Belgium (Brussels Morning Newspaper) How much longer can we pretend that developments in Afghanistan do not concern us? How much longer can we deny our historical connection to that country? Because our participation in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and the sacrifices made for this will unite us forever. We are part of each other’s history and therefore of each other’s future. In order not to make the same mistakes as in the past 20 years, it may be worthwhile and, above all, necessary to understand Afghanistan better.
That understanding starts right away in language. Who are the Afghans? Afghan is an Arabic word for the Persian ‘Auwghan’. And that means a Pashtun’. In short, an Afghan is a Pashtun. Afghan is therefore not a national identity, but just like their neighbors the Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks it identifies one of the many minorities in a land that only started to be called Afghanistan by the British from 1893 onwards. The historical name of this ancient land was Khurasan. Like Japan, it was called ‘the land of the rising sun over 1400 years. That is why you should call someone from Afghanistan an Afghanistani, just like we do with someone from Pakistan.
Who are the Taliban?
It may sound strange, but we know the Taliban in essence from European history. They are actually a group of 19th-century colonial thinkers who want to impose a uniform rule on other peoples. They pursue an old-fashioned ideology in which only one culture, one language, and one identity exist. As if there is only one way someone from Afghanistan can be an Afghanistani. European peoples did little else in their colonial empires. After all, they also claimed to bring civilization by imposing their rule.
A year after their seizure of power, it is clear that the Taliban do not have the political and intellectual capacity to lead a culturally rich and diverse country on the basis of their own interpretation of an a1400-year-old book. For1400 years, the Qur’an has clashed with many older indigenous cultural values and customs. You can see that in their view that, just as in the first years of Arab expansion, 1400 years later women should be seen as inferior without basic rights.
Where the Taliban think they are the successors of the Prophet, they are actually the successors of Leonid Brezhnev as the rulers of Afghanistan. The Taliban’s predecessors, the Mujahideen, brought the Soviet Union to its knees. The Taliban see themselves today as even more chosen fighters of Allah because they have also humiliated the US. For them, the retreat of the West was first of all the victory of Islam.
Humanitarian crisis
It is a fact that in Afghanistan millions of people are now at risk of starvation. The humanitarian crisis goes even deeper than that. Remember that until a year ago, more than thirty million people here had future prospects for their lives. Moreover, most of them are women who have been completely banished from social life. The true humanitarian crisis is the denial and exclusion of women from any participation in society. Such a crisis and threats of famine can cause those thirty million people to flee, also to Europe.
To prevent such disasters, we will have to think differently. Let us start with the question of who the Afghanistani actually are. They are not the uniforms and tyrannical Taliban. For the past twenty years, the West has been talking within Afghanistan to a generation who continued to look to the past. Now it is important to have a conversation with a generation who have a view to the future. Such a conversation only succeeds if it is inclusive in the true sense of the word. This requires a broad representation of all ethnic groups and sexes. That is why it is so important to realize who is Afghanistan for us. And perhaps more importantly, which Afghanistan do we envision?
The right to self-determination
For Western countries, this is sometimes difficult. Our political thinking has taught us to respect the existence of other countries. This enlightenment approach has determined our view of what self-determination entails. That is why we have been trying for twenty years, in vain, despite all the setbacks and clear signals, to keep a Failed State together. That will not work now either. Afghanistan must be detribalized and therefore decolonized. With a uniformly governed Afghanistan, in which there is no room for pluralism and true diversity, we will not solve the persistent problems, but in terms of David Van Reybrouck, we also colonize the future. It would mean actually making the same mistake as the Soviets and the Taliban.
The first Taliban regime tried to continue the centralist Afghanistan of the Moscow-backed communist regime under their own banner. That succeeded until 2001 when they were driven out with the help of the Americans. Many, including those in the West, hoped then that from that moment a democratic system could bring the diversity of Afghanistan to fruition. With the interim government led by Karzai, there was no end to the earlier uniformist, top-down approach. Under the banner of democracy, human rights, and economic modernization unilateral domination of the Pashtun was continued. An example of this was how the constitution was modified at some points in order to deny the Persian identity of the majority of the population. It was not the majority of the Afghanistani people who had little regard for democracy and human rights, but a small and tribal elite unwilling to share power and economic resources. The uniformity of the communist regime and of the previous Taliban rulers did not actually disappear.
Two Routes
For twenty years, under the auspices of the International Community, we have seen that such centralism and ideological uniformity are fatal for a very diverse country of peoples and cultures. Afghanistan will never flourish as a colony of a small group of ethnic-nationalists. Afghanistan has only two roads ahead. The first is the path toward secularisation and decentralization. If the Persian-speaking Tajiks and Hazaras or Uzbeks want their own governance and autonomy, that should be possible. This leads to the development of a federal system in which all ethnic groups are given self-government. The second is the path toward total disintegration and another horrible war.
