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Afghanistan: Internal Politics and Socio-Economic Dynamics and Groupings

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Afghanistan: Internal Politics and Socio-Economic Dynamics and Groupings UNHCR Emergency & Security Service WRITENET Paper No. 14/2002 AFGHANISTAN: INTERNAL POLITICS AND SOCIO-ECONOMIC DYNAMICS AND GROUPINGS Olivier Roy CNRS, Paris March 2003 WriteNet is a Network of Researchers and Writers on Human Rights, Forced Migration, Ethnic and Political Conflict WriteNet is a Subsidiary of Practical Management (UK) E-mail: [email protected] THIS PAPER WAS PREPARED MAINLY ON THE BASIS OF PUBLICLY AVAILABLE INFORMATION, ANALYSIS AND COMMENT. ALL SOURCES ARE CITED. THE PAPER IS NOT, AND DOES NOT PURPORT TO BE, EITHER EXHAUSTIVE WITH REGARD TO CONDITIONS IN THE COUNTRY SURVEYED, OR CONCLUSIVE AS TO THE MERITS OF ANY PARTICULAR CLAIM TO REFUGEE STATUS OR ASYLUM. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN THE PAPER ARE THOSE OF THE AUTHOR AND ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF WRITENET OR UNHCR. ISSN 1020-8429 Table of Contents 1 Introduction........................................................................................1 2 Long Term Patterns of Afghan Political Culture ...........................1 2.1 Afghanistan – By Definition an ‘Unruly’ Country? .................................1 2.2 A Country Defined by a Common Political Culture.................................4 3 Afghan Warlords and Commanders: Their Sociological Basis.....5 3.1 Warlords of the Pashtun Tribal Belt..........................................................8 3.2 Warlords of Non Pashtun Groups..............................................................9 4 Afghan Warlords and the Rebuilding of the State .......................10 5 Stability for Afghanistan – a Regional Issue .................................11 6 Conclusion: Prospects for Stability................................................13 7 Bibliography .....................................................................................14 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees CP 2500, CH-1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland E-mail: [email protected] Web Site: http://www.unhcr.org 1 Introduction The present political and social situation in Afghanistan is itself largely the result of the transformation brought about by 23 years of war (1978-2001) and can therefore not be simply equated to a return to a ‘traditional’ pre-war Afghanistan. The main changes brought by the war period concern the ideologization of the political actors (Communists, Islamists, Taliban) and the connections between the Afghan actors and interests in neighbouring countries (mainly Pakistan). Nevertheless, after the collapse of the different ideological movements that have been the main actors of the wars, the resilience of the traditional political culture is obvious and is one of the keys to the understanding of the present relationship between the centre and the periphery. To summarize, three elements must be taken into account in any evaluation of the potential for political stability in Afghanistan: the persistently surviving political culture, which provides the only significant common ground for Afghans: any state-building should be based on this political culture, and not on imported artificial models; the ideologization which developed in parallel lines as Communism and Islamism from the late 1960s onwards; the regional balance of power, which has always determined Afghanistan’s stability. Every time a neighbour was strong enough to interfere directly in Afghan politics this generated troubles inside Afghanistan without leading to the securing of a new imperium. This is illustrated by the role of the British in the nineteenth century, the Soviets in 1978, and the Pakistanis from 1989 to the present. 2 Long Term Patterns of Afghan Political Culture1 2.1 Afghanistan – By Definition an ‘Unruly’ Country? A persistent cliché regarding Afghanistan is that it is by nature an unruly country, which regularly reverts to anarchy, civil war and tribal feuds. But from 1881 to 1978 (from the accession to power of Amir Abdurrahman to the Communist coup) Afghanistan enjoyed greater stability than many European countries. Afghanistan had only six rulers, all from the same tribe, during that period (with a single interregnum of 18 months in 1928-1929). It is certainly true that three of these rulers were assassinated and two sent into exile, but, with the exception of the 1928 crisis and the latest case, the overthrowing of Prince Daud by the Communists in 1978, these were all family affairs, with no resulting general bloodshed. During this period Afghanistan experienced only one civil war (1928-1929), one foreign war (1919, against the British), one coup d’état (1973, with no casualties) and occasional local confrontations and tribal upheavals (the two most notable being in 1924 and 1947). 