Lessons of Afghanistan

The Afghanistan story is complicated and complex, that all the socio-political narratives and analysis now, after the fall of Kabul all the cities to the Taliban in less than a month, are inadequate and superficial. It will be long debated and discussed for many years, and the distance of time may give us better perspective and explanations, like how we now know and view the French, Russian, and Chinese revolutions. The objective of this column is just to get some obvious lessons of 70 years of Afghanistan, from the 1950s to today, in the hope that developing countries can learn and avoid the circumstances and pitfalls.

Two bestselling books on Afghanistan which were also made into movies, “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns” by Khaled Hosseini, sold millions of copies worldwide and gave the world a glimpse of Afghanistan in the 1960s to the 1980s, including the Soviet invasion in 1979. A portion of the book tells about the time the character was watching the Hollywood movie, “Bullit” and Steve McQueen was in a Mustang in a car chase. This movie was also shown at the same year in the Philippines and it evokes a comparison of the level of economic development of Afghanistan and the Philippines at that time. In the 1960s both countries were struggling economically and experimenting in democracy, but the Philippines had better institutions and bureaucracy. We also had better technology and skills due to our universal education and English language ability. And we were less ethnically divided than the Afghans.

In spite being a landlocked multi-ethnic country, for geo-political reasons Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and stayed up to 1989 when they were evicted by the Afghans with the help of the USA. Starting in 2000, the USA with the intention of diminishing the terrorist Taliban, introduced western-style democracy with women’s rights and education. Over these 20 years, massive amounts of money, estimated at almost a trillion dollars in armaments and economic aid were pumped into Afghanistan by the USA and western allies, including military presence, airborne and “boots in the ground”. After 20 years, the USA decided it cannot forever militarily support the Afghanistan government and lose more American lives. It was time for the Afghans to run and defend their government. As it turns out, the Afghanistan government was taken over by the Taliban’s in less than a month.

The inability to coalesce as a nation by the patchwork of ethnic factions, may be the main reason that retarded Afghanistan economic development and why it failed to develop social organizations/institutions. The series of conflicts also diminished the managerial and technical skills needed for enlarging the economy and middle class. The 20 years of American assistance nurtured an emerging middle class and institutions, but this was countered by uncontrolled graft and corruption that eroded the confidence of the ordinary citizens in the government in the new democratic space. This was a non-issue when the people were ruled by tribal chieftains and warlords but accountability matters in a democracy.

Democracy is a desirable form of government but it needs a certain level of environment and economic development to stabilize and prosper. It needs an informed and educated large middle class to establish social organizations and institutions. It needs experiences of liberty, awareness of human rights, of religious freedom, and a common sense of morality. Afghans have developed some of these in the past 70 years, so the incoming Taliban government has to contend with them. The Afghans citizens today are different from those of 40 or 20 years ago. So, initial announcements of the Taliban government were to respect women’s rights and allow them to work outside of home. I am quite optimistic that Afghanistan will do better in the coming years as the Taliban government has to deal with these new realities.