Page 2 of 2 Taliban tap into Afghanistan's roots
By Brian M Downing
With corruption and ineptitude rampant and in the absence of law and order -
all under the noses of Western authorities - the Taliban are able once more to
present themselves as fair administrators and the scourge of bandits and
warlords. They begin their presence in a district by settling disputes in
accordance with Islamic law, not in accordance with the highest bidder. They
deal harshly with thieves and bandits, chopping off hands or executing
higher-ups - appalling to distant Westerners, appealing to weary locals.
The alternate government then intimidates or expels local administrators,
either through threatening letters or pitiless assassination. Support comes
even from traders and businessmen - people who might be thought of as favoring
Western-style government with its rational-legal institutions and
guarantees of property and contract. However, they see insurgents as the only
answer to corruption and other interferences in business. Officials and bandits
steal from them; the insurgents kill the officials and bandits. And business is
able to prosper where rough justice is meted out.
Counterpoise to non-Pashtun power
Pashtun tribes constitute about 45% of the population and hold fast to the
venerable belief that one of theirs must head any national government. Though
non-Pashtun monarchs have ruled in the receding past, other groups such as the
Tajiks and Uzbeks and Hazaras generally defer to this belief. Conflicts have
arisen over the centuries and one has been building in recent years - to the
insurgents' advantage.
Disparate tribes and peoples had a common purpose in expelling the Soviet
Union, though no unity of command developed. The war was conducted by dozens of
local commanders, who occasionally cooperated in operations but who also
competed for resources funneled in by Pakistani intelligence, which favored
Pashtun groups. This was not only out of kinship ties but also out of of common
hostility to India, which supported northern peoples.
The Soviet departure was followed by various ethnic groups vying for power. The
Tajiks once held Kabul; a grab for power by the Pashtun Gulbuddin Hekmatyar
failed. By the mid-1990s, the Taliban had gathered a number of Pashtun tribes,
seized Kabul, and pushed Tajik and Uzbek armies (the Northern Alliance) into a
redoubt.
The US supported the Northern Alliance in 2001 and drove al-Qaeda and the
Taliban into Pakistan. Who would govern post-Taliban Afghanistan? The Pashtuns
were the largest group by far, but it was Tajiks and Uzbeks who had won the
day. Domestic and international pressures settled on a Pashtun, Hamid Karzai,
who ruled with Tajiks in the vice presidency and more importantly, in the
Defense Ministry.
The Defense Ministry became a fiefdom run by a Tajik suzerain who bestowed
commissions and battalion commands on a disproportionate number of fellow
Tajiks. Northern Alliance warlords turned in some weaponry yet kept their
seasoned armies intact.
An increasing number of Pashtuns see the army and state as parts of a sinister
plot, with the West as a key adept. No evidence is needed to suspect the worst.
Tradition and rumor suffice. Insurgents play well on this outlook and fuel
hopes of a return to Pashtun greatness. The gathering of the Pashtun tribes to
counter the threat from the north is again being done by the Taliban, as it was
in the mid-1990s.
Austere religious tide
Insurgent groups, especially the Taliban, are exploiting a return to
fundamentalism that is based on the misfortune the country has experienced over
the past 30 years. The calamities that the Afghan people have suffered,
fundamentalist thinking explains, are a judgment on those who have departed
from the path dictated by the Koran. A return to strict observance will restore
peace and justice.
The appeal of strict religion following a calamity is a recurrent theme in many
religions. The tragedies that befell ancient Israel were seen as the result of
abandoning the ways of the Torah. Dire warnings from prophets preceded the
disasters and stricter observance followed them. In Christendom, the Byzantines
blamed military defeats on religious deviations such as icon worship. In Islam,
the Almoravids blamed the ouster from Iberia on impiety, and with their new
austere beliefs, conquered an empire including parts of Iberia that had been
lost. Significantly, military and political greatness ensued the return to
tradition and became an essential part of the myths.
Less arcane examples can be found in present-day experience. American
fundamentalists blame the September 11,2001, attacks on the US and natural
disasters on sinfulness and urge a return to America's origins as a chosen
people. Following the defeat in 1991, many Iraqis, especially soldiers who
suffered horrific casualties, adopted Salafism, a strict form of Islam that
calls for a return to practices at the time of Islam's founding. Amid the
murderousness that followed the ouster of Saddam Hussein, many Iraqis turned to
Salafism.
A similar cultural tide is underway in Afghanistan as people reflect on decades
of war and lawlessness, significantly with a brief hiatus from 1996 to 2001
when the Taliban were in power. The ascetic message of the Taliban plays on
this sentiment. It dovetails with other bases of insurgent support. Deviation
from the path has led to Western invasion, lawlessness, Tajik and Shi'ite
(Hazara) threats, governance by the law of man rather than the law of Allah.
Rallying to the Taliban's fusion of religion, state and army will expel the
foreigners, maintain Pashtun pre-eminence, and bring a return to a golden age
under Islamic law.
The fundamentalist message is carried from district to district by Taliban
bands, most of which have members knowledgeable in Islamic law and in its
appeal to a war-weary people. The message is echoed by village mullahs and
finds resonance with villagers. The present situation is so hopeless that the
Taliban's period of rule is seen as having brought relative peace and justice.
The Afghan insurgency is based on concerns for which the insurgents have more
compelling answers than do Western powers or the Karzai government. The
insurgency has spread from a few districts to as much as one-third of the
country because it plays on concerns regarding national sovereignty, fair
government, non-Pashtun machinations, and the role of religion in life. Policy
makers must ask if more troops and a lengthy counter-insurgency will ease or
worsen these concerns.
Western efforts at counter-insurgency have thus far been halfhearted,
incoherent and unsuccessful. New emphasis on detaching local support from the
insurgents will face an enemy more deeply embedded in the populace than
thought. Policy makers must confront this. The military forces surely will.
Brian M Downing is a political/military analyst and the author of
The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War
and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at
brianmdowning@gmail.com.
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