Professor Christian Reder
Invited by the online magazine Silk Way to contribute to this commentary series—because Afghanistan has occupied my life for decades—I wish to draw attention to largely overlooked connections that may help broaden prevailing perspectives. In the bleak isolation of the country—brought about by the failure of Western interventions and the terror of the Taliban—new approaches require open-minded self-reflection and a reduction in support for radicalized forces within the Islamic-oriented world.
In this regard, The Vienna Process for a Democratic Afghanistan has distinguished itself. Through five conferences, approximately 300 Afghan Taliban opposition figures living in exile developed foundational documents that have been published in English and Farsi since November 2025. Contacts have since been established with the UN Security Council, the U.S. Congress, the European Union, and various governmental institutions.
This process was initiated by Nur Safa, one of the founders of Vienna Process, a former Austrian diplomat born in Kabul and coordinator of the Austrian Relief Committee for Afghan Refugees (ARC) in Pakistan, and his wife Fahima Zahma, a human rights activist and one of the founders of Viienna Conference, who supervised the conferences—together with the chairman of the private RD Foundation Vienna, the president of ARC, and the author of these lines, who ensured the financing. How much resonance this initiative would ultimately receive was never foreseeable, yet it demonstrates what can emerge from civil society without external political influence. Crucial support has come from Manizha Bakhtari, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Austria.
Austria’s private relief engagement emerged in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the resulting refugee flows into Pakistan. The Austrian Relief Committee was founded by the ethnologist Alfred Janata (1933–1993), whose ties to Afghanistan were deep and enduring. Alongside my primary professional commitments, I assumed organizational responsibility for the program. Between 1980 and 1994, with up to 400 local employees—half of them women—we operated Basic Health Units in refugee camps in Pakistan, complemented by a dedicated women’s support program that included mother-child health cards, hygiene education, and preventive healthcare measures.
These efforts soon expanded to include camp schools, a sewing workshop, a mechanical apprenticeship program, a sanitation initiative for UNHCR, and agricultural projects inside Afghanistan itself. After an assassination attempt on our medical director and mounting pressure resulting from the ban on girls’ education, we were compelled to conclude our work after fifteen years.
Widely regarded as exemplary, these programs were funded through a combination of private donations, Austrian government support, UN agencies, and numerous international aid organizations.
Later, as a professor of Art & Science Transfer at the University of Ap Later, as a professor of the transfer of arts and sciences at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, I authored the book “Afghanistan, Piece by Piece,” published Tanin, a collection of poems by Ali M. Zahma, and wrote “Turbulent Years” through the eyes of this prominent intellectual figure, which has also been published in Persian. Through funding and organizational participation in the “Vienna Process for a Democratic Afghanistan,” I have been able to participate once again, in a concrete way, in the search for new perspectives.
Add Comment