remain in de facto power, with or without the color of state authority. They frequently practice non-inclusive and extractive politics that are resented by their involuntary network of clients; other clients see them as the only viable alternative to what they perceive as a non-responsive over-centralized state that has little effectiveness outside of Kabul.
A Different Country
Influencing all of the conflicts that define Afghanistan is the fact that it is fair to conclude that Afghan society is overall inherently collectivist and Islamic, religious in its orientation and deeply conservative. Afghan cultural conservatism is at heart a survival strategy. Its effectiveness is demonstrated by the fact that many of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s 1815 observations are valid today. It is based on the assumption that, at the endof the day, outsiders—Soviet, British, Arabs, American—will go home or vanish to smoke and the Afghans will be left with what they have always had: their land, their faith, and each other.
Foreigners who are trying to push change on polite but resistant Afghans may find cabinet ministers with doctorates from Western universities and village elders untroubled by literacy alike in their ability to deflect unwanted change while assuring the outsiders of their gratitude for wishing the best for Afghanistan. Neither ministries in Kabul nor shuras in remote villages are configured for bold and decisive change. Both are conservative institutions, aiming first to preserve the interests of stakeholders (which usually center on patron-client relations).
For Afghan government institutions and ministries, change is often resisted, a task made easier by a system that often combines the least responsive elements of traditional Afghan ways and Soviet-imposed central planning. Afghan government ministries tend to be profoundly conservative institutions. Not only do they defend their bureaucratic turf, as government institutions do worldwide, but they perceive a vital interest in blocking any change that they cannot control or that threatens the networks—especially the patron-client relations—which is how such organizations tend to operate in an Afghan context. “Lots of Kabul ministries mean nothing to people in the sticks. Further out [of Kabul] not much governance is going on,” in the words of one UN official. 33
Reconciling change with Afghanistan’s conservative culture has been problematic. Rural Afghans are suspicious of change. Change has usually brought them nothing but grief and distanced them from the true path of Islam and an honorable life. But even conservative rural Afghans will support change if they are shown that it is consistent with their beliefs and goals and that it is effective. Only then will they take ownership and, most reluctantly, take responsibility for change. At the national level, the Afghans have taken ownership of the constitution and the parliament. They have generally accepted that female members of parliament and provincial councils are a good and useful thing, like female doctors. The grassroots may take pride and ownership over Afghanistan’s Constitution, the Loya Jirgas and 2004 and 2005 elections, have been appreciative of schools, healthcare, and their cell phones (over 6.5 million in service bythe end of 2008); but many, not limited to the uneducated rural majorities of all ethnolinguistic groups, were horrified at television showing Bollywood movies or Afghan women singing. Terrorists and insurgents have been quick to exploit this as examples of the infidel invader’s aim of subverting Islam.
Elites have all too often seen change as a source of personal enrichment to provide security against the day when the outsiders go home and they may have to go back into exile. Yet many individuals—including President Karzai—still appear to be foreign creations. Traditionally, those pushing the hardest for change were urbanized educated middle class and elite Afghans, but
A Different Country
Influencing all of the conflicts that define Afghanistan is the fact that it is fair to conclude that Afghan society is overall inherently collectivist and Islamic, religious in its orientation and deeply conservative. Afghan cultural conservatism is at heart a survival strategy. Its effectiveness is demonstrated by the fact that many of Mountstuart Elphinstone’s 1815 observations are valid today. It is based on the assumption that, at the endof the day, outsiders—Soviet, British, Arabs, American—will go home or vanish to smoke and the Afghans will be left with what they have always had: their land, their faith, and each other.
Foreigners who are trying to push change on polite but resistant Afghans may find cabinet ministers with doctorates from Western universities and village elders untroubled by literacy alike in their ability to deflect unwanted change while assuring the outsiders of their gratitude for wishing the best for Afghanistan. Neither ministries in Kabul nor shuras in remote villages are configured for bold and decisive change. Both are conservative institutions, aiming first to preserve the interests of stakeholders (which usually center on patron-client relations).
For Afghan government institutions and ministries, change is often resisted, a task made easier by a system that often combines the least responsive elements of traditional Afghan ways and Soviet-imposed central planning. Afghan government ministries tend to be profoundly conservative institutions. Not only do they defend their bureaucratic turf, as government institutions do worldwide, but they perceive a vital interest in blocking any change that they cannot control or that threatens the networks—especially the patron-client relations—which is how such organizations tend to operate in an Afghan context. “Lots of Kabul ministries mean nothing to people in the sticks. Further out [of Kabul] not much governance is going on,” in the words of one UN official. 33
Reconciling change with Afghanistan’s conservative culture has been problematic. Rural Afghans are suspicious of change. Change has usually brought them nothing but grief and distanced them from the true path of Islam and an honorable life. But even conservative rural Afghans will support change if they are shown that it is consistent with their beliefs and goals and that it is effective. Only then will they take ownership and, most reluctantly, take responsibility for change. At the national level, the Afghans have taken ownership of the constitution and the parliament. They have generally accepted that female members of parliament and provincial councils are a good and useful thing, like female doctors. The grassroots may take pride and ownership over Afghanistan’s Constitution, the Loya Jirgas and 2004 and 2005 elections, have been appreciative of schools, healthcare, and their cell phones (over 6.5 million in service bythe end of 2008); but many, not limited to the uneducated rural majorities of all ethnolinguistic groups, were horrified at television showing Bollywood movies or Afghan women singing. Terrorists and insurgents have been quick to exploit this as examples of the infidel invader’s aim of subverting Islam.
Elites have all too often seen change as a source of personal enrichment to provide security against the day when the outsiders go home and they may have to go back into exile. Yet many individuals—including President Karzai—still appear to be foreign creations. Traditionally, those pushing the hardest for change were urbanized educated middle class and elite Afghans, but
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