By Deepa Majumdar
Like the Rohingya, the Afghan people have a tragic history. Of the two, the Afghans are perhaps more tragic, because they are persecuted by their own people (the Taliban). In its more recent history, this ancient land has been a crucible of neocolonialism – in both its positive and negative aspects. A comparison with Meghalaya is not inappropriate, given the extreme westernization both have faced as cradles of colonialism and neocolonialism. In response, both have seen near-fatal searches for cultural authenticity. Both have undergone painful insurgencies. Both are tribally organized. But beyond a point this comparison stalls, because not even the worst xenophobia and the most violent insurgencies in Meghalaya can begin to compare with the barbarism and savage misogyny of the Taliban. All said and done, the Khasi community is matrilineal, even if this matrilineality falls short of the highest feminism. The Taliban could not begin to imagine a mother-centered matrilineal society.
Unforeseen and sad though this return of the Taliban has been, at least four lessons can be learned from this tragedy. First, the US debacle in Afghanistan should be seen as a clash, not of civilizations, but of secular capitalist hedonism and nihilism, with religious puritanism and zealotry. Like all pairs of opposites, hedonism and puritanism contradict one another. They therefore cannot resolve each other. If puritanism bestows chilling alienation, so does hedonism, through a descent into the body, mindless materialism, an iconic place for money, the breakdown of the family, and the modern hi-tech war.
Second, this debacle is the clearest sign that the spotlight of History is shifting from America to China (PRC). America’s sudden chaotic exit, even as PRC woos the Taliban, is surely History’s way of anointing China as our next superpower. That PRC is courting the Taliban for purely mercenary reasons should not surprise us. Given its ghastly record of human rights violations in Tibet, which it invaded in 1950-51, PRC lacks the moral authority to question the brutalities of the Taliban. It would therefore be the greatest blunder ever, for Europe’s former colonies in Asia to favor China over America, out of misplaced identity politics and anti-western bias.
Third, the fact that Afghan government forces caved in, so that the Taliban was able to fill the vacuum left by departing American forces, demonstrates how entrenched identity politics can be even in realpolitik. It demonstrates as well how little Afghan men cared for the threat to their womenfolk under Taliban rule.
Fourth, Afghanistan shares with not-yet-modern former colonies at least three graphic challenges: western neocolonial cultural imperialism, nativist authenticity movements that happen in reaction, and frail western-style governments riddled with corruption, often direct puppets of the west (America). In short, nations entering the threshold of modernity will fumble in their attempts at government formation.
The military-industrial complex of the neocolonial west confronts countries like Afghanistan with westernization and cultural imperialism, more through aggressive trade deals, advertisement, and temptation, than brutal coercion. Impoverished pre-modern non-western societies lap up the American dream, without heeding enough the fact that it erodes true ascetic values and virtues, which stand as the life force of any civilization. Unaware that a nightmare of crass materialism engulfs this dream, they succumb to its barrage of mind-numbing western secular pleasures, which may be decadent, but encourage individuality, enterprise, and creativity. Although perhaps the best that realpolitik has to offer, the American system is hardly flawless. Western hedonism and Talibanic puritanism (its mirror-opposite), cannot resolve the problems in one another. True ascetic norms (voluntary self-control, renunciation, etc.) transcend both extremes. Thus, the west’s exposure, objectification, and exploitation of the female body can never redeem the blight of forcible concealment imposed by the Taliban on Afghan woman. Incapable of tolerating otherness and devoid of true universality, the west tries to create the non-west as a vassal in its own image of capitalistic hedonism.
Neo-colonial westernization spurs severe bids at anti-western authenticity that aim at nativist theocratic utopias that are, in truth, dystopias. Through brutal puritanical religious caricatures of true ascetic norms (which must be inspired, never coerced), they wring all pleasure out of people’s lives. Puritanical groups like the Taliban far exceed the west in their intolerance of otherness and xenophobia. Abhorring otherness and devoid of the great heart and ethical sensitivity of the west, they are merciless towards “aliens.” Like other former colonies, Afghanistan is therefore caught between the mirror opposites of neo-colonial hedonism and the authenticity movement of nativist religious puritanism, a tragic conundrum.
