Person-centred politics in Afghanistan
Assuming that history and cultural context profoundly condition
the trajectories of future possibilities the following aims to
explore, however briefly, the implications of one crucial
characteristic of Afghan political culture. This characteristic is
person-centred politics within the changing contexts of
state-society relations during the anti-Communist jihad as well as
the post-jihad political-ecological and political-economic
environment that has given rise to the Taliban movement and their
particularistic form of Islamic extremism or Talibanism, in
Afghanistan today. Person-centred politics, the cornerstone of
kin-based mode of Pushtun tribal social and political
organization, has been the defining attribute of Afghan politics
since the creation of Pushtun-dominated centralized polity in the
mid-18th century by a charismatic and able Abdali Pushtun chief,
Ahmad Shah Durrani (r. 1747-1773). According to Eric Wolf , the
'Achilles' heels' and 'the diagnostic points of stress' of
kin-based politics is that a chief or leader 'draws following
through judicious management of alliances and redistributive
action, [but] he reaches a limit that can only be surpassed by
breaking through the limitations of the kinship order [itself]'.
To overcome the limitations of this person-centred kin-based
politics, Wolf suggests that the leader 'must gain independent
access to reliable and renewable resources [material, monetary,
and ideological] of his own.'
Addressing this serious limitation of person- centred, kin-based
political economy in Afghanistan has been possible, however brief,
by two major means. During the 18th and 19th centuries, it was
through the fruits of waging jihad, initially against non-Muslims
in the Indian subcontinent, and then internally against the
non-Pushtun communities to impose a form of internal colonialism.
And during the latter parts of 19th and the 20th centuries it was
through solicitation/offer of foreign subsidies, mostly from real
and/or potential enemies of the nation. The effectiveness of these
strategies, however, has proved to be episodic and transient. The
costs of the failure to resolve this serious problem of political
economy of the state for Afghanistan have been very heavy. The
primary reason for the failure has been the unwillingness or
inability of the leadership to shift from a tribal political
culture anchored in person-centred politics to a broader, more
inclusive, participatory national politics based on the
development of modern national institutions and ideologies. As a
result, during its 250-year history of statehood, Afghanistan has
suffered through at least 100 years of fratricidal wars of
succession and/or pacification (often called jihad by the
contestants) with devastating consequences and painful legacies.
These bloody internal conflicts, which have facilitated (invited)
foreign aggressive interventions (British, Russian and now
Pakistani, Iranian and others), even when dressed with ideological
justifications (Islamic or otherwise), were fought not for or
against any ideological or institutional cause or causes. Instead,
they were fought for or against specific individuals, families or
clans out of personal, but often rapidly shifting, commoditicized
loyalties (primordial and/or acquired/purchased).
The legacies of person-centred politics in Afghanistan
Modern state building efforts in Afghanistan
began (in 1880) with unprecedented brutality against large
segments of society, especially by violence directed against
non-Durrani Pushtun and certain non-Pushtun groups. The rulers
utilized the discourses of Islam, tribe/kinship and Durrani
kingship to hold together a myriad of linguistic, sectarian and
tribal groups in virtual subjugation within a buffer state.
Resistance and popular revolts against the state were repeatedly
crushed with weapons and money provided to the governments by
outside colonial powers, initially Great Britain and later the
former Soviet Union. These efforts, however, did not disrupt the
kin-based personalized politics of what Edward Banfield termed
'amoral familism' – a tendency to 'maximize material,
short-run advantage of the ... family [and kin], assuming that all
others will do like-wise' – but strengthened them. Indeed, it
can be argued that the contradictory policies and practices of
state building in Afghanistan have promoted a political culture of
person-centred politics to the virtual exclusion of nurturing
broader and more inclusive national ideologies, institutions and
moral principles. Therefore, it is contended that the rise of
Taliban movement during the post-jihad crises of succession, with
their form of Islamic extremism or Talibanism, is the inevitable
culmination of the historical legacies of the person- centred,
Pashtun-dominated, Afghan political culture. The most significant
of these legacies, although by no means exhaustive of all the
possibilities, include:
Firstly, consistent policies and practices of
political mistrust directed against the great majority of Afghan
subjects/citizens by state authorities have promoted an attitude
of distrust of politics and politicians by the citizens. Such
prolonged experiences, in turn have seriously weakened traditional
communities of trust (jama’at), i.e., civil
society. And it has caused the general erosion of trust as a
'social capital' in Afghan society beyond the circles of family
and close kinsmen or at most one's own ethnolinguistic group.
Secondly, person-centred, paternalistic politics
encouraged commoditization of loyalties, the creation of a
political economy of dependency and patron-client relationships at
all levels of Afghan society, including the increasing dependence
of governments on foreign aid. This situation has been further
exacerbated because of the collapse of the state and the rise of
multiple centers of power, all of them receiving assistance
(economic and military) from numerous governmental and non-
governmental international agencies during the more than two
decades of a devastating war. This new political ecological
condition of continuous warfare has also introduced a new weapon
in the arsenals of person- centred political combatants. It is
access to a thriving print and electronic media – inside
Afghanistan, in Afghan refugee communities around the world as
well as the BBC and VOA radio services in Dari and Pashto
languages – utilized for a more effective vilification and
demonization of the opponent's character. These pervasive attempts
at mutual character assassinations have left no room for the
possibility of constructive dialogue and discussion about national
goals, ideas or strategies, and have led to the inevitable
escalation of political contests into violent military conflicts,
justified increasingly by adherence to religious extremism and
Talibanism.
