Afghanistan: A Dialogue
M. Majid Khan
Linell Davis
Learning in Post-conflict Situations
May 2001
The Universal and the Particular
Majid: I enrolled in this course because of my interest in that region, Kashmir, Afghanistan and
Pakistan. That whole region is really suffering because of constant war. We may not see an end
to this conflict in the near future. Whether it is post-conflict or real conflict remains to be seen.
The second thing is I think we should work on a project to improve the basic educational
infrastructure in a way that is in line with local needs. It should help them to understand why we
want them to get education.
Linell: It is my idea that in the class discussions and readings we get universal principles such as
gender issues, the needs and resilience of children, and the need for healing. But you have to
apply these universal principles in a particular situation. You, Majid, are the one who has more
knowledge of the particular situation since you come from that part of the world. You have
personal knowledge of those particulars. You and I by working together have the opportunity to
apply the universal to the particular.
Majid: Yes, that is very much needed. It is the only way to get to a solution.
When we started out we thought we would design a project, and this goal shows up in our
dialogue. We did not do that. What we did was have a conversation and then search for resources
to increase our understanding of both universal principles and the realities of the local situation
in Afghanistan. We were the learners in this project. We present our findings in the form of an
annotated bibliography organized according to the topics that we discussed in our dialogue. We
leave it this way so that it can be a resource to others who want to explore issues of post-conflict
learning in this particular setting.
In our dialogue we first discuss some of the characteristics of Afghan society and culture and
then we discuss the conflict. To conclude we explore possibilities for post-conflict learning in
relation to three themes from the course: healing, gender issues, and social capital.
Related Sources
Dirlik, Arif. Our Ways of Knowing: Globalization . . . The End of Universalism?
Keynote address for the conference "New Directions in Area Studies." University of
Massachusetts/Amherst. April 26, 2001.
Professor Dirlik spoke about the apparent paradox of fragmentation in an era of
globalization. He points out that Western ways of knowing, Western epistemologies, are
under attack both in the Euro-American centers of the globalized economy and in many
other places around the world. He cautions against falling into either economic or cultural
reductionism. We should not think that Western or non-Western traditions are
monolithic, that there is one set of Confucian values, Western values or Islamic values.
The author sees it as a mistake to identify whole peoples with certain symbols despite
differences among them. When processes and practices that we identify as modern are
adopted in non-western countries, they are adapted to the local culture or cultures.
Eisenstadt, S. N. 2000. Multiple Modernities. Daedalus, Winter 2000 129
The author argues that Western patterns of modernity are not the only "authentic"
modernities. Today we are seeing an ideological conflict between universal and
pluralistic visions of modernity. The particularistic view accepts the existence of different
values, different rationalities, different ways of knowing while the universalistic vision
conflates different values and especially notions of rational thought in a totalistic way.
The tension between the universal and the particular is evident in much that is written
about Afghanistan today. In Afghanistan fundamentalism is aligned against western
modernism. It is necessary to find alternatives to these polarities, modernism with local
characteristics.
Linell: I agree but the situation is very much in conflict now. We should discuss the conflict in
terms of the local situation. You know much more about that than I do. What are the things we
should keep in mind as we plan a project?
The religious context
Majid: The first thing is that we should look at who is now in power and who is now the ruling
elite. We know that the Taliban are supreme and they control 90% of the country. If we enter
Afghanistan we have to be acceptable to them. They belong to a certain school of thought called
the Deobandi. It is orthodox and very fundamentalist. This group goes back to the 1860s to
Deoband, which is in India. In 1860 they established a religious school there. Now we have
come to the point where the students of those religious schools are ruling Afghanistan.
Linell: What is unique about the teachings or approach of the Deobandi school of Islam?
Majid: The special thing is that they are very orthodox. They emphasize Islamic teachings, which
are very fundamentalist. They think that women should not be allowed to work or educate
themselves, that women have no rights. They think that the solution to conflict is jihad. They
want to fight. They believe that dialogue is not the best solution. They are extremists. The
prophet Mohammed said that to seek knowledge is the right of every man and woman. At the
time, he said that you have to seek knowledge, you should go to China. In those times China was
very far from the Middle East.
Linell: So he was saying, do whatever you have to do, go as far as you have to go, to get that
knowledge.
Majid: Yes. He said that it is the duty of each man and woman to seek knowledge. But the
Taliban is taking different things from Islamic teachings.
Linell: I understand that because it also happens in Christianity. There are different groups who
interpret the teachings of the religion in different ways. One of things we want to keep in mind as
we plan a project is that this is an Islamic country. As you were saying, the teachings of Islam
put gaining knowledge and education in a very high place.
Majid: Education has a very high place. The Prophet Mohammed, though he was himself
illiterate, he rated knowledge very high. He used to sit with people to educate them. That was his
way to create awareness He was himself an orphan. He stood against the social evils of his time.
I think that was how he got his support. In those times in Arab society people would kill their
daughters as soon as they were born. He stood against those social evils.
