Anatomy of Antiestablishment Sentiments

Rarely are politicians liked by people. This may be because they make promises that they do not or cannot deliver. Maybe this is because people expect politicians to deliver the impossible or near impossible. It may also be because some politicians are misguided. Alternatively it may be a result of sheer incompetence on the part of the politician. It can also be a consequence of many unknowns in the process of nation building or running a government apparatus. Local, regional and world situations can also influence failure or success of politicians. There might be other causes involved as well.

Let us look at Afghanistan. On top of the list of its politicians is its president who was considered a promising solution to the many ills of the country. A new Afghanistan was put on the road to Western style democracy. It was to be led by a person that possessed a number of favorable qualities to rule Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai coming from a Pashtun tribe, the son of a tribal chieftain, himself an educated individual with a long history of work with the freedom fighters during the dark decade of Afghanistan’s occupation by the Soviet Union and communist regime was considered to be a suitable candidate. Furthermore, he was a favorite of the United States. Well aware of the workings of the Western world and educated in the world’s largest democratic country India, he met the qualifications.

The fateful Bonn Meeting on Afghanistan convened under direct supervision of not only the United Nations, but also the United States, notwithstanding another viable personality from the former King’s group, nominated Hamid Karzai as the interim leader for Afghanistan. Soon afterwards, the country’s traditional national assembly called Loya Jirga confirmed him as the interim president and after an initial transitional period following the Constitutional Loya Jirga, the Afghan nation elected him as the president of Afghanistan. Hamid Karzai thus became a legal leader by election of a nation that had suffered under oppression of all kinds for over a quarter of a century. His election elated the US administration and President Bush wished for a person at par with Karzai’s qualifications to head a new Iraqi administration. His administration promised a Marshal Plan for Afghanistan. This did not happen. The United States however is spending billions in Afghanistan, but most of it goes to military operations and support services rendered by American companies. This therefore does not help president Karzai in meeting the needs of the Afghan citizens. Neither does the collateral loss of life especially of the civilians including women and children. Slowly people even in the coalition countries question whether there is a military solution for insecurity in Afghanistan.

Karzai took charge of a country which was in physical ruin with huge psychological wounds. The long war had divided an otherwise united country by ethnicity, linguistic and even religious considerations. Warlords lorded vast tracts of land and even highways and commercial ports. The country’s infrastructure was demolished. Governance had to be reestablished and building of a state machinery was like starting from zero. There was no army, no police. Karzai had to rely on the United Nations and United States military support so much so that his personal bodyguards were American. There was no legislature and no effective judiciary. The country had many enemies from within and without. Its friends were few and even those had their own agendas.

The long, difficult and arduous process of nation building began under Karzai. In the beginning, he was helped almost constantly by an American diplomat of Afghan stock, Mr. Khalilzad, who earned himself the unofficial title of Viceroy for his handling of the affairs of Afghanistan. His initial diplomatic successes in Afghanistan prompted President Bush to assign him to Iraq as his country’s ambassador.

In conformity with a time schedule and at times at a very slow pace, changes were brought about. The army grew to over thirty thousand troops, so did the police force. Afghanistan acquired, by elections, a bicameral legislature and managed to get a cabinet proposed by its president approved by the legislature. Soon after there was another successful project of Mr. Karzai proposing and getting a judiciary approved by the legislature. These were huge accomplishments, but they did very little to improve the lot of the ordinary men and women in this war torn country. Security worsened and it has affected in the negative meager accomplishments in improving social services.

People continue to want tangible results. They want reconstruction. They want rebuilding of the economy. They want social services. They want freedom from a deep rooted culture of corruption in the government offices. And above all they want security. But time does not wait. In its eternal journey it travels over months and years but the Afghan nation keeps waiting for the government to show results. Reconstruction is slow-snail pace. Infrastructure reparation seems to take forever. The recruiting into the army and training of the recruits is extremely slow and incompatible with the security needs of the country. Warlords continue to control affairs. The peoples’ needs remain unmet.

