100 Treatises

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 4

From the western perspective, looking on a map, Afghanistan looks like a discrete political unit, comparable to any other sovereign country like France, Canada, Mexico or Japan. Therefore, westerners often assume that the kinds of social and political institutions present in those other countries can also be built in Afghanistan, with due regard for the local culture and particularities. Polling stations, finance ministries, public education, national parliament, government health clinics, security apparatuses—all of these things can be built, if we just do it right. So the thinking goes.

Such thinking is so disconnected from reality it is almost disturbing. Nowhere is the question asked, “how did those other countries come to develop such institutions and infrastructure?” or “is the social and cultural and economic framework of Afghanistan amenable to such developments?”

Does anyone recall that, once upon a time, such “modern” nations as England, France, Japan or Sweden were in a state of political, economic and social backwardness equivalent to Afghanistan’s today? Did their modern democratic and post-industrial capitalist systems spring up overnight? Or did they take many centuries of development and progress?

Does anyone care to pay heed to the fact that Afghanistan is riven with division and disparateness ethnically, tribally, linguistically, religiously and ideologically? Does anyone see an asymmetry in assuming the sociopolitical structures built and designed in extraordinarily homogeneous societies (in Europe and East Asia, for example) will work in an extraordinarily heterogeneous one?

Given the abject ignorance of the history of the modern nation-state and the nature of its development, it is no surprise that the history of Afghanistan as a “graveyard of empires” is also completely lost on western policy makers. Add to that the fact that centralization has only ever succeeded with the assent of the regional and tribal and local authorities, and we can begin to see why the US and its allies are doomed to fail.

A reading of history and of common sense spells out the proper path in Afghanistan: to partition the country into sovereign polities that are based on the actual identities of the people, probably within the framework of a federal system, where the central government will have authority over a few functions like coining money or foreign policy, and little else. The vast majority of powers and authority will be reserved for the smaller-scale political entities, where the vast majority of the identity and loyalty and legitimacy lies.

In some of these new political entities, popular rule will be able to be pursued almost immediately. In others, the social and economic structure will simply not be ready. In some places women will enjoy the freedom of full participation in public life. In others, they will not be seen, much less heard. In some places a secular, modern education will be had by many children. In others, the rigid backwardness of Islamic indoctrination will be the norm—and for boys only. As unfortunate as all of these outcomes may be, I would ask objectors a simple question: are you willing to pay for the alternative? Are you willing to send your children to fight against history?

If the “federal” system being proposed here sounds familiar, it should. It just so happens that another, somewhat successful society began as a loose federation of sovereign states, each enjoying greater identity with the people than the collective whole, and with a very weak central government. You may have heard of it—the United States of America. But again, that’s history.

Finally, a dose of pragmatism. The more moderate elements of the Taliban (such as they are) will need to be negotiated with and included in the new order. This stems from the fact that they have the power to purvey violence. In such an anarchical situation, little else needs to be said. No matter how repulsive the Taliban may be to the west, or to any basic, secular human decency, the fact remains that they have power because they have guns and the willingness to use them. For all my secularism, I prefer a woman in a burka to a woman in the ground.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4

MORE ARTICLES:

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 2

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 1

How Many Afghans Does it Take to Build a State? Part 3