Life here is bleak

Life here is bleak

Times of India/February 12, 2008

Escalating violence in Afghanistan and the attention that it commands worldwide has obscured the far more dangerous but insidious phenomenon of a resurgence of political, social and cultural intolerance inside the country. Occupied with the overt aspects of the spread of the Taliban- territorially and in terms of their military capacity- the international community has paid little attention to the slow but steady growth of fundamentalism.
This trend is making itself visible in different ways: through increasing curbs on women, restrictions on moral and social codes of behaviour, controls on a vibrant and independent media, curtailment of rights and restorative justice, intolerance of political opposition and increasing hostility towards foreigners.
Though most of these phenomena are popularly associated with the Taliban and their ideology, Afghanistan today clearly shows that fundamentalism is not limited solely to a narrow political grouping. It never was.
In the run up to 9/11 and thereafter, the Taliban, stripped of their utility as an easy means of accessing the region’s energy, were slowly and steadily turned into global pariahs. Their interpretation of Islam was seen as a horrific violation of human rights, especially evident in their treatment of women. There was little attempt to understand the roots of their ideology, since it was much easier to treat the Taliban as an alien phenomenon, a tumour, that could be surgically removed. Ergo, it was assumed the removal of the Taliban would also remove the ideology, with Afghans rushing to embrace democratic freedoms. Nothing could be further from the truth.
While the Taliban certainly alienated large sections of the population with their strict interpretation of codes of behaviour, in some areas of the country and in some aspects their interpretation only differed in minor degree with behaviour that had been traditionally practiced. Customary law, portions of which would be considered barbaric in modern jurisprudence, has governed Afghanistan’s rule of law and according to current data, 80% of the country’s cases are still resolved through it.
Even in the government’s judicial system, the application of law is often guided if not governed by custom. Take for example Afghanistan’s largest prison, the Pul e Charkhi prison on the outskirts of Kabul. A UNODC study of the population of women prisoners revealed that half the women prisoners were incarcerated for ‘moral crimes’, most of them for running away from abusive situations.
The women, most of whom were victims of abuse, were being treated as perpetrators for having left home. Treated as property in an extremely patriarchal system, a woman is a possession who cannot leave home without permission.
Afghanistan’s parliament also attempted to pass a legislation requiring women in public office to have a mehram or male escort from the close family members to accompany them when abroad. The upper house of parliament sought to reduce the age of majority of girls to 13. Both moves were fortunately thwarted.
On the issue of ‘human rights’, the pursuance of reparation for war crimes is being dismissed easily and simplistically as a ‘western’ and hence alien concept, while the country’s parliament accorded amnesty to all those who participated in the conflict of the last decades, a move endorsed by President Karzai. The international community which worked to remove the Taliban from power has been strangely silent on these moves.
This is not to say that there is little difference between life under the Taliban and now. Far from it. The Taliban’s interpretation represented an extreme end of the fundamentalism. The intolerance that characterised their approach has however not disappeared.
Despite an overt veneer of liberal institutions of democracy Afghanistan today faces the likelihood of an increasing confrontation between forces of intolerance and a more democratic polity that will be increasingly posited as a ‘clash of civilisations’ by those keen to cling to old structures of power.
References to Afghanistan’s age-old culture and its traditions notwithstanding, it is clear that thirty years of war have had an enormous impact in shaping both. There is perhaps not a single tradition or practice that has not been shaped by the tumult. Whether it is the traditions practiced by those who stayed behind in this country, modified and affected by war, the traditions of those who were internally displaced, moving from one cultural milieu to another, the practices modified by those who spent years in refugee camps , or the educated and the elite who managed to carve out new lives for themselves in developed countries, Afghanistan’s traditions have been either preserved, changed and destroyed in not one, but many ways. Now, as the different trends come together there is antagonism and hostility.
Understanding and dealing with the growth of ‘Talibanisation’ will mean looking at both the complexities as well as the origins of intolerance. Unfortunately, while the Western world treats the phenomenon simplistically, viewing the defeat of the ‘Taliban’ as an end, countries with greater experience of pluralities and complexities, like India, choose to adopt a hands off approach in terms of their political and social engagement. India appears to lack the confidence to play a role, cowed down by the overwhelming economic and political wherewithal demonstrated by countries like the US in Afghanistan. If ‘Talibanisation’ does spread in the neighbourhood, South Block can always blame Pakistan.