In the Name of God, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate

Afghanistan Voice

Afghanistan Voice:

A publication of

The Association for

Peace and Democracy

for Afghanistan

(APDA)

The Voice Demanding:

Democracy, Freedom,

and Dignity for All,

Seeking to Enhance the Cause of

A Free, United

Afghanistan

Editorial:

March 8^th, 1998, has been designated by the European Human Rights Commission to highlight the plight of Afghan women, particularly that of the women of Kabul. The activities, the tireless work of fifty women figures (including many Afghan women residing outside of Afghanistan), have been targeting the most tragic conditions the women of Afghanistan have been undergoing. With the appeal, "A Flower for the Women of Kabul", the International Women's Day will be the crowning of these activities drawing world attention to the plight of Afghan women.

Women and children of Afghanistan suffered a great deal during the jihad years. Then, under the jihadi leaders, some im-provement was in the works, though even then some women were not entirely immune from the killing, rape and torture that have occurred under the civil war conditions. The women’s conditions have completely deteriorated under the Taliban rule.

The Taliban militia have brought repressive and ridiculous rules alleged to be Islamic rules. Under these rules, women have been denied work and earning a living. Girl schools have been closed, and women have seen severest restrictions to all civil and human rights.

Just recently, the Afghan Online Press reported that, with thousands of people watching, a girl by the name of Suhaila (her age would not be ascertained under the Burqua or Chadari, the head-to-toe garment women are required to wear) received a hundred lashes in public from the Taliban authorities for having walked outside her home with a boy who apparently was not her close blood relative.

Such occurrences, as the public amputation of a thief's hand touted as Islamic, beatings, hangings, summary executions, along with other barbaric treatments, are common in Kabul under the Taliban rule. Women are almost routinely denied medical help since male doctors are not allowed to treat them. The bizzare aspect of this is that while women constitute some 60 percent of medical doctors in Kabul, they have been removed from work, or if allowed to work, it has been under impossible conditions.

The real purposes behind these barbaric public displays are instilling fear and perpetrating degradations and insults to the honor of Kabul residents, who are labeled by the Taliban as steeped in sinfulness.

Ultimately, the Taliban mercenaries have added many more disabled and maimed to a population, already burdened with tens of thousands of disabled and amputees from the war and the mines planted by the Soviets. They seek a path of servitude to Pakistan, deemed incompatible with Afghan freedom loving. Women bashing under the guise of Islam seems to be a practice motivated by complex designs that reek of wide and mysterious conspiracies.

(The naÔve notions of those that attribute these practices to Taliban's rural Afghan culture or of those who decry the helplessness of Pakistan to control the Taliban militia!).

March the 8^th should be an occasion for reflection about the sacredness of a trust that humanity places in international governing bodies and humanitarian organizations.

All the lofty claims to standards of human rights must, at a minimum, guarantee the basic rights of people of both genders, their immunity from arbitrary rules that

enslave them under many different guises.

Let us use this occasion to see what have been the results of the half-hearted and confusing policies of the international governing bodies in a remote and therefore, "unimportant!" place as Afghanistan.

A freedom loving people, who broke the yoke of the former Soviet Union and were instrumental in ridding the world of the cancer of Communism, are now in the fetters of an "Islamic" fundamentalism of the most dangerous kind promoting sectarian conflict, drugs, and fanaticism and abrogating every vestige of human decency from the land. Tolerating these conditions demonstrates sheer indifference toward the plight of the innocent in Afghanistan.

"Well-wishers" are talking from both sides of their mouth, saying that they want a broad-based government in Afghanistan. However, because the international community is unwilling to commit any expenditures or to hurt the feelings of Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, they still (hoping the Taliban regime will change its ways) want to make deals with these destroyers of Afghan cultural values.

Pakistan is still pushing the idea of having the United Nations adopt the Afghan empty seat formula, an arrangement that will give Pakistan and other neighbors of Afghanistan a veto power over Afghan political affairs. This is coming from the same country that has brought about all the miseries of the Afghans with her unproductive plans since the departure of the Soviets, the same country one of whose senior officials, according to reports widely disseminated in Afghan media, had boasted he had done everything to ruin the chances of a strong, self-relying Afghanistan ever emerging.

March 8^th should give the international community a chance to see why it is important that the Taliban, who are only recognized by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates, should not be recognized by any country. While the overwhelming withholding of recognition is appreciated and should not be weakened, also concerted efforts should be made that the people of Afghanistan would be made free from the fetters of dogmatism, hegemonism, and arbitrary rule of armed groups. Without such pressure from the international community, it is impossible for the oppressed people of both sexes in Afghanistan to realize their inalienable rights as human beings. Women and children will suffer greatest. The arbitrary rule of the chauvinists will do everything to limit all international humanitarian aid to these most deserving of Afghan population, particularly in Kabul where the need is the greatest. Their voices are silent, there is no law to protect them, and there will be no journalists to report about them, free from censorship.

