William Dalrymple: one day he's seeing the president, the next he's in...

the slammer

How the mighty fall. William Dalrymple, chest puffed up from having
been granted a 90-minute audience with Afghan president Hamid Karzai
to talk about, among other things, his acclaimed new book Return of a
King, soon discovered that not all Afghanistan kneels at the sight of
one of our leading historians.

After the meeting at the beginning of the week, Dalrymple went
exploring the Afghan capital. "Rather different adventures today,"
says a dispatch from the historian. "I was taken in for questioning
this morning while walking the 17th-century city walls on the
mountains above Kabul."

Dalrymple landed up in the District One Police Station where he was
regarded suspiciously. "After a few phone calls the commander released
me with the stern admonition: 'Taliban have fired rockets down from
that ridge. And enemies wear many clothes. Many suicide bombers have
dressed as foreigners'. From presidential palace to police slammer in
24 hours."

Back at liberty, Dalrymple tells the Londoner that President Karzai
was very receptive and saw parallels in Return of a King with his own
situtation.

The book chronicles how the British stormed Kabul in 1839, placed Shah
Shuja on the throne and then suffered a humiliating rout. "Our
so-called current allies behave to us just as the British did to Shah
Shuja," Karzai told Dalrymple. "They have squandered the opportunity
given to them by the Afghan people. The West has tried to do exactly
as they did in the 19th century."