THE "FATHER OF THE NATION" ZAHER SHAH RETURNED TO KABOL
KABOL 18 Apr. (IPS) "This is the nicest day of my life", the former
King of Afghanistan Mohammad Zaher Shah was quoted as having said as he stepped
onto the soil of his homeland Thursday morning after 29 years exile in Italy,
bringing hope for the restoration of peace, prosperity, happiness and stability
to an Afghanistan ruined by endless wars.
As he came out of the tarmac of the Italian military plane which had flew him from Rome to Kabol’s ruined Bagram airport via Tashkent, in Uzbekistan, followed by Mr. Hamed Karzai, the interim Prime Minister, General Abdol Rashid Dostom, a veteran Uzbek warlord who is ruling over the northern province of Mazar Sharif greeted an obviously tired, but visibly radiant Zaher Shah.
The foreign diplomatic corps, Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nation’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan and his staff, leaders of various Afghan tribes, led by Pir Seyyed Gilani and many Afghan dignitaries as well as more than 200 foreign journalists were at the airport to welcome the man who symbolises peace, happiness, prosperity and modernity.
Flanked by Dostom and Karzai, who, like the former King, is a Poshtoon, the Monarch reviewed a guard of honour before shaking hands with well-wishers and receive bouquets of flowers from little girls in colourful tribal dresses.
Four government ministers representing the four main Afghan ethnics, the Hazara, the Pashtoon, the Tajik and the Uzbek went with Karzai to Rome to escort home Zahir Shah and his family back to Kabol.
Thousands of people lined the route to the former king's villa, desperate to catch a glimpse of him. Dancers in white tunics and red sashes swirled to the beat of drums and a flute, and people from across the country held up photographs of the ex-king and Afghan flags. "The Father of the Nation has returned"; "The light of our eyes is back", read some slogans carried by the jovial and celebrating crowd.
The neighbouring Islamic Republic was probably the only country in the world were official media ignored the historic return of the 87-year-old Afghan Shah, the Iranian ruling clerics fearing the event might give more blood to an already popular pro-Monarchist movement in Iran fuelled by Prince Reza Pahlavi, the 40 years-old son of Mohammad Reza Shah, overthrown by the 1979 Islamic revolution led by Grand Ayatollah Roohollah Khomeini.
Iranian who watched the event on their television sets equipped with satellite dishes immediately made the comparison between Zaher Shah’s first words on his arrival to homeland and the extraordinary, if not historic response of Mr. Khomeini who, while in the plane on his way back to Tehran from Paris, he was asked by an aid what he feels now that he approaches the soil of Iran after 15 years of exile, said bluntly and dryly: "nothing".
"Though Zaher Shah has repeated several times that he has no intention to restore Monarchy to Afghanistan, yet, one has to understand the uneasiness of the Iranian clerical rulers who are not happy with his return, even as an ordinary citizen who, like any other countrymen, might play a political role for the peace and prosperity of his nation", observed Dr. Sadeq Ziba Kalam, a sociologist and professor of international politics at the Tehran University.
But Mr. Mohammad Soltanifar, the managing editor of the pro-government, English-language daily "Iran News" said the fear expressed by some "low-level" Iranian officials has no ground as there is no room in Iran for Monarchy "anymore".
"Iranian people who have experienced democracy would not change it with Monarchy", he told the Persian service of the BBC, not explaining which kind of democracy the Iranians have experienced in the past 22 years nor why he equates monarchy with dictatorship?
Mohammad Zaher Shah was deposed by his cousin Daoud Khan while on holiday in Italy in 1973. During his three-decade absence, the once a safe and popular stop on the Asian hippie trail, descended into a hellhole of death and devastation.
The United Nations estimates 1.5 million Afghans have died, two million have been wounded and five million made refugees in fighting that started in 1979 with the Soviet invasion.
In 1996 young orthodox student-soldiers, trained in religious schools in Pakistan and known as Taleban took over a war-shattered nation, imposing harsh Islamic rules, destroying schools and universities, cinemas and theatres, banishing music and dance, executing hundreds of people until they were driven out last December by U.S.-led forces pursuing Osama Ben Laden, a Saudi anti-Western crusader believed by the Americans to be behind the 11 September suicide attacks on the United States.
At 87, the former king is frail, and few observers expect him to be more than a benevolent father figure for a traumatised nation. But the symbolic importance of his presence is powerful. In June, he will convene a Loya Jirga, a Grand National assembly of tribal elders and other Afghan representatives, who will select a new government to rule Afghanistan until elections in late 2003.
"I hope now that his majesty is back, all the valiant sons of this prous land would also return, as the presence of his majesty here is the prove of stability and peace. Let’s hope this event will bring us prosperity and happiness", Mr. Karzai told journalists.
Speaking to reporters, ordinary, but peace thirsty Afghan expressed same kind of hope. "This day will be celebrated for years to come as Afghanistan's independence day", Mr. Naqibollah Matoonwal, a 29-year-old welder told the British news agency Reuters. ENDS ZAHER SHAH RETURNED 18402