Linell: He was a progressive. He was trying to improve social conditions.
Related Sources
Shorish-Shamley, Zieba. 1985. Women's position, role, and rights in Islam. Unpublished
Dissertation, University of Ilinois at Urbana-Champaign 1985: 48-50
Passages from the Qur'an and the Hadiths (tradition) show that Islam supports education,
property rights, employment, and human rights for women. It is not necessary to define
the situation in terms of a conflict between Islam and the secular state. There is sufficient
basis for gender justice in the teachings of Islam. Learning initiatives should take
advantage of this cultural resource.
Butt, J. 1997. The Taliban Phenomenon. In Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan. Media
Action International. Available at: http://www.mediaaction.org/pubcn/efgafghn/jbutt.htm
The author describes the background and development of the Taliban movement. The
Taliban was born in the refugee camps of Pakistan after the Soviet invasion. Many are
Afghan orphans who were sheltered, fed and instructed in religious schools with the
specific purpose of training fighters for war in Afghanistan. Until the rise of the Taliban,
Islam in Afghanistan was not fundamentalist. The article has much useful information,
including the fact that the Taliban make a distinction between an action being permissible
(ruskhah) and honorable (azeemah). It is permissible to take a life for a life, but the
honorable thing to do is to forgive. We can see that even in the philosophy of the
fundamentalist Taliban it is possible to find resources for healing.
The ethnic context
Linell: In connection with the issue of the Taliban, I understand that there are different ethnic
groups in Afghanistan. It is not just a religious struggle between a conservative and a more
progressive form of Islam.
Majid: According to what I know all these areas that are now part of Afghanistan were brought
together in the 1730s when Ahmed Shah Abdali took over and made it one country. From that
period until now Afghanistan has been made up of different ethnic groups, Tajik, Uzbek,
Pushtuns and Hazara, they are Shiia Muslims. There are few ethnic groups. We heard that the
Tajiks, like Ahmed Shah Masoud
Linell: Yes, he is the leader of the National Alliance that is fighting the Taliban in the north.
Majid: These Tajiks were always among the ruling elite. They are taken as intellectuals, literary
people, more enlightened and more accepting of changes.
Linell: Maybe we could say that the Tajiks had a more secular orientation.
Majid: Exactly and they were always in the ruling elite but after the 1979 Soviet invasion all
these groups came together and fought against the Soviets. In the early 1990s things went in their
favor, although initially Rabbani was made president. He was a Tajik and Masoud was the
defense minister. He was a Tajik. Then maybe they were not accepting direction from Islamabad.
Pakistan had always played a major role in Afghanistan since 1979, so they wanted to have a
government of their own choice. The Pakistan government and the Pakistan military wanted to
have a government of their own choice. But when Rabbani and Masoud came to power they
started to have an independent stance. Those policies were not acceptable to Pakistani rulers,
maybe to Pakistani friends. They started on a new program. At that time there were many
hundreds of schools in NWFP (Northwest frontier province of Pakistan) run by Deobandi
ulemas, Deobandi religious scholars. At that time the majority of students in those schools were
Afghans. We know at that time there were more than 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan
Linell: As a result of the war with the Soviet Union?
Majid: Exactly. The children of Afghan refugees were getting a religious education from the
Deobandi religious schools. The Pakistan government or religious parties in Pakistan started
funding the Afghan Taliban. Taliban is from an Arabic word that means student. Taliban means
students. They got outside funding and they learned how to use weapons. In 1993-4, Pakistan
was not satisfied with Rabbani and Massoud, so they started funding the Taliban. The Taliban
made inroads in Afghanistan and within a year they controlled almost 70% of Afghanistan. They
had enough funds, which they used to buy the local commanders. These are the old values of the
Afghan people. They always obey their commanders, the leader of a clan.
Linell: You are talking about a tribal social system. There is a leader and people are loyal to that
leader.
Majid: Exactly. The Taliban started buying those leaders. Eventually they became the supreme
rulers of Afghanistan. Now we have to take into consideration that the Taliban were brought up
and they were taught in just one school of thought. They do not have much awareness of Islam
and they don't have much knowledge about the rest of the world. A person who is getting
education at a religious school, and those schools are focused on one theme, they became the
rulers of the country.
Linell: We should also keep in mind that the educated elite of the country left. During the Soviet
conflict and this later conflict with the Masoud government, the more western style educated
elite left the country. The people remaining are the working class.
Majid: Lower middle class. When Rabbani and Masoud came to power they accepted those
Soviet officials that were working in Kabul and they asked them to work with them. The people
who had left earlier came back to Afghanistan to work because Rabbani and Massoud were more
accommodating.
Linell: More modernist.
Majid: They had that personal charisma to attract people, but when the Taliban came to power,
you are right, all the enlightened intellectual and liberal people left Afghanistan.
Linell: I read recently that a high percentage of the population is no longer living in the country.
