The foreign world makes a cardinal mistake when analysing matters of Afghanistan i.e. that it is populated by one nation. The reason being that most of the countries of the world came into being as a result of nationalist struggles. These nations were constituted on different bases. Some on geographical grounds. Some on ethnic basis. Some on religious grounds (like Pakistan) while others came about on the basis of common interests (such as the United States of America) and some on historical bases (like India, China, Japan, Britain, Russia, Iran etc.) But more or less each country was created by the participation of the local populace according to local needs and demands. It wasn’t so in Afghanistan. The people of Afghanistan weren’t as involved in the process of nation-state building in Afghanistan as the foreign powers were.
Afghanistan’s landscape and geographical boundaries were determined by imperial forces according to their own needs and interests and they never took the interests of the people living in Afghanistan into consideration and did not undertake any activities for the sake of progress and development. There were no projects for education; or for the economy to help stand on its own two feet. Neither was there any effort for building state institutions nor of coming up with a constitution as per the will and wishes of Afghan citizens. Nothing of the sort happened there. The foreign powers, viz Britain and Russia, that demarcated Afghanistan’s geographical limits didn’t give two hoots about the country’s public. They just drew a few lines on a piece of paper and left the people encapsulated within those lines to fend for themselves.
It is such an accursed country that the march of time continues unabated all around it outside its borders.
Iran was a nation that has a long and glorious history. They ruled over a great sultanate in the past. The wealth of oil attracted Western powers to invest there and, despite it being a monarchy, there was progress towards state institutional building and modernity. This progress escalated after the Revolution. Today, this country is going through the process of becoming an economic and military power. The neighbouring countries of the Middle East were under the Russian influence. As per communist philosophy, these nations had the opportunity to promote their combined culture. You can’t deny that these countries are backwards economically but you can’t deny their integration into the modern world either and these countries are now looking for ways to progress. China also saw a revolution and it became an international force soon enough. Pakistan may not be an economic power but a strong and effective state machinery is also taking shape here. Pakistan is amongst the top ten in the world where military might is concerned and it is also the world’s seventh nuclear power.
Hence, the world has moved on while Afghanistan has remained stuck. If an Afghan citizen steps out of confines, he is left flabbergasted by how much the world has changed. The only change that Afghanistan saw was wrought by bloodshed, war and destruction. The first change was the Soviet occupation. The second was the so-called jihad that was unleashed by the Soviet’s foe, the US, to counter it. When these two superpowers were done with the country and the monarchy was no more, the Afghan people had no inkling of any kind of statecraft and no experience of managing and running an entire country.
The tribal groups funded by American dollars to fight against the Soviets were not trained to run states. Under the monarchy, Afghanistan was run by a loose administrative consensus between these tribal leaders. Each tribe was independent in its own right. The monarchy had no power outside Kabul. These tribes spent their days entombed in time in the respective boundaries marked out for them by foreign powers.
The war of the superpowers had taken care of the monarchy which was now a thing of the past. Till the Soviets were there, their state machinery worked by the might of their military. With the exit of the Soviet army, this semblance of a system also exited. Whence, Pakistan organised the Taliban and tried to prop them up to install a government under its influence. But Pakistan didn’t train them in statecraft. These products of madrassahs had mere amorphous notion of some sort of ‘caliphate.’ They wanted to enforce these vague ideals as per their limited mindset and tribal customs in the name of Islam by the force of the Kalashnikov.
On the other hand, non-Pakhtun tribes also organised themselves against the Pakhtun Taliban and got the support of India and Russia in the process. Both sides armed to the tee with foreign arms, played out their ethnic and linguistic conflicts on the Afghan playground. Not only were the Pakhtuns in a majority and had more experience of fighting wars compared to the Uzbeks, Tajiks and Hazaras, they also had the practical help and patronage of Pakistan. That is why they took over a majority of Afghanistan. But they were unsuccessful in setting up a government. They had no central power. They too had to get by forging links with local leaders. There was no such thing as governmental machinery. The lay of the land was tribal. Which is why Osama bin Laden and his organisation was successful in gaining foothold over there.
These simpletons became the tools of a terrorist organisation due to tribal animosities and religious emotionalism. In their naiveté and ignorance about international affairs, they weren’t able to estimate the incalculable dangers of giving sanctuary to an international terrorist organisation. They also didn’t know when you incur the wrath and aggression of an irked superpower. They remained bent on fulfilling their duty of hospitality to OBL and the US formed a coalition and invaded Afghanistan.
Today, Afghanistan is under the occupation of foreign troops in entirety. The US has tried to build state machinery on its occupied land but local tribes have refused to own this imported system put in place by occupying forces. Therefore, the resistance of local forces should not be construed as a struggle for independence as it is other countries and contexts. The Karzai government to is getting by due to its dalliances with tribal forces. Two major wars had empowered the drug and arms mafia in Afghanistan. The US just wants to establish its bases and abscond. But it can’t find the national leaders it can form an agreement with and hand over the country to so that they can enforce the agreement. No one has that power. Not the Karzai government. Not Mullah Omer. Not Abdullah Abdullah. Neither does any Uzbek or Hazara.
This is Afghanistan’s dilemma. There is no nation over there. Nor a national leader. They don’t have an organised society or indeed the institutions to keep society organised. Afghanistan was never given the opportunity to become a state and its inhabitants nevr got the circumstances where they could organise the people living in its boundaries into a nation.
The writer is one of Pakistan’s most widely read columnists.