afghanistanrooted in European models. ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan’s vision of national
unity was based on the despotism of Peter the Great of Russia, Tarzi’s
Afghaniyya was Turkism with a turban rather than a fez, while Da’ud’s
and the Pushtun Academy’s idea of Pushtunness was an Afghan version of
German Aryanism. The Communists attempted to impose their European
secular model of national identity based on Marx and Lenin, while
President Rabbani and the Taliban tried to re-Islamize a nation based on
political theologies evolved by north Indian, Egyptian and Arab radicals.
Since the era of Amir ‘Abd al-Rahman Khan, successive governments,
reformers and modernizers have blamed Islamist or reactionary tribal
leaders, or both, for the failure of their attempts to reform the nation.
However, the government itself bears much of the responsibility. Successive
administrations of every ilk have proved incompetent when it comes to
running a government and the Executive, while deploying the rhetoric of
an inclusive society, has fought tooth and nail to maintain its stranglehold
on power. Successive constitutions have reinforced this autocracy and lack
of accountability, while establishing a parliamentary system that is both
unrepresentative and designed more as a rubber stamp for the Executive’s
plans and legislation. The result has been a power struggle between the two
Estates, which remains unresolved to this day and has rendered effective
government impotent.
Change has always been a top-down affair in Afghanistan, imposed
by a ruling elite who have little interest in winning popular support for
their initiatives, let alone govern on a basis of consensus. The outcome has
been either too little or too much. Administrations that have attempted
to impose their Westernizing, secular world view by fiat have inevitably
sparked a backlash that usually ends in rebellion and the fall of the govern-
ment. This has then led to a reversion to the status quo, which makes any
reform even more fraught with difficulty.
Islamists attempt to unify the nation by their appeal to Islam, only
for the imposition of their interpretation of Islamic law to create more
dissonance than harmony, for their radical political philosophy is funda-
mentally divisive. Rather than a vision of state and society modelled on
the inclusiveness of the Mughals or the Ottomans, they have embraced
the polarizing dogmas of the Muslim Brotherhood, Wahhabism and other
radical elements that undermine the foundation of traditional Muslim
society. On occasion their political philosophies verge on sectarianism,
since their assumption is that any Muslim who does not share their vision
of Islamic society and the Islamic state needs to be re-Islamized or is an
apostate. Needless to say, this blinkered world view does not sit well with