Some are in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran and others have gone to other countries. The
people who remain have not had much education. And the Taliban come from that group.
Perhaps they are from village families.
Majid: Many of them are orphans from the Soviet war. They had no one to support them and
through the religious schools they got education plus food. It was free there.
Linell: What is the relationship between the Taliban and these ethnic groups?
Majid: Talibans are basically Pashtuns. They are the majority population of Afghanistan. They
were part of the previous ruling elite but the Pashtuns who were liberal, enlightened and
intellectual were always in Kabul, the capital. When the Taliban took over they gathered support
from the Pashtun clans, Pashtun tribes, and now the Taliban government, I am sure, is more than
90% Pashtun. After that they conquered the Tajik and Uzbek dominated areas like Mazar Sharif
and northern Afghanistan. They subdued the local Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks and they have
made them part of their government structure, but in many instances we have seen that the other
ethnic groups do not accept the Taliban. The Taliban are more inclined to favor the Pashtu
speaking group.
Linell: This is not an uncommon situation, but we should remember that this has not been an
ethnic conflict up to now. If the conflict continues even longer it could become that. People are
loyal to their own group whether it is religious, regional, linguistic or tribal. When I was in
Tajikistan the conflict there had to do with regions. They have the same ethnic groups there as in
Afghanistan, but the conflict was not between ethnic groups but between regions. Now people
from the southern region of Tajikistan hold the presidency and people complain that all the good
jobs are going to people from that region. I think that loyalty to one's own group is the way
things are in that region. We don't have to accept it in the sense of endorsing it as the way things
should be, but we do need to recognize it as a fact.
Majid: It was always there and it is still there.
Related sources
Magnus, R.H.& E. Naby. 1995. Afghanistan and Central Asia: mirrors and models. Asian
Survey, July 1995 35:7 605-621.
This is an excellent article about the historic relationships between the peoples of the
Central Asian republics of the former Soviet Union and Afghanistan. There has always
been a mix of ethnic groups in Afghanistan that lived and worked together. The conflict
has given rise to tensions among ethnic groups but divisions are not primarily along
ethnic lines.
International context
Linell: I understand that Russia, China and the United States are all opposed to the Taliban
government.
Majid: And its immediate neighbor Iran is also opposed to that ruling regime. They are interested
in a broad-based government for Afghanistan. Massoud has been to Europe recently and he got
widespread support from the European parliament. He has always been a strong French ally. He
gets a lot of positive reporting by the French media. Things might change in the future. And now
Dostam who was the governor of Mazar-I- Sharif when the Taliban took over, is a staunch
socialist supporter when the Soviets took over, and then he left Afghanistan and went to Turkey,
which also has a strong interest in that region. Turkey also is in support of a broad-based
government. Turkey and Iran are two friends of Pakistan. They, and even China, are asking
Pakistan again and again to stop support for the Taliban. They are asking Pakistan to sit down
with opposition groups to go for a broad-based government there. Pakistan is even interested in
becoming a part of the Shanghai Five, but this was opposed by the Central Asian states because
of Pakistan's support of Afghanistan.
Linell: China supported Pakistan's membership in the Shanghai Five. The former Soviet
republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan and Khirgizstan opposed Pakistan's participation.
Majid: Pakistan is facing huge international pressure to accept the realities and stop support to
Afghanistan. It might happen in the future.
Linell: There seems to be a growing international consensus around this issue.
Majid: Yes. Pakistan is facing severe economic problems. In order to receive aid and loans from
international agencies it has to accept international demands.
Linell: Even though the situation is terrible now, it could be moving toward a settlement. It is a
good time for us to be thinking about the possible post-conflict situation.
Majid: In the near future, I can see that, maybe within three, four or five years. There will be
loans and aid to Afghanistan to build up its educational infrastructure, because everything has
been ruined. There is nothing left.
Related Sources
Malkin, L. 2000. Reflections in a Distorted Mirror. World Policy Journal, Fall 2000 17:3
51
The author describes how Afghanistan became embroiled in Cold war politics in the
1970's and relates this back to the Great Game of the nineteenth century between Russia
and Great Britain. In the process "anyone who touched that tragic country became a
prisoner of someone's rhetoric." The US government was committed to triumphing over
the Soviets even if it cost every last Afghan life, while the Soviets became trapped by
commitments to Afghanistan as a client state. The US CIA began funding opposition
groups at $30 million and Saudi Arabia matched that amount.
Online Center for Afghan Studies. Available at: http:// WWW.AFGHANPOLITICS.ORG
This web site publishes articles and links to other web sites about Afghanistan. Among
the topics covered are economy, foreign affairs, history, human rights, who is who, and
women's rights.
