afghanistan
The oil and water government that resulted after 2001, with a Durrani
Pushtun monarchist Executive and an Islamist, predominantly Turco-
Tajik, military and Legislature, was hardly the solution to Afghanistan’s
historically dysfunctional government. However, as far as the international
community was concerned this arrangement was a quick, if dirty, solu-
tion to establishing a pro-Western government, which was legitimized
subsequently by flawed elections. Yet despite the international community’s
decision to restore the Durrani supremacy, in the mistaken belief that only
a Pushtun head of state could unite the country, the main opposition to
both President Karzai and President Ghazni’s administrations has come
from Pushtuns.
Despite more than two centuries of European involvement and
engagement in Afghanistan, very few lessons seem to have been learned.
European, American and United Nations politicians, military strat egists
and ‘specialists’, as well as Afghan government officials, still cling to dis-
credited imperial models. Like all previous European interventions, the
latest attempt by Western powers to put Humpty Dumpty back together
again has failed in terms of its original objectives. Perhaps more seriously,
it has let down the Afghan people they claimed to be liberating and the
promised era of peace, stability and inclusiveness is as elusive as ever. Today
the presence of foreign troops increasingly looks like part of the problem,
rather than part of the solution.
When it comes to the internal history of the Afghan monarchy, this too
is hardly a happy tale. From the very earliest days, the heirs of Saddu Khan
fought each other for the right of succession; infighting which continued
unabated long after the Saddozai dynasty had been overthrown. It is rare in
Afghanistan’s history for a reigning monarch to die of natural causes while in
office. Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan in 1901 was the last ruler to do so (though
it was rumoured even he had been poisoned) until President Hamid Karzai
stepped down in 2014. In the intervening century or so, every other head
of state has been forced out of office in various ways. Some were toppled
as a consequence of revolts, coups or foreign interventions; others were
assassinated, executed or died during military coups. Until the election of
President Karzai in 2004, no Afghan head of state could claim to have even
a semblance of a popular mandate to govern. Rather than representing the
nation, its peoples and ethnicities, Afghanistan’s kings and presidents have
ruled on behalf of a small clique, be they Monarchist, Communist or Islamist.
Afghans, though, may argue that at least during the heyday of European
colonialism their country, unlike some Muslim countries, remained a free
nation. Yet this freedom was limited and came at a heavy price. Britain,
nandana
(Nandana)
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