Afghanistan also faced the challenge of a fatally-flawed government not untypical of the not-yet-modern failed states among former colonies. Trembling on shaky foundations, and with neophyte civil societies, these countries suffer culturally alien corrupt governments that are incapable of maintaining law and order, or dispensing justice. Whether they are less corrupt than grand larceny on Wall Street and the ravages of nature perpetrated by America’s military-industrial complex is a different question altogether. Because these corrupt governments are dysfunctional, violent gangsters take over, dispensing rough justice, sometime using brutal extra-judicial methods and kangaroo courts. In Afghanistan, this nation-wide theocratic gang is the Taliban. As if this were not bad enough, and adding to its cauldron of crises, the Afghan government was, until recently, an artificial puppet propped up by America. Yet, it is unjust to see America as merely Ayatollah Khomeini’s “great Satan.” One must acknowledge the complexities of neo-colonialism, by recognizing that even a superpower has virtues. To see America as just an imperialist predator with massive hi-tech violence undermines its nuanced character and historical responsibilities. No nation becomes a superpower based on might alone. Like an ambidextrous Goddess, America smites with one hand, and feeds with the other. Sometimes a good cop, sometimes bad, yet, America is generous to a fault. Like the gang member who ignores government and formal law, to dispense rough justice, so also, America ignores and despises the United Nations, to dispense extra-judicial global justice, cowboy style. This is how the will of History uses the superpower, which it conceives as the engine that pulls the locomotive of History. Thus, the American reconstruction effort, or what the Taliban calls the occupation, was perhaps historically ordained, not just as a means of granting essential liberties and better law and order, but more importantly, for the purpose of inculcating this war-torn land into modernity. Although each civilization possesses its own track of History, the superpower sometimes coerces a civilization that is lagging behind to join the chime of world History. Like an engine, it pulls all nations in the direction mandated by the locomotive of History.
Beneath its gleaming new infrastructure and thin veil of modernity, Afghanistan remained a failed state. Despite billions spent, Afghanistan fell apart like a house of cards. Why? Because a nation cannot be born except from the deepest roots and sovereign aspirations of its people. It can never be created through artificial purchase, least of all, by an alien occupying force. From the Afghan perspective, America’s reconstruction project was an occupation. The Taliban offered to deliver Osama bin Laden, provided America stopped bombing them. But America refused. Moreover, bin Laden was discovered and killed in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. This means America’s war in Afghanistan was as unwarranted as that in Iraq. Despite all this, America’s destruction, occupation, and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, were perhaps historically necessitated (not wasted) by the multiple crises that plagued this once pariah state, especially the plight of its women and minorities.
If anything, Afghanistan proves that colonialism and neo-colonialism are marvels of complexity and historical nuance. A means of inculcating Afghanistan into modernity, the US occupation (not the bombing, nor the needless loss of lives) was a mixed blessing that gave Afghan women, girls, minorities, and LGBT communities great relief from Talibanic terror. If anything, this proves that sometimes authenticity movements, although spurred by western domination and occupation, can be more violent than the original dominion. Moreover, at least some western (American) values and virtues, are universal. That Afghans are desperate to leave proves that even a faulty democracy is better than dictatorship. The hatred of the former colonies towards the west and America, often blinds them to their own demons. For Imran Khan (Pakistan) to say that the Taliban had broken “the chains of slavery,” while somewhat true in the context of neo-colonialism, is sickeningly irresponsible towards victims subject to far greater slavery under the Taliban. How easily the world ignores violence against women and girls!
To the non-west, America’s war fatigue sounds imperialistic. To be tired of a war it started, with no words of contrition for needless loss of life, is the acme of hubris. Nevertheless, Joe Biden’s decision to pull out of Afghanistan makes sense. But not his chaotic exit, which should have been planned months ago, nor his blaming the Afghan people for failing to fight. A fake state riddled by the corruption of its elites and that of American contractors will fall apart like a house of cards!
(The writer teaches at Purdue University, USA: Email: [email protected])