"Tribalism" is but one example of embracing or attempting to change an alien culture. The popular connotation of tribalism has little to do with the reality of it in Afghanistan. "Warlord" is another example of a powerful but misused word used to villify political players in other parts of the world. I would venture the perception of many when "Tribal Warlord" is mentioned that one draws the image of an African (or Aztec) style tribe led by a dynastic tyrant that makes war with any weaker local power and rules by brute force.
And yet such a perception does not account for a Jeffersonian style of selecting local leaders who select leaders of the next level, etc. Such a perception does not take into account the numerous calls for political leaders in the West to return to leading formations into battle, just as these political leaders called Warlords do in the regions of Afghanistan, or did.
A Western complaint about Afghanistan often centers on the phrase "Karzai is nothing more than the Mayor of Kabul." Afghanistan lacks a strong nationalistic culture or loyalty. Its people are much more strongly allied to their regions, tribes, and villages than to the Nation of Afghanistan. The West has attempted to change this, unsuccessfully. Despite the foundations of Our Own Nation being in localized government with a weak Federal government (which we have abandoned), the West, including the US, finds this to be alien in governments.
The West has errantly identified nationalism as democracy. It is not. Nationalism is loyalty to Nation, regardless of type of government. It is not Nazism, though that socialist form of government used nationalism as its recruitment tool. Russia & the Soviet Union also had strong nationalistic tendencies as does China & Japan. Nationalism replaced Monarchies and Feudalism as a form of patriotism and saw its rise out of Paris and Europe in the 1800's as Empires broke into Nations of smaller states.
Nationalism, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. It is not a political ideology nor a form of government. It is merely the degree of loyalty to the Nation-State over the smaller government entities or in the case of Europe, the larger International state (EU). The tribal loyalties of Afghanistan are more akin to the nationalistic loyalties of Europe.
The US did not change from its roots of weak National Government to strong National Government overnight. It took centuries of politicians building more and more power at the top to get American Citizenry to accept it as the norm. There is no reason to believe that Afghans, who are stubborn to change, but accepting of brand new concepts, will be any different. The answer to this is not to attempt to force Pashtuns and Uzbeks to accept strong nationalisic loyalties but to build on the democracies of the village and tribes with a basis in Constitutional freedoms.
And the imaginary lines drawn by European mapmakers in the post-Empire world are still playing out in this conflict. While I've not heard anyone propose that Uzbekistan acquire the Uzbek portions of Afghanistan nor that a new Pashtunistan be carved out of parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, that would certainly allay some of the tribal struggles by creating Nations of naturally homogenous ethnicities, just as did the creation of Hungary, of Czechoslovakia, and later The Czech and Slovak Republics, and Serbia and Croatia and Bosnia reduce tensions there.
I doubt it would be endorsed by any Nation affected to redraw their National boundaries but a case can be made that many of the World's ills could be solved with such a measure. One need only look at The Sudan, at the Palestine-Israel conflict, at the Kurdistan issue to see that Nations are not going to cede territory willingly and to see that cross border ethnic minorities cause strife and oppression.
But when the 10-20 households of a village (Afghanistan) come together and select their elders based on whom they trust to best deal with issues of law and politics. And when those selected representives go to the subtribal Shura Council to select the area representatives. And those subtribal representatives go to the Tribal Shura Council to represent the Tribe, you already have the basis for democracy, without changing the culture. Add in the selection of representatives to the Loya Jirga and you have what Jefferson described as ideal.
Throw in "Three Cups of Tea" and get the current US Administration out of internal Afghanistan political manipulation and you have an opportunity to embrace a culture steeped in a different style of democracy and ready to return to the freedoms and rights they long ago knew but has been lost from their National Memory.
War on Terror News©2009, ARM, all rights reserved.
Tuesday: Part 1: Africa
Wednesday: Part 2: Europe & Asia
Thursday: Part 3: The Americas
Today: Part 4: Nationalism & Culture
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