{"id":2394,"date":"2023-09-04T22:58:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-04T19:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/publictribune.tv\/?p=2394"},"modified":"2025-12-01T17:11:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T12:41:43","slug":"%d8%b4%d9%87%d8%b1-%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%b1%db%8c%da%a9%db%8c%d9%87%d8%a7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/2394\/","title":{"rendered":"The City of Darkness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>No one remembers a time when Kabul was a city \u201cwithout problems,\u201d even if we overlook the political instability and the routine bloodshed of the past half-century. It is impossible to ignore the challenges of urban life in Afghanistan\u2019s capital: constant air pollution, the alarming negligence of successive governments toward this pollution\u2014seen, for example, when municipal workers remove sewage from drains only to leave it beside the same channels so the sun can dry it, after which Kabul\u2019s sharp winds scatter it like poison into the air residents breathe. Added to this are dozens of other serious, long-standing issues: chaotic urban expansion, overcrowding, water shortages, and the absence of basic health and educational services in many areas. These problems have never truly concerned any of the rulers who came and went, and the people of this city have remained so deeply submerged in this swamp that they no longer remember\u2014no longer even imagine\u2014that life could be better, healthier, more urban, more humane. And if the ruling authorities refuse to take these afflictions seriously, at the very least residents themselves could lessen the sting of some of these urban wounds.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To all these issues\u2014none of which are \u201cminor\u201d or \u201csecondary,\u201d and all of which hold the potential to become severe human catastrophes\u2014one must add the persistent problem of electricity shortages. Kabul is regularly struck by the plague of darkness, and this plague has perhaps worsened since the collapse of the previous government. Historically, Kabul\u2019s residents complained mainly about winter blackouts. Their roots lie in a practice established during the Mujahideen\u2019s \u201cjihad\u201d against the People\u2019s Democratic Party: destroying power pylons to deprive people of electricity in the hope that darkness would turn public sentiment against the regime. This mentality lingered among jihadist circles for years, and during the years of the neoliberal republic, the opposing jihadist faction\u2014today\u2019s ruling class\u2014continued the same practice, targeting pylons and plunging the city into darkness. While the \u201cMujahideen\u201d sought to take the light from the people, the \u201cdemocrats\u201d and \u201ctechnocrats\u201d sitting in Kabul\u2019s palaces showed little urgency in restoring power, allowing blackouts to stretch longer and become more unbearable. I recall a winter when repairing Kabul\u2019s power system took <em>two entire months<\/em>. During that time, residents grew exhausted from complaining, and officials remained so indifferent that people felt their voices were entirely unheard. This was not an isolated winter\u2014every year, electricity in Kabul failed, either from storms, heavy snowfall, or attacks by armed opposition groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the two years since the new regime took power in Kabul, it has managed to keep the city\u2019s electricity mostly running\u2014a sign in itself of how low public expectations have fallen. At the start, the widespread belief was that this regime would be unable to pay for imported electricity and that total darkness was imminent. That did not happen; electricity, unlike Kabul\u2019s peace and hope, did not disappear completely. Yet even the power supply has not escaped the broader political shift. The first major change was shortening the billing cycle\u2014from once every two months to once a month. The second was raising electricity prices to increase domestic revenue. Given the regime\u2019s lack of international recognition and its recurring financial restrictions, it is not surprising that it seeks to fill its coffers by raising taxes, tariffs, and electricity fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But despite costlier electricity and more frequent billing, Kabul remains a dark city. This time, however, the darkness comes not in the freezing winter but in the scorching summer. It is clear that in summer, people depend far more on electricity\u2014needing fans and cooling devices\u2014while in winter many households, due to financial hardship, rely on firewood or coal instead of electric heating. Yet Kabul now experiences irregular, repeated summer blackouts\u2014outages that signal an approaching winter that may be even darker and more difficult than before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No one remembers a time when Kabul was a city \u201cwithout problems,\u201d even if we overlook the political instability and the routine bloodshed of the past half-century. It is impossible to ignore the challenges of urban life in Afghanistan\u2019s capital: constant air pollution, the alarming negligence of successive governments toward this pollution\u2014seen, for example, when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[302],"tags":[303],"class_list":["post-2394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-stories","tag-303"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2394"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37755,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2394\/revisions\/37755"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeyartelevision.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}