generalspeaking

Ah, Those Hearts and Minds

What should be clear through even a cursory study of historical antecedents, and a practical look at current events through the lens of a medieval society for whom fundamental religious devotion inscribes every facet of life, is finally identified as the result of a survey. Where field researchers with the International Council on Security and Development interviewed over 500 men in rural Kandahar and Helmand provinces, to discover that the majority remain sturdily unconvinced that NATO has any business whatever in Afghanistan.

In urban Kabul where the government of Hamid Karzai has some modicum of effectiveness and where international aid groups have been successful in liberalizing to some degree the manner in which women and girls are treated, it may be true that a large proportion of Afghans appreciate Western support. Where the population now has access to medical centres and children may now attend schools where girls were previously disallowed, and women may work to support themselves and men can shave beards without punishment.

In rural Afghanistan where the bulk of the population lives, a significant majority of Afghans (Pashtuns) feel that foreigners are a blight on their landscape, that respect for their traditions and for their religion is absent, and that it is "wrong" for them to work alongside international forces. And that the Western military offensive against the Taliban in Kandahar is not in their best interests.

Which clearly and obviously explains why it is that Canadian and other Western forces can walk or drive obliviously into IEDs that have been cleverly planted where they will do the most harm. Whose placement may be well known to the village communities. Some of whom may indeed have been involved in planting those IEDs. So why would they warn the foreigners of the presence of the explosives? Why would they betray their own?

The council's report, titled Afghanistan: The Relationship Gap, came to the conclusion that "These results are troubling and demonstrate the mistrust and resentment felt towards the international presence in Afghanistan". Amazing. What is truly amazing is the extent that well-meaning but unaware and righteous individuals and groups will go to to deny the obvious. Until it hits them in the face with the veracity of admission.

"We are failing to explain ourselves or our objectives to the Afghan people", said Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer and president and lead researcher with the International Council on Security and Development. That failure, according to Ms. MacDonald, is the impetus behind the Taliban's ability to impress the population with its anti-Western propaganda.

Don't think so. The Taliban share ethnicity with the population. They are them. They share a religion, in a basic, fundamentalist manner. They share a heritage and a culture, and a great social understanding that this is how the country has been managed from time immemorial, and that resistance to the constant invasion of the country by foreigners is part of that culture.

Of course it was only men who were asked the questions in the survey. Women were not consulted. In a culture and a society where women are not seen, not heard from traditionally, little wonder. Women are chattel. In Kabul they are women. In Kabul they worry about their government's insistence that it wishes to confer with, bargain with, ally themselves with, the Taliban.

The feasibility of sharing government with the Taliban is newly appealing to Hamid Karzai. It will stop the terror attacks, the killing, the throwing of acid in the faces of girl students. The Taliban and the government of Hamid Karzai have much in common; both benefit hugely from the poppy industry, benefiting Western society with opioid production.

Afghan women are not complacent about this prospect. Their chattel inheritance will return. Their freedoms evaporate. The futures of their children stagnate and settle once again into backwardness and ignorance and hopelessness.

Labels: Human Relations, Human Rights, NATO, Political Realities, Religion

posted by Pieface @ Monday, July 19, 2010