Summary
Afghanistan is a traditional country, where even development processes show signs of tradition. Telecommunication technology is present and under development, but people are still using traditional communication tools. Wedding and engagement parties, black ceremonies, funerals, talking inside public transportations, prayer time in mosques, Islamic prayer time, and some other official and unofficial meetings are common ways of communication among the public in Afghanistan.
The Friday prayer is a much known tool of traditional communication. Through this event, people from an area are gathered and listen to the speech of a preacher who talks about important questions. These speeches include political, social and/or religious topics. It is worth mentioning that according to Islam, Friday prayers are very important and need to be performed in mosques and in gatherings. During funerals the preachers always talk about social issues and this is a time for other speakers to share their ideas and thoughts too. Besides preachers, also other local personalities have the opportunity to talk in public. According to the perception of Islam in Afghanistan, hundreds of people gather during a funeral and listen to speeches. It is an obligation for everyone to be present to funerals of family members, friends and relatives.
Parks and sports clubs are very suitable places to talk to others. Information is disseminated through these places mainly among youths. Sports matches are opportunities for people to talk to each other and share information and communicate.
The above mentioned forms and grounds for communications are almost all men-dominated tools. Although in some parties, women are separately communicating with each other, mainly in wedding and engagement parties or in black ceremonies or during funerals.
Furthermore, women communicate to each other mainly in women bakeries where mostly old women are gathered. Nowadays, mainly in the capital city of Kabul, women start to gather in sports events, in parks or on the streets to walk and this is becoming a form of communication.
In rural areas, there are different traditional communication forms compared to the cities. Almost in all rural areas over the country and in almost all tribes and ethnicities the elder villagers are the main channel for communication. The government is using these channels and established Community Development Councils (CDCs). There are more than 300 CDCs which are mainly used to facilitate construction and reconstruction projects all over the country.
Islamic eves (Eids) are opportunities for villagers to get together and discuss social, political and economic topics. Youths and old people gather in a house or in a garden to talk and council about the above mentioned topics.
Sending postal letters is still used among governmental organisations as the main tool for internal communication. The system is theoretically covering a range of urban and rural areas, but most of the time it takes more time than is needed and/or expected. Furthermore, most of the governmental offices in the cities are using computers and Internet, but they are not using emails and the facilities are not used for official communications in most of the times.