by Alex Brown
The man charged with restoring peace to Afghanistan stood outside a Broadway restaurant in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid, within eyeshot of the Bay Bridge.
Whoa. Back up.
Hasn't he got a war to fight, you ask?
Shouldn't Pashtun tribal leader Hamid Karzai--who was chosen by the United Nations recently to lead Afghanistan's transitional government--be continuing the battle against the Taliban rather than surveying a San Francisco wine list?
Now, yes.
But six years ago, when Karzai last traveled to the Bay Area, he visited the restaurant owned by his brother Mahmood.
Back then, neither Mahmood nor co-owner Dau Zaheer could have known the fate that would befall Hamid over the years. Back then, he was just another customer, sitting in the back corner of North Beach's Helmand restaurant, browsing the menu.
"When we heard that it was 99 percent certain he will take over the interim government, we were very happy," Mahmood Karzai said Wednesday. "He is a good man and has achieved a lot in his political career. But that's not something I want to brag about. His work begins now. And he realizes that."
Mahmood and Hamid have maintained their close bond over the years, despite the different paths their lives have taken. In 1976, for example, when Mahmood's move to the U.S. was proving an economic success, he paid Hamid's way through Indiana University, where he studied political science.
Since then, Hamid has made six trips to visit his family in San Francisco and Maryland, where Mahmood Karzai has since moved.
And this between periods of war with Russia, political appointments in the early 1990s--he formerly was Afghanistan's deputy foreign minister--and the formation of a meaningful resistance to the hard-line Taliban regime.
Karzai was named administrator of the interim government on Dec. 22.
"He's my little brother; this is still hard to believe," Mahmood said. "Just three months ago we heard a report on television that he'd been captured or killed."
Today, Mahmood has left the day-to-day running of Helmand restaurant to fellow countryman and trusted friend, Zaheer.
These have been difficult times.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, Zaheer has been the target of racially-motivated abuse--threatening phone calls and the trashing of his restaurant's front awning.
Ignorance, Zaheer has learned, can cause terror; even when his colleague could be perceived as one of the country's great allies.
"People would ring up and tell me to close the restaurant now, and use bad language," Zaheer said. "This is not Afghanistan. This is San Francisco. And this is not politics. This is food. Most people have come here and shown support.
"I'm hoping Hamid can bring the two sides of the war together and help them to get along. The other day I saw on television a picture of the head of a family picking his dead child from the dirt, saying 'Is this how America wants it?'"
"That's when I thought about how big Hamid's job will be--to end this long conflict."
How Hamid Karzai will handle the task of leading Afghanistan, even in an interim capacity, remains to be seen.
Rest assured, though, his policies will influence the region's political climate for years to come, his progress monitored by the world's leaders.
And to think, you might have passed him on Broadway.
Originally published in the San Francisco Examiner