The economic context
Linell: We can talk about what has been ruined, about the effects of this conflict on the country
as a whole and the population. First, there are all the people who are in refugee centers in Iran
and Pakistan. A further problem is that in the last year Afghanistan has experienced a severe
drought. There has not been enough food. A year ago people were returning to Afghanistan from
refugee camps in Pakistan, but then drought forced them and even more people to return to
refugee camps. They couldn't feed themselves at home. Another thing that aggravates the
situation is the way the agricultural economy has been disrupted by the opium business. People
are growing opium to support the activities of both armies. The food crops have been replaced by
opium.
Majid: Opium has replaced food crops because they think they can earn much more by selling
opium. It is a lucrative business in Afghanistan because there is an open border with Pakistan.
Then they have a long border with Iran and with the Central Asian republics.
Linell: They have a long border with Tajikistan through a very mountainous area, which is very
hard to control even though the Russian army guards the frontier. So, traditional agriculture has
been disrupted by the war, not just because war interferes with farming and other economic
activities, but also because the whole economic base of the country has changed to support the
conflict.
Majid: It is taken as an easy solution to their problems, to grow poppies and to get an instant
reward in money. They are going for this easy solution instead of going for long term policies.
Linell: If we can anticipate an end of the conflict in the next few years, the challenge will be reestablishing the economy from the roots. That is going to be a difficult job. I was also reading
that some of the traditional practices dealing with money and taxes, for instance the Islamic tax
of Zakat has also been turned to support the drug economy.
Majid: Zakat is for everybody to be paid before Ramadan Before the start of Ramadan
everybody who has money is supposed to pay 2.5% of that money for Zakat. That is a tax on
money. If you have gold or silver or anything of great value you are supposed to pay a tax on
that.
Linell: An additional tax on real property, any property of exceptional value.
Majid: Yes. If you have agricultural land or livestock, then there is an Islamic tax
Linell: This system that might work very well when the society is at peace has been disrupted
too. Those taxes are collected by the ruling regime and used to further the conflict rather than
being used for their original purpose, which was to meet the needs of the population. Weren't
these taxes traditionally used to support education and to give aid to poor people? That tax was
previously used to meet the social welfare needs of the community, but now that is not
happening. There is no money going for health or education.
Majid: Another situation that aggravates the troubles of Afghanistan is that it is a land locked
country. It has no other source of income. It has no ports; it has no other opportunities to earn
money. They must use indigenous resources to make a living, to generate enough income to run
the country. You are right that they have ruined every section of society and particularly
agriculture, because agriculture is the backbone of Afghanistan's economy. They have gone for
easy solutions and easy solutions have ruined their economy. It will take them years to rebuild
that system.
Linell: What we can do now is to develop some ideas and do some preliminary planning for
when the conflict ends. I don't know what we can do under present conditions. What do you
think?
Majid: Even now, even though we know that the Taliban are not accommodating, but still UN
agencies are working inside Afghanistan. They are working on humanitarian relief and
education. Even under these conditions we can do a project.
Linell: Yes. CARE has a program of schooling.
Majid: Which is going very well. It is getting a lot of attention from the local population. People
are sending their kids to school.
Linell: We can think about it in two ways. First, what can be done under present conditions and
second, what would need to be done when the conflict ends or at least decreases, when
something changes in the political situation. What can we do at the present time?
Majid: I think we should focus on non-formal education. Implementing formal schooling would
be very hard because we would need structures and schools and trained teachers and written
materials.
Linell: And we don't have those things.
Majid: Non-formal education means a project based on their old values and their traditional ways
of making money, so introducing those skills again and motivating people to restart those things.
Linell: One thing that I notice when I do the readings for this class including documents from the
UN and from the NGO community is that they make statements about women, about children
and human rights. I have the feeling that that approach needs to be balanced with an approach
that looks at the local situation and people's traditional ways of arranging their lives including
their values. What do you think?
Majid: Exactly. Very right.
Linell: For instance, when we are talking about education we have to understand the way
education has been handled in the society, for instance the use of that tax we spoke about and
other social practices regarding education.
Related sources
REACH (Radio Education for Afghan Children) More information is available at:
http://www.mediaaction.org/mai/projects/projects.htm
It is estimated that 70-80% of the Afghan population listens to the BBC soap opera "New
Home, New Life." Up to 80 themes ranging from landmine awareness, cultural heritage
and drug production to personal hygiene, safe birthing practices and environmental issues
are addressed through the medium of an entertaining radio drama. Topics are discussed at
monthly meetings with aid agency representatives. Three episodes are broadcast a week
in both Pashtu and Persian, repeated three times, including a two-hour omnibus edition
specially aimed at women and timed to coincide with Friday prayers when their husbands
are at the mosque. The broadcasts are reinforced by a monthly cartoon magazine which
includes a section entitled "Where there is no school", aimed at teaching basic reading
and writing skills.
UN Report on Humanitarian Activities in Afghanistan. Feb 2001. Information available
at:
www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf/vCD/Afghanistan?OpenDocument&StartKey=Afghanistan
&ExpandView
The warring parties have agreed to a cease-fire for one week in April to permit children
to be immunized against polio. Two pasta production facilities have been established in
centers for internally displaced persons in Herat under a food-for-work program. The
Comprehensive Disabled Afghans Program is operating in Kandahar. Mine clearance
teams cleared agricultural land near Kandahar and over 1,000 people in the southern
region of Afghanistan received mine awareness training.
