Making Friends With the Taliban
“Hostage-taking is just another form of hospitality.”
-Dan Terry, Kabul, Afghanistan
Making Friends Among the Taliban: A Peacemaker’s Journey in Afghanistan, by Jonathan P. Larson
I loved this book. This book is not about someone who spent two years there as a foreign soldier, diplomat, or humanitarian worker and then wrote a book. Many books have been written in recent years about about Afghanistan, but this one ranks as one of the best, simply because it is written from the perspective of a foreigner who became “more Afghan than we are” (said many of Dan’s Afghan colleagues and friends.
Dan Terry, who had a heroic calling, spent decades living, working, raising his family, navigating wars, militants, Afghan jail, made friends with commanders, cultivated friendship with the Taliban and with Afghans from all levels of society. His life and manner challenges the mainstream view “that members and supporters of the Taliban were beyond the civilized pale or even demonic.” (p. 49)
For those interested in development and relief work, this book is worth gold if one studies and applies Dan’s approach to “enfranchising” (p. 54) factional groups to work together for the good of Afghanistan. Just the few insights of his on aid work described on pages 33-34, are worth the price of the book for those just setting out with idealist (and often naive) values and goals.
Yes, he was a maverick. He didn’t fit neatly into anyone’s box or expectations. I was aware when I lived in Kabul that people thought (and said this) about him. “Dan, like his Afghan Jeep, could not easily be cataloged in clerical ledgers; his activities were often Spirit-led rather than designed, he was oblivious to the clock, he was often disheveled in organizational matters, and he insisted on prophetic values. All of these attributes made him problematic to a smoothly functioning agency.” (p.67)
The types of people we value as heroes says more about us and our current culture than those we fawn over. He didn’t write books, he was not a theologian, and he had no social media presence. He does not look like a modern Christian hero according to church metrics of success.
Still, Dan is a worthy hero to value. He embodied the type of Christian resilience and selfless qualities in a man we should all wish our husbands and sons to become.
“‘He was a master of chaos theory,’ one co worker says about Dan. The capacities to thrive in highly unpredictable environments, and to make friends with the prospect of surprise [characterized Dan]” (p.26). “He came to resemble the kereze diggers: those who work in harsh, underground settings for the life and peace of Afghan kin.” (p. 31)
His way challenged the rest of us. He was a student of the culture, and I admired him then, when I lived in Kabul and among the same community as Dan, and I admire him more now after reading this biography about him.
He loved Afghanistan and Afghan people well. Afghans knew he loved and respected them, even when there was disagreements about how things should be done.
Some of my favorite quotes about Dan:
“Dan’s joyful morality was deeply reassuring to people whose very worldview was threatened by the evil they saw around them.” (p. 10)
“Dan was a good man in bad times.” (p. 10)
How we need men and women like Dan! What a gift to have left a legacy of remembrance as this.
One of my favorite quotes of his which challenges and convicts me,
“I feel less intimidated or dispossessed the less I intimidate or hold others in contempt” (p. 18).
The Afghan culture, and even the current USA Culture is the opposite of this value.
He believed:
“flint-like that there was something noble in each [Afghan]” (p.19)
…and that is how he treated people. This is how we should view our enemies, and call out the humanity within them.
“Dan did not choose Afghanistan. No, Afghanistan chose him.” p. 23
That happens for many, many people who go there and are never the same again. There is a rawness of life one experiences there like no where else. One also experiences God’s strength and peace in Afghanistan like no where else in the world.
When it came to culture learning, he had mastered a way to be a student of the culture and people.
[“He was curious] about the community’s fears and anxieties and attentive to the wisdom expressed in its stories and humor.” (p. 33)
When it comes to hostage taking (Dan was taken hostage on at least one occasion), what we view as scary and a waste of one’s life, Dan viewed differently:
“Experience convinced Dan that nothing precluded trust or understanding, even with those who sometimes wished him ill. He believed that there was no reason to regard the menace of a captor as anything but friendship in disguise…hostage-taking is just another form of hospitality.” (p.41). Related quote: “Time in prison will not be wasted time.” (p. 45)
In the complexities of attempting to make peace in a country at continual war, he had a gift for intuiting how to respond firmly and with a smile. If only we could figure out how to train our souls in peacemaking ways!
“Dan deflected the logic of the gun, took a gamble on peace, and won.” (p. 42)
For the peacemaker, the beginner relief and development worker, the Christ-follower, those new to cross-cultural Gospel service, much more can be gleaned from this book from Dan’s life.
This year, on August 5, 2010, marks the 14th anniversary of his murder along with the entire Nuristan team. May we never forget them and continue to love the Afghan people and serve Christ there because He loves them.
