The Other Afghanistan
Joshua White Thursday, 4 October 2001
Josh White speaks with Neamat Nojumi, a scholar of Central and Southwest Asia, about Afghanistan before the Taliban.
It has now been several weeks since the terrorist attacks on the United States. As someone who is intimately familiar with Afghanistan, what course of action would you advise the U.S. to take? What does a long-term strategy look like?
The U.S. strategy, simply, should focus on stabilizing Afghanistan. You cannot just go and deploy forces, arrest some people, hit some others, and leave. In order to win this war on terrorism—or, at least, to eradicate this kind of fanatacism—we need to stabilize Afghanistan.
Any successful long-term strategy employed by the U.S. and its Afghan allies must include three parts: military action, political reconciliation, and reconstruction. The first part means doing away with the Taliban and bin Laden's forces. The second part—which must occur simultaneously with the first—involves forming a broad-based national government headed by the former king, Mohammed Zahir. This transitional government would ensure the security of the Afghan people and would prepare the ground for a general election. And the third part, the crucial part, is rebuilding the society.
Let's begin with the first part, military action. Given your firsthand knowledge of the mujahadeen, how would you advise the U.S. to take on al-Qaeda?
From the first day, I was not supportive of any direct military intervention on Afghan soil by the United States or any other foreign forces which did not include the participation of the Afghan people. A direct invasion by the United States or its allies would force Afghans and Muslims around the world into the camp of the Taliban and bin Laden. In order to avoid the image of a military invasion into an Islamic country, it is more pragmatic to work with the Afghans who have been on the front lines all these years, and who are suffering the effects of fanaticism alongside the rest of the world.
If we do end up working alongside the resistance forces in Afghanistan, as now seems likely, what role should Russia play in those operations?
Direct military involvement on the ground by Russian troops could be very bad. During their involvement in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russia created a psychological and emotional injury in the mind of many Afghans. When the Taliban wanted to provoke their people against the opposition, they would say, "The opposition is under the command of the Russians." Many of the Taliban soldiers believed it. Personally, I don't think that the Russians have the nerve to come into Afghanistan again.
That said, it is important for us to engage Russia rather than to isolate them. They ought to be brought into the coalition, but not into Afghanistan proper. This is especially important if the U.S. begins supporting the opposition groups, covertly or overtly, because these groups are familiar with the Russian military machinery. For this reason, military support from the Russians that does not involve ground troops could prove quite fruitful.
How would you evaluate the effectiveness of the Bush administration's diplomatic response to date?
In the beginning, they seemed to be confused about how to proceed, but they are quickly becoming more aware of the realities around Afghanistan. At first, I think, they placed too much reliance on the Pakistani government. Pakistan is simply not in a position to intervene positively in Afghanistan. All Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan is seen through the lens of its interest in its conflict against India, which is mostly irrelevant to the war on terrorism and to international security. In addition, Pakistan has a poor record of providing the U.S. with good intelligence information. If you look in the National Security Archives, you'll find bundles of documents of filtered misinformation from Pakistani sources to the U.S. intelligence agencies.
In recent days, though, the Bush administration has had some important achievements. Most significantly, President Bush has moved away from Clinton's failed policy of trying to negotiate with the Taliban. The Taliban have never been willing to negotiate. They have made up their minds from the beginning, and thus, our policy of negotiation was, from the beginning, a failed policy. The Bush administration learned its lesson from the previous administration, and recognized that the Taliban are not representative of Afghanistan, and cannot be trusted to act responsibly.
If the Taliban are overthrown, it's likely that leaders from the Northern Alliance (sometimes called the United Front) will take power. What can you tell us about these leaders?
In general, this group of leaders is very different from the Taliban. Some of them I know personally. They believe in peace, tolerance, and women's rights. They have announced that they want to participate in a broad-based, power-sharing government comprised of all ethnic and religious groups. Many of these leaders, in fact, have been educated in western countries, and they support the international norms that all other civil nations believe in. If you go to the areas controlled by the United Front, you can see the evidence. There are women's schools, women's rights, women's participation in public affairs. There are ethnic and religious groups living alongside one another.
Contrast this to the Taliban-controlled areas. There, people are dead. They are like shadows. They have no right to speak; they have no music; they are virtually imprisoned in their houses. Men are so afraid of their own government that they run away from any foreigner. But on the opposition side, people run to you, kids follow you, and everyone is much more cheerful. You can see the signs of freedom.
Many people in the United States are not quite so sanguine about a new government in Afghanistan. They fear that if the United Front comes to power, they will simply become another despotic regime like the Taliban. How do you respond to this concern?