Community Organisation for Primary Education (COPE) CARE International.
Information available at: http://www.careinternational.org.uk/countries/afghanistan.html
Activities of InterAction Members in Afghanistan. Reports of international NGOs
operating in Afghanistan. The agencies working in Afghanistan include CARE, Church
World Service, International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps International, Medicins
Sans Frontieres, and Save the Children Information about specific agency's activities is
available at: http://www.interaction.org/situation/afghanistan.html
Swedish Committee for Afghanistan. Report February 2001. More information available
at:
http://www.db.idpproject.org/Sites/idpSurvey.nsf/357a5774361a2868c125679300832804
/e0ca1997f392acbcc12569f20056d6a9?OpenDocument
SCA set up a program to counter malnutrition in Takhar and Badakhshan. They are
providing health assistance in several areas. Through their 13 clinics SCA is providing
supplementary feeding, measles vaccinations, repairing of wells and pumps, education
for IDPs and distribution of blankets and hygiene articles.
Goodhand, Jonathan. 1999. From holy war to opium war? A case study of the opium
economy in north eastern Afghanistan. IDPM, University of Manchester.
http://idpm.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm#peace
This article is based on a study of a village economy. The shift from wheat to opium
cultivation and from the livestock trade to the opium trade has occurred very rapidly. A
large number of people now have an important stake in this economy; from the poor
farmer, to the opium trader and shop keeper, to the commander who controls and taxes
the trade. The collapse of the Afghan state has created a power vacuum that has been
filled at the local level by commanders. In the village that was studied people now pay
their zakat to the local militia.
Gender Issues
Majid: In the case of Afghanistan we know that we cannot start a revolution as far as the case of
women's rights is concerned.
Linell: My idea is that we build on the traditional values, beliefs and philosophy about women
rather than going in and saying, all women should have these rights.
Majid: Even before 1979 there were many hundreds of women working in Afghanistan. They
were intellectuals. In addition, in Afghanistan women have always played a major role as a wife,
as a mother, as a sister and they have played a major role in their internal wars, skirmishes
between different tribes. There were always good Afghan women poets and Afghan women
writers. And Afghan music is so good whether it is Persian or Pushtu. They have their own
instruments and women singers are so popular among Afghan people. Whether they are Persian
or Pushtu speaking people they love to see movies, Afghan movies, and all kinds of
entertainment.
Linell: So, the arts were highly developed in Afghanistan.
Majid: It is part of the oldest civilization. This whole part of the world is historically very rich in
culture and in art.
Linell: I think of Central Asian cultures as being crossroads cultures. They have had a lot of
different cultural influences. It is characteristic of that region of the world that many cultural
influences converge to enrich local cultures. You have the cultures from India, from all of South
Asia and you have China and then some western influences.
Majid: I would take it as different layers on every individual. First, they are Pashtun and then we
have ancient Buddhist kingdom in Afghanistan. It was 5-600 B.C. So there was Hinduism,
Buddhism and then Islam, so all these layers are on each individual. Then the English made
inroads there. In that way the culture has been rich until the 1970's. Even now the refugees living
in Pakistan organize huge social events. I attended many marriages of Afghan people. They are
very fun-loving people. Lots of participation by women, basically this is a woman's event. They
love to hold this kind of event and they don't stop women participating. They have respect for
women. If we use the right kind of tools, we can motivate them to send their offspring to schools.
Linell: There is nothing in the local culture that is against women. We should build on the local
culture, the local value system rather than coming in with what some international agency is
saying about the rights of women. We should build on the rich cultural heritage, both traditional
and modern. That is the particular.
Majid: We can use the examples of the great women poets, great women writers and even great
women warriors in many ways. They brought honor for their tribes, their clan, by winning. In
many ways women have always been a source of inspiration for the younger generation. They
have respect for women. We can use that.
Linell: There are also local traditions supporting the education of women. We also have to
consider the problem of the widows, women whose husbands have been killed. There are many
women who have no male family members. I think this is a particularly difficult situation for
women in the context of Afghan society.
Majid: As far as my knowledge goes this is a problem in two different ways. One is the situation
of Afghan people who are living in refugee camps in Pakistan. There are huge numbers, more
than 2.5 million. They have no means to generate incomes. One way is for them to use the
women. Many of them are using the women as prostitutes even in Islamabad where 80,000
Afghan refugees are living. Many of them are involved in the sex trade because they think they
have no other way to earn a living. Widows, and even if they are not widowed and have
husbands or other male family members, they do not want to do lower status jobs because they
were high ranking officials during the Soviet period or under the Rabbani-Massoud government.
They were officers in the civil or military administration.
