ESSAY
Afghanistan: Is there
a humanitarian solution?
Battling warlordism and oppression, supporting pro-democracy groups.
Juma Gol, a ten-year-old from Helmand, lost an arm in a Nato bombing: Photo by Manoocher Deghati/IRIN.
O ne of the charges most frequently
leveled against liberal political
theory is that it is naively
idealistic, or even worse, that it sacrifices
honesty for the sake of moral clarity.
Political philosophers wrap themselves
in ideal realms in which systems of
justice function exactly as they ought
to. In the process, they often ignore
the compromise and endemic injustice
which go along with even the most well-
functioning liberal systems.
John Rawls, for instance, in his work on
international relations, The law of peoples,
By Joshua F Leach
offers an appealing vision of a world full
of peaceful democratic societies governed
by a body of international human rights
law. This is no doubt an ideal. But it
leaves unacknowledged the realities of a
world full of undemocratic states, illiberal
societies, and human rights abusers.
This, at any rate, is what critics of
Rawls would allege. However, there is
a need for ideals in the world. Without
a solid conception of what is ideal, or at
least, what is patently un-ideal, it seems
impossible that greater degrees of justice
will ever prevail. Rawls may have sketched
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desirable ideals: a world full of egalitarian
societies free of poverty and oppression.
But it is up to the successors of Rawls
and to everyone who wishes to live in
a more humane, egalitarian world to
answer two questions about these ideals.
First, are they possible. And second, if
so, how can we achieve them. These are
also the questions we must answer about
Afghanistan. What is ideal, is the ideal
possible, and how?
The ideal in Afghanistan has been clear
for a very long time. The only solution any
humane person can reasonably accept
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Rawa and similar
organisations have
been fighting for liberal
democracy and secularism
in Afghanistan for decades,
though they have been
forced into exile and still
find it impossible to operate
in Afghanistan. Given that
a situation once prevailed
in Afghanistan in which
such groups could come
into being, it does not seem
impossible to undo the
damage of the last decades.
is one in which political power in the
country rests with the actual citizens, a
constitution is in place which guarantees
human rights, and there is accountability
for war crimes past and present, in which
nearly all Afghan warlords, including
large sections of the current government
in Kabul, are implicated. Along with this
structure, there must be an ongoing
international effort to rebuild the country
and provide education, healthcare,
food, shelter, employment, and many
other resources necessary to human
development.
This is no doubt a compelling ideal,
and it has certainly been voiced before.
However, unless it can answer the two
questions we must raise about all ideals,
it becomes nothing but a mushy platitude.
So then, is the ideal possible? Yes, in the
sense that most social organisations are
in some way possible. It is, however, fairly
improbable. But, to reject an ideal on that
basis does not make logical sense.
There are degrees to which a society
falls in line with an ideal, and greater
degrees of justice will only prevail with
such an ideal in mind. Those who make
realist arguments often claim that by
focusing on the hard facts, they will
actually advance the interests of justice.
There is some truth to that, but if we
do not begin with an ideal, it is hard to
imagine how we will decide which actions
are just or unjust, or how we can gauge
even the slight progress we make.
If the ideal, then, is possible in even
the most limited sense, it is worthwhile
to ask the second question: how are we
to go about achieving it? There are more
obstacles to creating a humane society in
Afghanistan than nearly anywhere else in
the world.
There are virtually no civil society
or pro-democracy groups operating
freely in the country. There is no young
idealistic student population as there is
in the Iranian pro-democracy movement.
There is also widespread and crippling
poverty. In a country of twelve million
individuals, nine million live on less than
a dollar a day. Nine out of ten Afghans
live without safe sanitation, only a
quarter of the country can read or write,
and there is almost no educational or
economic infrastructure to speak of. To
say that pursuing humanitarian goals
in Afghanistan is near hopeless and
that attention would be best directed to
the civil war in the Congo or the ethnic
cleansing in Darfur has an honest ring to
it.
However, it is helpful to remember
that Afghanistan was not always in such
a desperate condition, and that it could
emerge from its present gruesome state
for that very reason. Afghanistan did, at
one point, have a thriving student culture
based around the University of Kabul, an
institution which produced the young
founder of the Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan, Meena
Keshwar Kamal.
Rawa and similar organisations have
been fighting for liberal democracy and
secularism in Afghanistan for decades,
though they have been forced into exile
and still find it impossible to operate in
Afghanistan. Given that a situation once
prevailed in Afghanistan in which such
groups could come into being, it does not
seem impossible to undo the damage of
the last decades, especially considering
that much of this damage had more to do
with the finagling of superpowers than
with Afghanistan itself.
Much of the war crimes and disorder
which mar Afghan history were brought
about by the Soviet invasion, and the
successive waves of fundamentalists
and warlords which have come to power
since, from the mujahedeen and the
Taliban to the Northern Alliance and the
current government, were helped along
in different ways by the United States.
Given that the situation in Afghanistan
may not be quite as patently hopeless as
it might appear, we need to turn to the
various options put forward for positive
change. There seem to be two competing
visions, neither of which fully takes into
account the human rights of the Afghan
people.
There are those who argue that the
US should stay the course in Afghanistan,
meaning that it should pursue its current
policies with greater vigour. This option
is defended on two grounds, one of which
is considerably less believable than the
other. First, it is argued that Afghanistan
must not become a safe haven for terrorists.
Admittedly, terrorism presents a serious
problem for the global community, yet
as a justification for the war it is rather
thin. Terrorists will always be able to find
safe havens in today’s world, whether
in London flats or Chicago apartments.
The fact that terrorists can organise and
plot virtually anywhere is simply one of
the insecurities with which we must live.
We can attempt to minimise the danger,
but by maintaining that we can somehow
wipe out all terrorist cells in a given
country and that to do so will eliminate a
global threat is nonsensical.
The second, more compelling reason
for staying in Afghanistan is that the
world has a responsibility to protect the
human rights of Afghans and that the US
has more of a responsibility than most
thanks to the role it played in bringing the
Taliban, the Northern Alliance, and other
warlords to power. This responsibility is
Meena Keshwar Kamal: Photo courtesy Rawa.