Contrary to the opinion expressed in some circles, this is not a campaign of the Western feminists alone. It is a cry of all decent human beings the world over to draw attention to the most appalling, inhumane policies that are specifically targeting women in Afghanistan. It points to the plain fact that foreign mercenaries are perpetrating these hideous and shameful acts

under the name of Islam -- a religion known for its contributions to eradicating many forms of gender discrimination.

__________________

APDA Declaration on the Occasion of International Women's Day

International Women's Day arrives at a time when in many countries of the world women's role is gaining significance and better attention is paid to their rights. Unfortunately, in our country, Afghanistan, the women's state is such that not only does it point to a dishonor in this junction of our history, but also has become a shameful page for all humanity at the end of the 20^th century, a century during which more than any other time there has been talk of human dignity and rights.

Women in Afghanistan live in the midst of such pains and dishonorable conditions that their likes have not been seen in any society. The treatment of women in Afghanistan is contrary to all norms of human rights and incompatible with the sacred dictates of Islam. It is opposed to the national culture of the Afghans, a culture that spans several thousands of years. Insults to and belittlement of women in Afghanistan, taking away their rights to education and work, barbaric public whippings especially in Kabul are deeds that should move every human being's conscience. They obligate every honorable human being in every corner of the world to rise to the defense of the victimized women of Afghanistan.

****

The APDA appreciates the designating of March the 8^th as Afghan Women's Day and asks all human rights organizations to begin a much more serious and sustaining fight against the cruelties that the Afghan women have been subjected to.

The APDA believes that until the rights of women (who at the present time constitute a majority of the Afghan population) are not respected and restored, we cannot much hope for the attainment of other human rights measures in Afghanistan.

Fighting for Afghan women's rights is unseparable from fighting in the path of truth and justice, and every truth-loving individual especially each and every member of the Afghan nation should honorably join this fight.

________________________

(Continued From Last Issue)

THE FUTURE OF THE STATE AND THE STRUCTURE OF COMMUNITY GOVERNANCE IN AFGHANISTAN

M. Nazif Shahrani

Within khanadan groups and localized qawm wa kheysh communities (for example, urban guzar or mahalla, and rural villages, valleys, regions) members are generally hierarchically arranged, and mutually bound together through the inculcation of a set of shared values. Thus, the unity of a contextually-constituted community is established through assured membership of all segments of the constituent population, albeit with differential rights entailing differential duties and privileges. Indeed, conceptions of politics of difference --whether familial, local, regional, tribal, ethnic or national-- in Afghanistan are based mainly on the principles of complementary (segmentary) opposition, and ties of patronage (that is, dependency and hierarchy) between leaders and followers. Ties of loyalty and responsibility-- economic, political and moral-- between leaders and followers are conceived in inter-personal dyadic terms, and are negotiable only within certain limits. The full range of possibilities of alliances and appositions are often contingent upon the shifting boundaries of the community within the changing context of various factional struggles within or between contending groups--that is., the political ecology of particular times, places and spaces.

While the politics of local kin-based groups (including family-household units), especially in the predominantly rural areas of Afghanistan, are often idealized by natives and rendered in the available literature as egalitarian and harmonious village communities, free from internal dissension and struggle. This image is

far from the historical and ethnographic reality. These family and kin-based constitutive cultural principles (sometimes expressed in terms of moral codes of honor and shame), are often overlaid, combined or modified by the local (mis)-understanding of, and adherence to, Islamic moral order and rules of Shari'a.

Therefore, kinship norms, codes of honor (nang), and rules of shari'a as locally understood (even misunderstood), together with language and religious-sectarian distinctions and loyalties, I believe, represent the essence of the traditional political culture and popular consciousness in contemporary Afghanistan. I will also argue that, the constitutive principles of khanawada, khanadan and qawm have had, and continue to have a powerful and pervasive effect on the contemporary political discourse and the behavior of Afghans at all levels of society-- that is, in rural villages and nomadic communities, in the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet Islamist resistance groups, in the Taliban militia movement, and in the institutions of national state, including the Mujahideen and the Taliban administrations. Furthermore, the potential effects of these powerful principles of political culture cannot, and should not, be underestimated as we search for appropriate structures of community governance to resolve the current military and political crisis in the country. Indeed, we must now turn our attention to a brief examination of how the persistence and permeation of these constitutive principles of traditional Afghan political culture have influenced the modern forms of the Afghan national state over the last century.