I do not think that would happen. As I said, I personally know some of their leaders. Ismail Khan, a prominent commander, was captured by the Taliban back in the 1997. He could have joined the Taliban then and had a high position, but he escaped, and is now fighting the Taliban again. These people are paying with their lives in order to achieve peace and civility.
In early 1984, I was in Herat when Abdullah Azzam—Osama bin Laden's mentor—came to Ismail Kahn and offered him substantial financial support. In return, Azzam demanded that Kahn start up religious schools in Afghanistan to teach fanatic interpretations of Islam, of the kind that Azzam had established in Pakistan. Ismail Kahn rejected the offer. He told Azzam, "I don't want to see you here again." He had him deported to the border. You have to understand, this came at a time when we were desperate for financial support. But Ismail Kahn doesn't believe in fanaticism.
What do you say to those Americans who urge the United States to "stay out of Afghanistan's internal affairs"?
Civil society in Afghanistan has been shattered. The Afghans cannot stand on their feet by themselves, and in order to prevent another social and political vacuum—of the kind that was created in the 1980s—we need to stand with the Afghan people and provide a positive environment in which they can put the guns down, pick up the shovels, and get jobs. Fighting, you have to realize, is the vocation of many younger Afghans. It is how they provide for their families. We have an economy based on war, and we have to break down the warrior mentality and build up a stable society.
There have been a lot of negative news reports recently about Afghanistan. What, from your experience, is the strength of the Afghan people?
If I could put it in a very simple way: We have two constitutions in Afganistan. One is written, the other unwritten. The unwritten constitution is a great strength of our culture. It has three basic principles.
Hospitality. Hospitality means that it doesn't matter who you are. If you go unarmed to any household, they will feed you and sacrifice their well-being for you, because you are their guest. It is an accepted norm; under the code of hospitality, they are not allowed to harm you.
Let me tell you what I mean. I went once with a group of French and Dutch journalists to a small village in Afghanistan. The village had been bombed just fifteen minutes before we arrived. When we entered, the head of the village came up to us. He was bleeding so heavily, he could hardly walk. But he came up to us and said: "You are welcome to our village." As an Afghan, this was his obligation of hospitality.
Honor. One aspect of honor is respecting women. In the history of Afghanistan, you will never find a place where women are disrespected, beaten, and executed. But the Taliban do just this—and they force people to cheer about it. This is why they are so despised by most ordinary Afghans.
Revenge. This is the principle that if you harm somebody, you are not going to escape justice. Revenge has very strong connections to dishonesty. If you are dishonest, you cannot run away from the consequences of that dishonesty.
Osama bin Laden and the Taliban have declared a "jihad" against America. I know that you are a practicing Muslim. What does this word mean to you?
I look at this from an Islamic philosophical point of view. The greatest jihad—the jihadi akbhar—is the one in which the human being struggles within himself against corruption, sin, and vice. It is a self-purification, a struggle in which a person tries to discover himself and his reality, so that he may be able to enter the Kingdom of Allah. In order to enter into this sacred territory, one needs to reach a higher level of love for Allah.
There is a famous Muslim poet-philosopher, Mawlana Rumi, who writes that our greatest struggle—our jihadi akbhar—is to reach the highest level of love for God, and to be at peace with all of God's creations. Rumi's writings are very, very influential in Afghanistan. Even in remote places you will find people—illiterate villagers—who can recite his words and poetry by heart.
What has been your experience in Afghanistan with people of other faiths?
Afghanistan is more diverse—and Afghans are more religiously tolerant—than you would guess by watching the news media. We have more diversity than most other Islamic nations. And before the Taliban took over, we had very prosperous Jewish, Sikh, and Hindu minorities.
I know because I went to school with them. I went to their houses. We played together, and shared meals together. When I was a young boy, the only way that I knew that they were different from me was because my mom didn't feed them meat at lunch! Even today, there are many interfaith marriages—Afghan Muslims who are married to Jews, Christians, and Hindus. It is truly amazing.
Let me tell you a story. Once, during the war against the Soviets, in the midst of a very severe winter, I visited Herat, which years earlier had also been home to a Jewish community. Because of the severe cold, the locals had torn down many old wooden doors and windows from the empty buildings, to use them for fuel. But, incredibly, I found, they had left the wood of the old synagogue intact. Amazing! These people, devout Muslims, treated the abandoned synagogue just as they treated their own mosque. This is a picture of the other Afghanistan—the one we don't hear much about—the Afghanistan before the fanatics came.