Linell: When they became refugees, when the government changed, they lost their status.
Majid: Now they are living in big cities in Pakistan, so to maintain their living, they don't feel
easy doing manual work. They are using their women to generate income. Then there are women
living inside Afghanistan. They are not allowed to go outside their homes to get education. They
are not allowed to work in offices. These are two issues.
Linell: The situation in the refugee camps is very difficult. They are almost totally dependent on
international aid. I also read that the health conditions are very bad. There is a very high child
mortality rate. Young children are dying of dysentery.
Related sources
Reports from fundamentalism blighted Afghanistan. Available at:
http://pz.rawa.org/rawa/recent2.htm
The website of the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan has several
sections, but this one contains dozens of articles on the plight of women in Afghanistan
under Taliban rule. It also contains many photographs of women and children in refugee
camps and in Afghanistan. The women in Afghanistan are shown wearing the burqa (a
voluminous head-to-toe covering with a mesh grid over the eyes) which the Taliban has
declared to be the only acceptable attire for women. Women in the camps are wearing
traditional Afghan dress, which is colorful with no veiling. Some of the photos are
disturbing showing the desperately overcrowded conditions in the camps as well as
portraits of emaciated children in their mothers' arms.
Sorensen, Birgitte 1998Women and Post-Conflict Reconstruction: Issues and Sources
WSP Occasional Paper No. 3 Available at:
http://www.unrisd.org/wsp/op3/toc.htm#TopOfPage
This long paper is a comprehensive review of literature dealing with political, economic
and social reconstruction from a gender perspective. It goes beyond images of women as
victims of war to show the ways that women contribute to rebuilding societies emerging
from conflict. The paper focuses on women's priority concerns, resources and capacities,
and discusses factors that may reduce women's participation in reconstruction. It also
looks at how women's participation in reconstruction influences the reshaping of gender
roles.
Healing
Linell: One thing we need to pay attention to is the need for healing.
Majid: We know that the majority of Talibans are Pashtuns. Within that Pashtun group there are
different clans, small tribes and large tribes. They are very much against each other. And then
there are other ethnic groups. Though they are not part of the ruling group, they have to live in
Afghanistan. They have to survive, so to bring them together and to reduce the gap, this healing
concept has its importance. They have fought against each other and they have destroyed each
other, so this healing concept will help a lot.
Linell: So there is healing among the ethnic groups and within the ethnic groups, the tribes and
clans that have been opposed to each other. Do you have any idea how we can respond to that
need?
Majid: From our readings we learned about the school in Sri Lanka, the butterfly garden. We can
take that example. Based on these models, we can design a project.
Linell: One thing I read talks about the growing opposition to the Taliban. One reporter is saying
that tribal leaders were calling for a meeting of the tribal leaders. Is that a traditional mechanism
of clan leaders getting together to make decisions?
Majid: That is what I was saying earlier. What the Taliban did was to spend money to buy the
loyalty of tribal leaders. If they are now feeling an urgency about going against the Taliban, they
can do that. They will sit together and they will decide.
Linell: So that might be a structure, this tradition of the meeting of the tribal leaders.
Majid: It is called Jirga
Linell: What can you tell me about how that works?
Majid: It has always been used in the NWFP of Pakistan. It is an old Pashtun institution. That is
the way they solve their problems. They don't like to go to courts; they don't like to involve the
local authorities. They want to sit together and solve their problems. It might be related to
criminal matters such as rape or murder or with animosity between tribes. Whatever has
happened that someone believes is wrong among tribes. The selected individuals who are the
leaders of tribes or elders within the tribe will call a meeting , called Jirga. They will sit together
and decide what action is to be taken against an individual and why it should be taken. They will
also decide what needs to be done to reduce tensions. It is centuries old tradition and still very
much in vogue in tribal areas.
Linell: Do you think there is a way to use that mechanism to further the healing?
Majid: That is the best way. If we are successful in involving those people, this is the best way to
introduce healing. Those are the people who are influential.
Linell: They can persuade people in their own group to cooperate. That could become a structure
that does something comparable to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. To
recognize the suffering and the crimes of various persons and groups, and to say that while that is
true, we have to go on to build a future as a society.
Related sources
Journalists in Conflict Fellowship Program sponsored by Media Action International.
Information about the program is available at:
http://www.mediaaction.org/mai/projects/fellowsh.htm
The purpose of the program is to provide journalists with new perspectives on reporting
conflict that promotes humanitarian values and supports peace building The idea is that
the media can have a positive impact on conflict and should be encouraged to do so.
Maynard, V. A. 1999. Healing communities in conflict: International assistance in
complex emergencies. New York: Columbia University Press
Two factors hinder the effectiveness of interventions in promoting healing. One is that
building a sustainable peace may not be the first priority of foreign actors. This is a
problem in Afghanistan because the US, China, Russia, Iran and some Arab states have
political and strategic agendas in this area. The other problem is the proliferation of
NGOs and problems of coordination and institutional experience in that community. With
widespread famine in Afghanistan there is a danger that the distribution of aid could
aggravate animosity between groups. In this resource-scarce environment aid could
become "the new currency" that impedes the resumption of ordinary economic activity.