There is yet another phenomenon in social dynamics namely a trend that promotes dissatisfaction with the establishment. In some countries, it is the youth and the student movements that spearhead antiestablishment movements. In others people on the street take part in the movement. In many instances those who are participants in these movements are led not by cognizant decisions of their own, but are just followers of the trend that has become fashionable. This trend is so obvious among circles that consider themselves enlightened that if you support an initiative of the establishment for betterment of lives of the people you are considered a lackey. On the other hand if you are critical of the establishment and constantly criticize the country’s leaders and government, you are called a daring nationalist.

In Afghanistan, a combination of slow pace of development notwithstanding some real issues that control this pace, and a somewhat less effective government machinery with less experienced individuals in charge of administrative units, lack of coordination, scarcity of qualified personnel and above all difficulties in provision of an effective leadership slowly and gradually have caused dissatisfaction with the government led by its president. The irony of dependence for its freedom of Afghanistan on foreign military presence and lack of a unified stance regarding dealing with an ever growing insurgency, that is fueled from outside, between Mr. Karzai and some of the coalition forces operating in his country aggravate the situation. Afghanistan‘s neighbor Pakistan, a partner in the war on terror also commits one thing and does another. The Pakistani regime finds itself both befriending the Taleban and Al-Qaeda and fighting them. It signs peace accords with extremists in North Waziristan tribal region and tells his Afghan counterpart that he will not be at peace with the extremists and Al-Qaeda at Waziristan if they embark on exporting of violence into Afghanistan. In other words he tells Pakistani Taleban that they are accorded freedom of action and tells Afghanistan that they are not. Observers are perplexed by the irony.

For Mr. Karzai to be critical of his main supporter the United States and its military puts him in an odd position. After all he was accorded exemplary status by the US when he attended the United States Congress and also when he was offered special recognition during the delivery of the State of the Union address by President Bush soon after Mr. Karzai’s government was launched. Without the United States, Mr. Karzai will have to face Al-Qaeda and the Taleban alone. Yet so far a formula has not been worked by which the status of the US military in Afghanistan as liberators rather than occupiers would be fully defined. Mr. Karzai’s enemies and enemies of democracy in Afghanistan want him to prove that he is his own man. On the other hand in a complex turn of events the Taleban insurgency has gained new impetus and is receiving arms, training and sponsorship from across the Afghan borders, has repeatedly disturbed the peace, committed acts of violence and has destroyed further schools, hospitals and other public facilities. It has emerged as a real threat especially in the south and more recently in the capital to a peaceful life of the citizens. So far a mighty coalition joined at times by the Afghan forces have not been able to root out Taleban or remove the threat of violence by them. People have started to question whether there is a military solution on the horizon?

Recently some Western media too, have started criticizing the Afghan leader. This must have come as a shock to Afghan president who has been repeatedly promised support by the United States and European Union leaders. This also prompted him to discuss the issue in one of his cabinet meetings and rather naively suggest that Western governments must tame their media outlets.

It is an agreed principle that if a leader wants continued support from his nation, he must continuously strive for meeting the needs of his people. The unemployed men on the streets of Kabul, the family that has just returned from a long refuge in Pakistan and needs a shelter, the woman in Herat who is ready to burn herself because of social oppression, the farmer in Helmand who is caught between armed men namely NATO forces and Taleban fighters, the farmer that is torn between deciding whether to cultivate poppy that brings him much needed cash or to risk famine, the parents whose children are dying of polio, tuberculosis, malaria and or suffering from other endemic and epidemic preventable diseases, a good number of peaceful citizens who live in fear of violence by an uncontrolled insurgency and many others need help from their leader and from their government.

Mr. Karzai is accorded a chance in his upcoming visit to the United States around the middle of this month to work in earnest with his supporters in the US government and find solutions to many issues especially those related to the problem of effective coordination in the military activity, discussing chances of a military solution to the Afghan problem, a joint and honest participation by all concerned in the war on terror also considering non-military solutions, and a louder voice for Afghanistan’s president regarding the affairs in his country. He should be helped in his efforts also to improve the lot of his countrymen by providing them with tangible economic achievements and provision of basic needs for his nation. He should be able also to tell his nation that he has been effective in establishing security as well as achieving a recovery of the dilapidated infrastructure in Afghanistan. He needs to turn the tide of dissatisfaction around to hope within his beleaguered country. 9/10/06

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