# One Afghan's take on some Western tries to "help" Afghanistan



## The Bread Guy (31 May 2013)

> _You may have heard that, last weekend, an American artist and Afghan volunteers handed out 10,000 pink balloons in Kabul. His “art” inspired a range of emotions, from those who thought this was a wonderful way to promote peace, to those that thought the whole thing was a big waste of time. In the “waste of time” camp was an independent Afghan journalist who goes by the pen name “Companero,” who asked me if I’d post his thoughts on the whole thing._
> 
> .... This past Saturday, as Kabulis were trying to recover from the insurgent attack on the International Organization for Migration (IOM) the night before, they saw some Afghans distributing pink balloons as part of another “ art” project to promote peace in Afghanistan. As usual, the idea for the balloon project came from a New York based artist who hardly knows my culture and people. Backing him up, distributing balloons, were a bunch of young Afghans who think that Afghanistan starts in Shar-e Naw and ends  in Wazir Akbar Khan (two of the more expensive neighborhoods in the capital city).
> 
> ...


Registan.net, 30 May 13


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## OldSolduer (31 May 2013)

So all AQ and the Taliban need are pink balloons and hugs and tea.


 :facepalm:


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## Fishbone Jones (31 May 2013)

> What do Afghans need? We need security, schools, universities, hospitals , roads, food, drinking water, and jobs.



Sorry. We've given them all of that.

The question should be what are they doing with those same that we've graciously given?

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make a purse from a pig's ear. :


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## rmc_wannabe (31 May 2013)

> What do Afghans need? We need security, schools, universities, hospitals , roads, food, drinking water, and jobs. What we don’t need is 10,000 pink balloons.



And even when you were given those things you managed to squander them due to pride and ignorance. The amount of blood shed to rebuild a nation where the bricks are being swiped as they're being laid leads me to believe that it was all in vain.

What Afghanistan needs is a change in philosophy. That will probably never happen. Its hasn't in the past 1000 years.


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