However, at the outset I would like to state clearly that the persistence of family and kin-based loyalties and their pervasive and

prominent effects in the political life of Afghans should not be taken as a sign of political backwardness or "traditionalism" due to the failures of modern institutions of state which should have wiped them clean from its "modernizing" citizens' consciousness.

Traditional (Imperial) States and Community Self-Governance

Before the arrival and imposition (intrusion) of the modern European forms of the state during the last two decades of the Nineteenth century in Afghanistan and its subsequent growth in military strength and institutional infrastructure, local kin-based community governance structures enjoyed considerable autonomy and flexibility, both organizationally and spatially. The geographical distribution of distinctive communities based on languages and sectarian affiliation or madhab reflected the spatial distribution of power, based on relative demographic and political strength, of each of the communities over time. Intercommunal strife and alliances were common, but given relatively equal access to the available lethal technologies and military capabilities by all the contending groups, a semblance of balance of power prevailed among them. Within the language and/or sectarian communities, dissension against oppressive leaders was expressed through spatial mobility (voting by their feet) or through new alliances. However, on the whole, local communities were, for the most part, economically self-sustaining and politically self-governing. Ties with central or imperial authorities (if and when they existed) were often minimal and indirect. That is, local communities of various sizes and compositions acted as semi-autonomous political entities. The "familial" or paternalistic model they embodied aimed to preserve their community integrity, and hence the collective interests of their group through their own local leadership. (Cont.)

Heavy Floods

Last month, we reported the earthquake disaster in the Northeastern part of Afghanistan. Within less than a month, we have been witnessing another disaster in the Southwestern part of Afghanistan. The Rustaq area is part of the Northern Alliance territory. The recent floods hit the Kandahar and Helmand Valley region under the control of the Taliban militia.

The opium crops, up 20% from last year, were damaged which could be a great service rendered by nature to the world; however, so much of the people's livelihood including wheat and fruit harvests were affected which could be a terrible blow to the economy of the war ravaged country. Some 30 people killed and about 15,000 people have been reported to have become homeless. The promised restriction on poppy cultivation by the Taliban has not been very sincere, though the Taliban deny they are taxing poppy crops to finance their war with the Northern Alliance.

This winter, much of Afghanistan has been seeing severe cold and heavy snowfall as well as natural calamities.

(Continued From Previous Issue)

An Islamic Basis for An Afghan Peace

By: James Kellogg

Every man consists of a combination of traits, some good and some bad. Some men have great affection and love for their wife and family (good). In pursuit of economic resources necessary for the family’s well being , this same individual might be lazy in his occupation (bad). There are countless good and bad traits attributable to man. The various combination of these traits are too numerous to recount in this discussion. Without regard to the religious, ethnic and cultural composition of a community, man’s capacity to do good or bad will always exist. Some men will seek to serve their community and thereby improve their joint welfare. Others will seek power over other men and exploit this power for personal gain. The endless combination of traits leads to a diversity of responses in human behavior towards others. Man using his own intellect and conscience can suppress these bad traits and do good. At the extremes, man will convince himself that their bad actions are good and he will never show remorse for their bad acts. In the eyes of God, man will never achieve perfection but this reality does not preclude man’s striving for perfection in his life. The real task of a community is to find methods of human interaction so that the good in man triumph over the bad in man.

Man seems to forget that no matter man successfully conceals his bad actions from others, one cannot conceal his bad actions from God.

Sura xvii, 13

Everyman’s fate

We have fastened

On his own neck

On the day of judgment

We shall bring out

For him a scroll,

Which he will see

Spread upon

It is the ultimate judgment by God of man at death that imparts discipline to mankind. As Muslims we only grant God the right to judge man’s faith in God. Islam is the ultimate statement for religious tolerance between all men of faith. As long as a believer is free to practice his faith without interference by others, then the believer is obligated to grant another believer same free expression of faith.

Throughout history, men have exploited the faith of others as a means of self-enrichment and power. The most obedient observers of the rituals associated with faith are often the ones who demand in others the same level of obedience. This attitude is not permitted in Islam. The denial of each man’s right to his unique response to Islam or the exploitation of a man’s faith in Islam for selfish purposes is the ultimate insult to Islam.

Each day man needs to collaborate with other men in order to achieve a shared goal. Successful family life requires a distribution of duties among family members. At the village level, the community well requires periodic maintenance. A village well’s failure would obviously impact on the welfare of the whole village. How should a village decide how this maintenance should be done? Islam provides a basis for making these decisions.