Thirdly, person-centred politics has placed all
ideologies (Islamic and otherwise) and moral principles at the
service of preserving self-interest and protection of personal,
familial, tribal or ethnic group honour. This has resulted in
serious discrepancies between public policy pronouncements of the
contending groups and their actual practices. The Taliban claims
of being inclusive of all ethnic groups and bringing peace and
security in territories under their control while committing some
of the worst ethnic cleansing violence against non-Pushtuns in
their conquered regions; and contrary to explicit Islamic
principles, the rising production of opium poppies, and the
manufacture, sales and trafficking of elicit drugs in the areas
under the Taliban control may be cases in point.
Fourthly, the treatment of non-Pushtun citizens
of Afghanistan as mere internal 'colonial' subjects (not
citizens/at least not "real Afghans") has produced a
deep sense of alienation, resentment, and distrust. Their role in
national history was depicted as marginal and their participation
in national politics was purposefully undermined. That is, through
a well-established policy of demographic aggression, ranging from
resettlement of Pushtun in non-Pushtun territories to
underestimating their actual numbers by administrative means,
their political representation in national assemblies were
severely curtailed. At the same time, non-Pushtun groups were
subjected to excessive conscription (for military service and
corvee labor), extraction by taxation, appropriation, looting and
other extra judicial exactions. It is because of these painful
historical memories of oppression and injustice that non-Pushtun
minorities in Afghanistan are fighting with such powerful
determination to resist the Taliban attempt to return the country
to the status coup ante, i.e. the conditions of internal
colonialism by the Pushtun before the onset of anti-Communist
jihad (1978).
The ultimate product of person-centred tribal Pushtun political
culture
Finally, the ultimate product of the
person-centred, tribal Pushtun political culture in Afghanistan is
the rise of the Taliban militia movement with its enigmatic, and
increasingly apotheosized leader and his militantly anti-Shi’a,
anti-modern, anti-Western, anti-women, and especially
anti-democratic policies and practices. The Taliban's 'divinely
ordained' reclusive leader, Mullah Umar, was proclaimed on 4 April
1996, by a gathering of some 1,200 mullahs in Kandahar, the
spiritual capital of Talibanism, as the Amirul Mu'mineen
(Commander of the Faithful). As such, he is the ultimate source
for articulating and enforcing the 'new' Muslim
orthodoxy/orthopraxy of Talibanism in Afghanistan – the basis
of his legitimacy. The Taliban project themselves as the bearers
of peace and 'true Islamic justice' in the country, a form of
justice bent on the enforcement of the harshest principles of hudud
in the shari’a. Such punishments
include, for example, amputating the limbs of thieves, stoning to
death of adulterers, and public execution of murderers by the
victims' relatives in sport stadiums with thousands of spectators.
Their real claim to infamy comes from the imposition of a policy
of 'Gender Apartheid' directed against the girls and women of
Afghanistan. This collective self-image of Talibanism is further
buttressed by the projected images of their foreign Muslim allies,
the various conservative and radical Pakistani Muslim political
organizations. These include, among others, two factions of the
Jamiat-e Ulema Islam (JUI) led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman and
Moulana Samiul Haq, the two rabidly anti-Shi’a terrorist
groups, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), and Harakat-ul-Ansar, as
well as Ben Laden's military organization, Al-Qa’ida. True to
the nature of person-centred tribal political culture, the
projected positive 'Islamic' self-images of Taliban are contrasted
by demonizing the Muslim character of their many opponents.
Ironically, many of those being damned are, in fact, well-known
heroes of the anti-Soviet jihad. The Taliban also demonize their
opponents' foreign patrons, Muslim and non-Muslim, such as Shi’i
Iran, Russia and Central Asian republics, except for Turkmenistan.
The rise and successes of Talibanism, fleeting
as it may turn out to be, fits well within the structural patterns
and dynamics of wars of succession in Afghanistan, at least during
the last 100 years. The mysterious beginnings of the Taliban, and
their quick adoption by foreign forces in this instance by
Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, have had major precedents in Afghan
history. The economic support of foreign Muslim sponsors has made
it possible for the Taliban to purchase loyalties from a huge
chain of economically desperate and dependent local commanders
within the country. These external patrons, by extending official
recognition to the Taliban regime, have also condoned the Taliban
version of Islamic extremism and have facilitated the recruitment
of much needed foreign fighters (Pakistanis and others) from
Pakistani Muslim seminaries (madrasas) and beyond.
What distinguish the Taliban and the rise of
Talibanism at this juncture in the history of Afghanistan, are the
radically altered political ecological and economic conditions,
both inside Afghanistan and in the region, following the collapse
of the former Soviet Union. That is, the presence of multiple
competing foreign Muslim sponsors, with their divergent or
conflicting strategic, ideological, political and economic agendas
have proved to be the ideal situation for the emergence of an
extremist militia organization such as the Taliban within the
person-centred tribal political culture of the Pushtun in
Afghanistan. Indeed, these same political ecological realities in
the region have also fuelled the wars of resistance against the
Taliban hegemony, forcing it to resort to increasingly violent
policies and practices against women, Shi’is and the
non-Pushtun ethnolinguistic communities in Afghanistan. |
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