The Afghan Conundrum

No physical occupation and military presence of foreign powers and yes no puppet government either. No meddling in our affairs by outside powers through foisted governments and structures. Yes I was dreaming; a dream that has been dreamt thousand times over in the colonised world. The reality took over in Afghanistan before the dream could unfold.

Afghan and Afghanistan are nationalist terms and following the  logic of nationalism they discount the ethnic, regional and religious composition of the people that make a nation. The Hazara, Baloch, Pashtuns, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and Tajiks are some of the communities who consider Afghanistan their home. A list of communities cannot describe Afghanistan better. Can a religion define Afghanistan, when various communities individually and collectively hasn't? Afghanistan’s history and recent episodes suggest otherwise.

Afghanistan history is no longer its own history but a history of cold war, I suspect it is also true about its future. It begins not in antiquity to the modern mind but with 1978 Saur Revolution and consequent invasion of USSR. Would the closely knit history of Afganistan with cold war end with US withdrawal? One would do well to remember that in Afganistan inflexible religious coating of fighters (Mujhaideen) occurred when they were in contention and competition with atheist reformers who were helped by USSR.

People were schooled about cold war, why it is important, how it operates, what it costs and many countries wished they could avoid its effects. No one thought about its future and how and when it would end. Cold war 'owns' many time zones and simultaneously binds and connects territories and zones within a asymmetrical power relationship. An end of cold war in one time zone does not signal an end in other spaces and time zones. 

Unlike Europe there was no wall in Afghanistan, there was a weak government in war ravaged country, it just collapsed. A place where unthought of events unfailingly occur, that place, that country is Afghanistan. Glimpses from Afghanistan has  always ensured that no one is sure what one is reacting to and past week is no exception. Proper reactions and effective responses have been ruled out by the logic that has brought the affairs to take their current form in Afghanistan.

In last forty years, Afghanistan has been physically occupied by the armies of USSR and USA and Afghanistan has been accused of practicing violence and harbouring perpetual disorder and instability. The stakes of this game are not always a function of what resources are found within a territory. It is subsumed under the war economy and that is big. Afghanistan economy is worth 20 billion and USA alone has spent 3 trillion dollars in last 20 years. The expenditure is not to build and help Afghanistan, it never was.

A territory with minerals and oils are of strategic importance, however a territory could as well be  be part of the pie that is coveted and Afghanistan is located in such a region. A region where the phantom of great power conquest plays out: a territory for the 'great' game. There are bets and baits in that great game and 'national interest' dictates control over Afghanistan. The bait and bets play hide and seek with each other. Whose interest, national interest serves? Who is involved and engaged in Afghanistan guided by the interests of Afghanistan?

The first and second world interventions create a local and regional elite who is secure and relatively prosperous while the larger populace lives as refugees in their own country. The ethnic community who is at the receiving end of these interventions are occasionally forced to flee and become refugees proper. The Afghan refugee crisis is not spilling over its border but bristling, brimming and bursting at Kabul airport.

Resisting foreign occupation was almost granted as a right and many Afghans took up that fight in past while the adversary morphed and changed from one superpower to another. The resolve and fight consigned several thousands of them to death. Many who took arms guided by this reason may have to think again. Violence that has marked the everyday of Afghanistan over years and the logic that violence unfolds is such that if you took up violence, you are/were recognised as an actor, a group, a force to reckon with.

We were told about Rashid Dostum, Hekmatyar, and Najibullah as 'actors' and other innumerable tribes forever fighting each other and Taliban. Once USA took over we heard more and more about al-quaida. Many forgot about other actors and groups when USA operated Afghanistan. That is how effective impressions and dominant narratives work.

And yes in between years who hasn’t fallen for the regular call to shun violence, indeed condemn it. Without fail the call was directed toward Afghans and USA and USSR were exempted from the sphere of this call. The participants in great power competition and contest are beyond the ordinary morality to avoid violence? Allow me to remember Abdul Gaffar khan, an afghan belonging to last century who would not advocate violence. Is there a way for us to know if there are others like him, today? This may be not relevant but one cannot think about Afghanistan without anachronisms and repetitions.

We have heard about Taliban earlier and we are again hearing about Taliban, will we hear more about Taliban in future? The background and the context of Taliban is a different story and why a story about Taliban should be the story of Afghanistan? There are images and impressions within which Afghanistan has to find its place and story of Taliban draws and feeds that circular trapping logic. Taliban as a 'real' referent feeds and sustains Islamophobia. Taliban exhibits all that could be wrong with a religion? Otherwise within the region itself, among Muslim nations quite a few models for viable nations and socioeconomic formations already exist, for example Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and UAE.

Northern alliance, Abdullah Abdullah, Kazari, Ghani, the council Jirga and interim governments were not stable, effective and strong, was this not evident or known. Bloodshed, corruption and dollar jihad feed each other. Which power prevailed and who failed and who won in Afghanistan, who could avoid these questions? The destruction and violence that has been the fate of Afghanistan advises us to refrain from foregrounding betrayals and failures. But we would read and hear more of it, not less. Conquest, militarism and domination cannot order relations between people and states, yet we are unable to ride over it.

USA's avowed initial goals were to dismantle terror camps and forestall the use of Afghanistan as a base to attack USA. One 'attack'  did reach its shores. If they build capability and capacity in Afghanistan they would score a self-goal. USA was caught in this self-defeating logic and they took 20 years. Going by the swiftness of the fall and collapse, the scoreline appears to be nil-nil.

Afghanistan already had that experience with USSR.

It never has been easy for Afghanistan and desperation pervades. However, Afghanistan is not alone in having an ineffective, non-existent government. While thinking about Afghanistan one risks their own orientation: follow a stream that goes nowhere and forgot what I was unto.

 Oh yes, I was talking about a dream.