1 For general background see e.g. Rubin, B. R., The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2002; Griffiths, J. C., Afghanistan: A History of Conflict, London: Carlton Books, 2001; Giustozzi, A., War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan, 1978-1992, Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000; Roy, O., Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986; Roy, O., L'Afghanistan: Islam modernitée politique, Paris, May 1985 From 1881 onwards, the state was able to cover the whole country with a light but unchallenged system of administrative and military outposts, going from provincial and district level to the remotest sub-district. From 1933 to 1978 the central army was able to deal with the few sporadic domestic upheavals, whether tribal or politically motivated (the Safi in 1947, Panjshir in 1975). Modernization was gradually implemented from above: first affecting the royal court, then the urban educated middle classes. In the 1970s, the education system extended into the most remote sub-district for boys and at least to the level of every district for girls. A foreigner could safely travel all over the country with a laissez-passer provided by the central authority. The state has always been regarded as having legitimacy to the extent that it fulfils three requirements: it embodies the central concept of Afghanistan as a Muslim and always independent territory, historically built to withstand the Iranian Shia influence, the Russian-Soviet empire and the British one, whose legacy has been taken over by Pakistan, Muslim solidarity notwithstanding; it appears as a (relatively) honest and distant broker between local factions, clans, tribes and ethnic groups, even if some are more favoured than others; it channels funds and international help and provides some minimum services (schools, roads). Unsurprisingly, this process of modernization has been met with more or less open opposition from traditional mullahs, whatever their ethnic background, and encountered more popular opposition in tribal (Pashtun) areas than in non-tribal parts of the country. The conjunction of the two oppositions, religious and tribal, was instrumental in challenging King Amanullah’s reformist policy between 1924 and 1928. But this opposition was usually fairly passive and did not challenge the state as such between 1928 and 1978. Conservatives might oppose a specific policy or a set of laws, but do not contest the form of the state. This pattern was to be repeated during the June 2002 Loya Jirga, where the competition between members was not about the nature of the state, nor about the constitution, but about ethnic balance and individual appointments to different government positions. The real challenge for the state, from 1933 to 1992, has not been the so-called unruly tribes, nor fanatic mullahs, but instead the radical militants belonging to the social categories created by the modernization process itself (Communist or Islamist military officers, teachers, students and civil servants). These radically opposed strands have both been in favour of a stronger and more centralized state, where the fragile equilibrium between centre and periphery would disappear in the name of an ideological state. The paradox is that the ideologization of the state has always de facto meant an increase in Pashtun hegemony, due to the over-representation of Pashtuns in radical movements. To sum up, traditional political forces have a need for a distant and benevolent state, whose existence they do not challenge, while radical ideological actors want to replace the existing state power by a stronger and more authoritarian one. One positive development, after the US-led military campaign of 2001, is that there is no more, inside Afghanistan, any ideological force committed to replacing the present regime by a significantly different one. Competition is between individuals and groups striving to increase their share of power, not 2 to change the nature of the state. Those who are now dissatisfied with the state want a better functioning one, not a wholly other one. On this reasoning, the Taliban movement did embody the last ideological regime in Afghanistan.2 But it came into the limelight at a time (1994) when the other ideological forces were on the wane. The Communists, under the leadership of Najibullah (1985-1992), had already shifted from an ideological vision to a more traditional one, playing on personal connections, ethnic identities and tribal links. By the same token a movement like the Jamiat- i-Islami as early as 1987 had abandoned the concept of an Islamic state.3 The policy of its leader, Commander Ahmad Shah Masud, was based on a pragmatic strategy of rallying local commanders and warlords, without any ideological conditions. This is well illustrated by his sudden alliance with the former Communist warlord,
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