Afghans Can't Trust Anyone
Afghans can't trust anyone
OP ED by Wazhma Frogh in The Guardian
The challenge in Afghanistan is to hold a serious and consistent political
stance on the Taliban. Inconsistency is creating chaos.
Wazhma Frogh
Tuesday 22 September 2009
The Guardian
http://www.facebook.com/l/456db;www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/sep/22/afghanistan-taliban
Not a day passes without representatives of the international community
trying to save Afghanistan without bothering to step out of their fully
secured buildings to actually meet ordinary Afghans, the people they are
supposed to help. Phrases like "success", "our war", "winning hearts and
minds" are used to describe the current chaotic situation. But the
international community has contributed to this situation as much as
"Taliban insurgents".
The self-styled experts on Afghanistan write books without ever stepping out
of the comforts of their segregated neighbourhood. They formulate foreign
policy, draft proposals and carry out experiments as if Afghanistan were an
experimental laboratory for international diplomacy. But the country's
deteriorating situation is also their legacy and the legacy of world leaders
who failed to understand Afghanistan.
Needless to say, the experiments are futile and bound to fail. Here is why.
The experts don't understand the country because they are separated from its
people through security walls, multiple guards and the fact that they only
converse with their fellow, self-styled experts, but not with Afghans.
This analysis is based on real-life experience and the realities that I, an
Afghan woman, have encountered on the ground for many years. We have a
proverb that says, "We learn how to be courteous when we meet those who are
rude and disrespectful." The easiest way to learn from mistakes is to
reverse them, but the world is taking longer than needed to reverse its
mistakes in Afghanistan.
Although the list of mistakes is long and continues to grow, let's start
with the recent dilemma: the "AfPak" drama. The US government and its allies
need to understand, and here I mean understand fully, that they are dealing
with two different governments, two separate states and nations so different
that they cannot be equated in a single mission. The differences are too
pronounced to legitimise a one-size-fits-both solution.
This is not to speak of the fact that such an equation overrides the
legitimacy and sovereignty of both nations, especially since sovereignty and
legitimacy are critical to their survival at this point in history. It is
true that the Taliban are a regional threat, but they need to be tackled
through a cohesive but contextualised struggle by each country. The Taliban
ruled Afghanistan for five years but it is an established fact that in part
they were a Pakistani creation, organised and funded by the Pakistani army
and government. But today, both governments are put on the same scale when
it comes to fighting against the former "rulers" and "puppets".
For the Pakistani government the Taliban represent only a backlash against
what used to be their own creation. But in Afghanistan, the Taliban are far
more than a backlash. They are a serious threat to the people and the
government. This threat might be somewhat curbed by drone attacks in the
border areas, but as recent incidents reveal, the Taliban cannot be
prevented from blowing themselves up right outside the headquarters in Kabul
where the international troops are based.
Millions of dollars have been poured into this "AfPak mission", paying the
salaries of self-styled experts who are hardly able to set foot outside the
safety and comfort of their castles. Ironically, the Afghanistan mission has
hardly any Afghans in it, at least not the kind of Afghans who have lived
through the critical times in this country and hence, by virtue of their
experience and knowledge, are capable of formulating strategies within a
chance of success.
This is everyone else's war, not the Afghans' war. Any other country in the
world claims that this is their conflict, but not Afghans. That's the heart
of our misery. Afghans are being fought in their homes and expected not to
lose their "hearts and minds". One of the reasons why the Taliban are making
progress in Afghanistan is their ability to fight a successful propaganda
war. But both local and international media outlets indirectly encourage the
Taliban by publishing stories of Taliban success. For the Taliban, this is
free, international publicity. Neither the international forces nor the
Afghan government have come up with a media campaign to encourage the public
to help them fight terrorism. In fact, neither the government nor the
international community has ever held a clear stance regarding the Taliban.
In 2001, Kabul was full of posters of Mullah Omar, the Taliban leader. He
was wanted dead or alive and a bounty of $25m was placed on his head. Today,
the same international community is calling Omar a "moderate" and is trying
to persuade him to negotiate peace with Kabul.
The challenge in Afghanistan isn't about resources but principles. It's
about holding a serious and consistent political stance regarding the
Taliban. For example, the Afghan army's lack of success in the fight against
the Taliban is not so much the result of their inadequate salary or the
number of troops but the lack of patriotic sentiment that is needed if the
army is to win. The fact that the Afghan leadership itself is hesitant to
clarify the exact nature of its relationship with the Taliban leaves the
army unsettled: is the government against the Taliban or ready to negotiate
with them? The recent elections were another example of how national
security has become a mere political game for wannabe Afghan leaders. For
example, one candidate said the Taliban were like her own brothers, her own
sons. And yet, we have thousands of troops fighting the same sons and
brothers. This inconsistent approach continues as Afghanistan's elections
are declared "fraudulent" and unacceptable even though the critics are also
the ones who set the election day and called it "an achievement towards
success in Afghanistan".
Afghans on the ground are confused; they no longer know who they are
supposed to fight against. They fear that if they stop the Taliban from
blowing up their village, the same Taliban might come back to power,
installed as governors or ministers. Under such circumstances, standing up
against the Taliban is just too risky.
But there's nothing new in this inconsistent approach. In late 2001, during
the Bonn agreement, Afghans were promised justice and that people accused of
war crimes would be held to account. But those accused of war crimes are now
leaders, openly and publicly supported by the very same international
community that promised to take them to court. No wonder, then, that Afghans
no longer know who is supposed to be their enemy, and who their friend.
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