AFGHANISTAN: SHAPELY COUNTRY toppling at the crossroads of antiquity and yesterday. From the mountains of Nuristan to the mountains of the Pamir Knot, from the Paropamisus Mountains to the mountains of Qandahar, Afghanistan is assuredly a land of contrasts. Americans recognize that Afghanistan is the strategically all-important eastern bulwark of the northern tier of Southwest Asia, but only a fistful are acquainted with our unique indigent culture. Since the severe Soviet invasion of our nation, the rebels are eager for the Afghan-American friendship treatment. Let me introduce you to my land and its soil.

In addition to fruits, nuts and natural gas, Afghanistan has been famous for her exports of cotton, rugs, qarakul skins and opium. This economy allows her fiercely independent inhabitants to enjoy a non-communist life of 35 years each, on the average. With all this busy business, there is still time to appreciate a long and measurable literary tradition. The earliest Afghan novel, White Bodies, dates back to 1965. And in a nation where 9 out of 10 per cent cannot read or write, they say every man with a tongue is a poet!

Beneath it all, the Afghans are a pious people, even in days of war. After a hot, thirsty afternoon of shooting the enemy and, sometimes, executing prisoners who are not Muslims, the freedom-fighters never miss saying their prayers. First, they wash, and if there is no water, they use dirt. This has been the way of the Afghans since the reign of the Amirs and before.

A shining specimen of both piety and military felicity was the Amir Abdur Rahman, colorful and vainglorious ruler of the late 19th century. Abdur Rahman, who abolished slavery in 1895, helped consolidate the nation, spreading his influence from Kabul outwards to cover what is magnanimously called modern Afghanistan. An anecdote related by the British observer Frank A. Martin in Under the Absolute Amir will demarcate his strictness and his faith:

...a man and a woman, who loved not wisely but too well, both being married people, determined on running away...they were caught and brought back. The Amir, in ordering their punishment, said that, as the man was so fond of the woman, he should have her as completely as was possible. So the woman was thrown alive into a huge cauldron of boiling water, and boiled down to soup, and a basin of this soup was given to the man, who was forced to drink it, and after drinking it he was hanged. In this case the Amir's object was to punish, not only in this life, but in the next, for a cannibal cannot enjoy the delights of Paradise as depicted in the Koran.

Some Westerners claim the ancient moral code of Islam, as practiced by the Amirs, rolls a boulder in the path of social progress and the rights of women. This is a vile allegation? Afghan women boast a rich and virtuous history. As long as there have been men in Afghanistan, there have been women. Of course, habiting with womenfolk is not always a blessed mixing. The illustrious and voluminous poet Khushal Khan Khattack expressed this love-hate relationship best in the 17th century--

All woman-kind are of intellect deficient;

And the voluntary causes on all life's ills...

They have no fidelity in their composition:

They are, naturally, unto perfidiousness prone...

They are beautiful in person, from head to foot:

But are like unto the wily serpent within.

Say no more about them, O Khushal!

It would be better had they never existed!

Here and There in Afghanistan, a 1966 publication of the Royal Afghan Ministry of Education surveys the rapid strides made by Afghan women--"Till recently screened from the rest of the world by snowy mountain ramparts and hidden from the eyes of strange men by the veil, Afghan women knew the sure way to their husbands' hearts. They were wonderful cooks and prolific mothers." By 1966, however, women could explore a range of careers as vast as the Hindus Kish--"The majority of girls still become teachers but they have also begun to branch off into other directions such as nursing, midwifery, dress-making and secretarial work in various organizations."

The next year a new marriage law forbade childhood engagements. The 1971 Family Law included further reforms, although it did not abolish polygamy. Nevertheless, we can be proud of having abolished loneliness among women--in 1973 a writer could not find a single unmarried woman living in an apartment on her own without her family. It is true that women in the towns still generally cover their face with modesty. On the other hand, fully 2 per cent of Afghan women are now literate. Here and There explains why a higher figure would not be appropriate for Afghan society: "it is no wonder that formal education as such has bypassed the village maiden. From the time she can totter around, her little feet are set to the tune of fetch and carry."

Yet the communists have tried to force-feed us literacy and reform. The Marxist rulers who seized power in 1978 and then the Soviet invaders have tried to enforce complete equality of women and have proposed vanquishing the bride-price. The communists are as blind to our special needs and traditions as if they had been escapees from the prisons of the Absolute Amir, their pupils lanced and filled with quicklime.

ALL AGREE ON THE repressiveness of the current Kabul cabal. Not everyone apprehends the degree of democracy under the pre-Marxist regimes. During the '60s King Zahir Shah retained ultimate authority, yes, but he allowed a parliament to be chosen in elections quite free of political parties. Press freedom prevailed for newspapers that could pass the government censors. After his military coup in 1973, Mohammed Daud let dynastic rule continue, but he proclaimed a republic. He relaxed his dictatorial grip so much that his top ministers were authorized to spend up to 70 pounds without his personal approval. So popular was Daud that he was able to squish seven separate attempts to overthrow him before the Marxist coup of 1978. In addition, for three decades Afghanistan has upheld democratic principles by campaigning for an independent Pushtunistan.

Afghan Pushtuns condemn the oppression of their siblings in Pakistan, and this sentiment has long curdled relations with that state. But now we and the Pakistanis have become fast, friends. Thousands of Afghans are massing inside the Pakistani border. Here and There ejaculates, "The Afghans are a very sociable people and love to concoct reasons for getting together, no matter how feeble these may be." This time, though, the reasons are imperative. All we ask of Americans is that you satisfy Zbigniew Brzezinski's desire to give the Pakistanis arms we can shoulder in our struggle.

Mr. Z. Brzezinski is a true Muslim even though he is a Pole. But if you do not heed him, our hopes for liberation may be buried alive like sex offenders caught by the Amir Abdur Rahman. Please, our warriors and their females and children lust to die so that they may live free. We are not concerned with your geopolitical strategic considerations. But we are prepared to pay any price and bear any burden in order to defend our own democratic and beneficial civilization. Our families are not averse to suffering in order to preserve the conditions they have grown to love and esteem. Give us grenades, mortars, anti-aircraft gimcracks and opera glasses--we will fight the Russian tanks and jets to the death. Give us the big guns so that we can achieve our legitimate aspirations for self-termination.