[Nettime-nl] Dutch police training Afghan colleagues without knowing local reality

[Tjebbe van Tijen via Chello <t.tijen@chello.nl>]

Dutch police training Afghan colleagues without knowing local reality

July 21, 2011 by Tjebbe van Tijen 

De geÃllustreerde versie staat op

http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/dutch-police-training-afghan-colleagues-without-knowing-local-reality/

ââKennis Nederlandse trainers over Kunduz lijkt beperktâ (knowledge of the Dutch trainers about Kunduz seems limited) is the headline of De Volkskrant daily this morning and I imagine how an ignorant Royal Dutch Marechaussee (military police) officer instructs the local Afghan police force: âLook that is how we do it in Holland!â

[tableau showing a Dutch military policeman training an Afghan police class]

At the same time I imagine the improbable reversed situation of an Afghan military or police functionary training Dutch police officers at the Dutch Police Academy in Apeldoorn: âDo you understand?  Thatâs how we do it in Afghanistan!â Should it be rather the Dutch politicians who need such a training before deciding to send a police training mission to Afghanistan? An impossible proposition almost for sure, because who would determine who would be the Afghan trainers for such a mission in the Netherlands, which fraction of Afghan society would such an instructor represent? Now we are ready to reverse this question and think about who has been selected in the Netherlands to train Afghan policemen. Or can policing be made in something blank and objective non dependant on local standards and social complexities? I doubt it.

[tableau showing Afghan policeman teaching a Dutch police class]
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