There is also the danger that NGOs will hire Afghans who left the country during earlier
phases of the conflict and who are likely to favor more urban, secular, modern segments
of the population.
Social Capital
Linell: What is the situation with social capital now?
Majid: Now it is at the lowest ebb because people don't rely and trust each other and they have
lost their motivation to work together and to rebuild their institutions, rebuild their economy. It is
the legacy of the long war that is still going on. People have lost their ability to work together.
Linell: Maybe what we are seeing now is the negative side of social capital. You talked about the
Taliban using money to buy the loyalty of tribal leaders. The social capital that exists from
traditional society has been used to criminalize the economy and society. Some writers are
saying this.
Majid: It is very much related to economic conditions. When economic conditions are higher,
social capital is also high. When we look at it from that perspective, they have ruined their
economy and it has badly effected the social capital.
Linell: One of the tasks is going to be rebuilding social capital. There is a great deal of
international interest in having a broad-based government. So that is likely to be the approach at
the national level. But there is also the local level and the intermediate level.
Majid: It will start something new for them. They have always had good social capital because of
their centuries old Jirga system and it has always helped them in taking care of each other and
providing help to destitute. They have always used it during internal conflicts (within the tribe)
and battles with other tribes. This process bears fruit and helped in bringing reconciliation and
eliminating old rivalries. They know they have to live together. Before the 1970s they were rich
in social capital but because of these events they have lost their old value system. They are not
ready to work together now the way they used to.
Linell: We can predict that there will be international initiatives at the governmental level,
perhaps under the name of nation building or state building. There will be attempts to build
political structures to replace the old structures that have been severely damaged, even destroyed.
Related sources
Strategic Framework for Afghanistan: Towards a Principled Approach to Peace and
Reconstruction 12 September 1998 Available at:
http://www.wfp.org/afghanistan/documents/strat_framework.html
This document outlines the operating principles for United Nations agencies in
Afghanistan, most prominently the World Food Program. It stresses humanitarian relief,
human rights and gender issues rather than the protection and development of social
capital in its local and traditional forms.
Afghanistan - Endless war in a fragmented society. European Platform for Conflict
Prevention and Transformation. Available at:
http://www.oneworld.org/euconflict/guides/surveys/af.htm
The European Union approach to the crisis in Afghanistan like the UN approach stresses
the collapse of formal state mechanisms and the need to recreate them following a
western model of civil society. They don't say it exactly in those words, but that is the
meaning.
Pugh, M. 1998. Post-conflict Rehabilitation: social and civil dimensions The Journal of
Humanitarian Assistance. Available at:
http://www.jha.ac/articles/a034.htm
The paper draws on the experience is Yugoslavia to look at problems in protecting and
developing social capital when conflict ends. The author argues that in tribal societies
local initiatives will probably be more successful than efforts to create social capital only
at a national level. Grass roots networks usually have as their main goals social and
economic reconstruction. Care should be taken to encourage the reconstruction of local
networks in such a way that they Interact with rather than oppose the state.
Goodhand, Jonathan. 2000. NGOs and peace building in complex political emergencies:
A study of Afghanistan. http://idpm.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm#peace
This study uses ideas about social capital to assess the situation in Afghanistan. Field
studies were conducted in three villages in three provinces to determine how
communities have responded to violent conflict, and how NGO activities have affected
community coping strategies. NGOs were found to have a limited impact on peacebuilding processes. Many NGOs remain skeptical about peace building as a concept and
practice. Few have explicit peace-building objectives incorporated into their relief and
development programs. NGO activity has helped, however, to mitigate some of the
suffering that is created by conflict and can have an indirect peace-building role, at the
local level by reducing competition for economic resources and by supporting local
institutions. Agencies have learned from past experience, so that aid programs are better
managed than they were ten years ago. Some NGOs were too far removed from the grass
roots to have a major impact. They need to invest in building longer term, deeper
relationships with Afghan communities.
Fielden, Matthew and Joanathn Goodhand. 2000. Peace-making in the new world
disorder: A study of the Afghan conflict and attempts to resolve it. Peace Building and
Complex Political Emergencies Working Papers Series #7. Available at:
http://idpm.man.ac.uk/idpm/idpm_dp.htm#peace
The authors find that social networks in Afghan society are resilient but they are not
optimistic about creating a civil society. Their historical analysis shows that the tradition
of resisting the state goes back more than 200 years when the state was first formed as a
buffer between British controlled India and the Russian empire. Afghan people have
always used tribal and religious networks to create a "mud curtain" between themselves
and the state.
Collier, P. 2000. Economic causes of civil conflict and their implications for policy.
Washington, D. C. The World Bank.
