns to save
their lives, you killed one of them and deported the other one to Turkey. You
people use our nation, our country, our religion and all what had built here to
defeat Russia in this country and now you occupied it and torture the same
people you used and destroyed their country. At least what you can do for this country
is to stop killing innocent civilian in this country that you have occupied.
Journalist: Are you sure? Puts his hand in his
pocket and takes out a pistol and shoots Gilkaar in the head and leaves.
Next day the
media and TV announces this way: There was a suicide attack against a foreign
journalist in Afghanistan but the security forces managed to kill the suicide
attacker before he exploded himself. He was a man of 55 years of age and was
shot right in front of the two highest towers made in a remote village and
called as Afghanistan Trade Center. The camera man “Ajmal Naqshbandi” who was
an Afghan had filmed the scene was also shot and murdered in this tragic event
by the terrorists who planned this attack.