Sura xlii, 38

Those who harken

To their Lord, and establish

Regular prayer, who (conduct)

Their affairs by mutual consultation;

Who spend out of what

We bestow on them

For sustenance

The appropriate way for free men to achieve consensus for community action is through consultation with each other. Mohammad (pbuh) was conscientious in observing this principle of Islam throughout his private and public life. Consultation is essential to the well being of any Islamic community. The traditional Afghan village Jirga is a manifestation of this principle. As long as a citizen’s well being revolved around the village, this social structure worked well for the Afghan. The introduction of modern services and conveniences to Afghanistan during this century led to governmental activities not subject to consultation. The concept of an Islamic community also extends to the nation state called Afghanistan. The Afghan national government was compelled to provide for a national defense as your neighbors acquired a modern military capacity. Afghan foreign policy required the development of governmental bureaucracies to negotiate with Afghanistan’s neighbors on common issues. These activities were necessary for the well being of the nation and generally did not affect the average citizen. The national government directed the introduction of modern agricultural methods and industrial processes

(electrification, etc.). These developments often improved the well being of the common citizen but with an unseen adverse consequence. The problem is that wealth and power was concentrated in a ruling elite and privileged minority centered in Kabul. This concentration of power was never subject to the people’s approval. Government edicts were arbitrarily decided by the ruling leadership which were passed down to the provinces. However, the prewar government generally avoided interference in village decisions. When the communists gained power over the national government in the late seventies, they attempted to assert their authority over the village leadership. This interference in the village leadership and the Jirga greatly contributed to the people’s decision to fight Jihad.

The prewar arrangement of power concentrated in Kabul and an independent village Jirga is inherently unstable social structure. The presence of a large power structure not subject to consultation and approval is a continuing threat to the people’s freedom. In later discussion, I will offer an alternative social arrangement which will ease this threat.

The Afghan Jihad represents a human conflict of immense destructive dimensions that continues to play a role in our search for an Afghan peace. Nearly one tenth of the prewar population of Afghanistan died in this Jihad. One fifth of the Afghans were physically and emotionally injured in the conflict. During the Jihad, one third of the nation became refugees inside and outside their homeland. The brightest and best of the nation became the driving force behind this Jihad. The Jihad was led by village leaders who were selected for their fighting qualities and were given village support through the Jihad. Those Mujahids lost in Jihad are sorely missed by the nation as the people sought a return to the traditional Afghan values. The thousands of orphans bear witness to the human cost of the Afghan Jihad. Given the physical, psychological, and material price paid by the common Afghan, it is only natural that an individual's instinct for survival became the people's first priority. The issues of a postwar Afghan peace were subordinated to the demands of daily survival.

The absence of a generally recognized governing authority left a huge power void at all levels of the Afghan social structure. In postwar Afghanistan, leaders sought to fill this power void. Some leaders continued to selflessly serve the people's needs in their positions of power. However, many saw this power void as an opportunity to secure power for the selfish purpose of improving their well being. The common citizen struggling to survive was in no position to stop this assumption of power. The promise of providing security to the country was achieved but at a price of having no control over higher governing structures. I remain unconvinced that the current leadership will ever fulfill the promise of an open and participatory national government. Once a leader assumed power over the people, it a rare historical event when they ask for the people's consent to legitimize their rule.

The national economic interests of Afghanistan's neighbors have played a role in our search for an Afghan peace. During the 17^th and 18^th centuries, Afghanistan's prosperity was based upon trade between Central Asia and India flowing through Afghanistan. These economic relationships caused a generally prosperous period for the Afghan people. The expansion of both Tsarist and British Empires severed these economic ties. During the last two centuries, the nation gradually had to rely upon agriculture as the primary national occupation.

After the collapse of the Soviet Communist Empire, it was only natural these old trading patterns would reemerge. Iran with an existing border with Central Asia was well positioned to reestablish trade with Central Asia. Pakistan, physically separated from Central Asia, needed the cooperation of Afghanistan to establish these economic relationships.

The Pakistan government at the highest levels made a policy decision to facilitate those elements of the Afghan Resistance which might support her trade with Central Asia. The Afghan Resistance sought Pakistan military support vital to the Jihad and largely ignored Pakistan economic objectives. The Taliban represent Pakistan's latest attempt to form an Afghan government pliable to their national interests. Those elements of Afghan society disputing Taliban authority sought countervailing protectors in Iran and Central Asia. Today two broad Afghan communities in fundamental opposition to one another coexist in an unproductive stalemate.

In the eight years since the Soviet Communist withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Pakistan trade objectives remain unfulfilled. The continuation of military activities to force either side to submit will not likely be successful, and will prolong the Afghan people's suffering. Historically, the Afghan is a skillful trader and Afghanistan's long term prosperity also rests with Central Asia trade. The continuation of present political situation does not serve either nation's shared interests. Pakistan's national objectives are better served by genuinely joining the Afghan people in their search for a peace consistent with Islam.

The principle focus of this discussion is that an Islamic community can exist only when the people are granted freedom. A rule of law constructed by men with respect for man's free will is essential to an Islamic community.