The author argues that whatever the rhetoric, be it religious or ethnic, the root causes of
civil conflict are economic. Based on a study of civil conflicts in recent years the author
finds that a large diaspora community and outside funding of warring factions are leading
risk factors for conflict. Both of these conditions are present in Afghanistan.
Conclusions
Studying the conflict in Afghanistan and searching for ways to intervene has been most
instructive. Perhaps the most important learning has been that conflict is complex. When it
persists over time it develops multiple dimensions including the political, cultural, economic, and
personal. Each piece of literature or web site is likely only to discuss one or two of these
dimensions and make recommendations on that basis. The media has tended to define the
conflict as a war between the fundamentalist Taliban and the forces of modernization and reason,
but this is a gross oversimplification. The conflict had been going on for a generation before the
Taliban was born. It is more accurate to see the Taliban as a result of the conflict rather than a
cause. It is a case of victims becoming perpetrators.
An important aspect of learning in post-conflict situations is the learning of the
organizations that plan programs and deliver services. There are so many things to understand,
including the local social structure, customs and economy. Those planning interventions also
need to understand the larger political economy of the conflict, including its history and the
dynamics of how the conflict situation has altered the local society and economy. Agencies
responding to complex emergencies may raise money and get other kinds of support by
appealing to the heart. In the meantime they may not pay enough attention to the rational part of
the mind. They may not analyze the complexity of the situation they are operating in.
As an example, in Afghanistan we can anticipate continued efforts to get rid of the
Taliban and to create a secular state. The rhetoric of human rights and women's rights are now
used to demonize the Taliban and this is likely to continue. We should recognize, however, that
this rhetoric favors some segments of the population and disadvantages others, so that in
supporting it, NGOs become actors in the conflict and not the impartial agents they would like to
be. It would be better to identify characteristics of the local culture that support human rights
and gender justice. They exist and if built upon over time, there is the possibility of building a
local consensus around these rights. Otherwise human rights will be seen as yet another
imposition from the outside. Consensus will not come automatically just because Afghan people
and Afghan ideas are involved. Thinking so would be to ignore that conflict exists within
"normal" societies as well as those defined as worn torn or conflict ridden.
A greater emphasis needs to be placed on listening skills so that the staffs of programs
can learn how people in local communities cope and what initiatives they are already taking. For
instance, the social networks that women participate in are mostly informal so they are usually
not recognized. Western observers are likely to miss what is defined as private, as within the
domestic sphere. This is where women operate and where they exercise influence. Probably
social networks, conflict resolution mechanisms and the exercise of power and influence are
extensive in the women's sphere, but we do not know enough about them. This is an area where
more research is needed.
What is learned from listening to people in local communities needs to filter up so that
the whole agency structure, even the whole system of agencies, can incorporate these insights
into their work. It is important to avoid institutionalizing what has been learned into a new
orthodoxy. Reading the reports of official agencies suggests that a culture of orthodoxy does
operate in that community. Conflict and post-conflict situations are fluid. Agencies need to use
more process based learning approaches so that they are continually learning from experience. It
is not sufficient to do a needs assessment and then move on to implementation without
continuing the listening and assessment.
One problem that is particularly apparent in Afghanistan is that agencies find it difficult
to deal with long term problems. Most are so pre-occupied with the enormous task of responding
to life threatening issues of hunger, basic health and land mine safety that they use all the money
available to respond to these needs. In their urgency and with the limitations of funding
mechanisms, they often bypass community structures. Thus they miss opportunities for healing
and peace building. With limited funds and a humanitarian emergency to cope with, agency
personnel tend to be active rather than reflective. They don't think they have time to think
through the evolving complexities of the situation they are responding to. As one analyst put it,
action often gets ahead of understanding.
It also appears that most of what has been written about social capital is based on western
notions of civil society. It is necessary to look at indigenous forms of social capital and to
support them. Otherwise the universalist orientation of humanitarian agencies, based as they are
in western culture, may end up inflicting more pain on the people of Afghanistan by continuing
the conflict in another form. Remember the mud curtain.
Despite these problems we did identify three programs that exemplify positive
approaches to learning in conflict situations. They are:
1. Journalists in Conflict Fellowship Program sponsored by Media Action International.
This program assumes that reporters are actors in as well as observers of conflict. It
seeks to enlist them in peace building.
2. Community Organisation for Primary Education (COPE) program sponsored by
CARE International. The program demonstrates that it is possible to provide formal
schooling for girls even in Taliban controlled areas. It shows that dealing with groups
on their own terms can work.
3.
REACH (Radio Education for Afghan Children) program sponsored by the British
Broadcasting Company. This program uses the knowledge and expertise of NGOs
and refugees in Pakistan to create entertaining and practical educational programs for
the people of Afghanistan.
It will be a further challenge to incorporate learning principles into feeding, health care, land
mine removal, and economic reconstruction programs once the conflict ends. We hope that our
dialogue and the study that came out of it is of some value in preparing for that effort.