28 NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009 Independent World report

A mother and child at a hospital in Kabul: Photo by Manoocher Deghati/IRIN.

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A policeman in Kabul: Photo by Obinna Anyadike/IRIN.
indisputable. However, those who want
to stay the course typically have no other
solution than to prop up the increasingly
corrupt and undemocratic Karzai regime
as an imperfect antidote to the Taliban.
We will leave aside the fact that the
current regime in Kabul has been making
increasingly significant concessions
to Islamist forces while also rigging
elections, drumming out secularists,
feminists, and liberal democrats like the
heroic Malalai Joya, and allowing known
war criminals to hold office.
These are all dreadful things, but
there are occasions when it is necessary
to compromise with evil in order to
achieve a modicum of justice rather than
no justice at all. As bad as Karzai is, there
is little reason to believe he will become
as bad as the Taliban. However, not only
is the current government rotten, it is
also desperately unstable and widely
recognised as illegitimate. It seems that
unless some true ingenuity is brought to
bear on the question of Afghanistan, the
Taliban could very well replace Karzai.
The horrors which would result from this
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are all too apparent.
This brings us to the second option.
Rather than stay the course, we could
negotiate with the Taliban, work out
some kind of power-sharing deal amongst
all the ethnic groups and warlords,
and thereby achieve some amount of
stability at the expense of the democratic
experiment. This is the realist argument,
and it makes a certain amount of sense.
Again, it involves making our peace
with grave human rights abuse, in this
case even offering power to the biggest
abuser of them all: the Taliban. However,
if the only other option is an all-out
Taliban victory or else civil war and mass
murder, it seems that the goal of stability
outweighs these concerns.
Are these our only two options?
Must we compromise on human rights
or is it possible to pursue humanitarian
objectives in Afghanistan? As a member
of the human rights movement, I try
never to compromise on rights. There are
different degrees of human rights abuse,
of course: a genocide can not be equated
to a single instance of torture. But if one
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accepts certain human rights abuses
as justified in order to pursue greater
objectives, this thinking leads one with
astonishing rapidity to quietism and even
an indifference to rights. All atrocities can
be justified if one imagines they might
have prevented greater atrocities, and all
political actors are opposed to atrocities
when they are committed by the other
side. What distinguishes the human
rights movement is its unwillingness to
compromise on rights and its refusal to
justify some abuses over others.
That said, a mere statement of
political principle is not a solution. As
we saw in the case of Rawls, it is helpful
to remember the great distance between
theory and practice in political matters. In
the case of Afghanistan, then, is there any
convincing alternative to compromise? I
would say yes, but it requires ingenuity
and commitment to principle which
the current global community has been
hesitant to offer.
First of all, both of the unpleasant
options I described above rely on a
belief that there is no political force in
View of Kabul city: Photo by Manoocher Deghati/IRIN.
Afghanistan apart from warlords and
fundamentalists. Admittedly, in the
absence of a middle class or an educated
population, these are just about the only
figures wielding actual political power at
the moment. Yet there is also the majority
population of Afghanistan, which has no
love of the Taliban or the warlords, but
which is often threatened into silence
during elections and forced to return the
same warlords to office.
It is widely known that, Malalai Joya,
the democrat and feminist recently
removed from office for criticising
members of the parliament, is one of
the most popular MPs in the country.
Meanwhile, the Taliban enjoys very little
popular support other than that which
it can coerce. Also, civil society groups
such as Rawa were not removed from the
country due to unpopularity, but due to
the enmity of the Taliban and others.
As a single tentative step in the
direction of secular liberal democracy
in Afghanistan, it seems reasonable to
believe that the international community
and the US could put pressure on
Karzai to reinstate Joya and to bring established and a government is formed
Afghans with similar principles into the which is truly committed to human
government. These could reach out to rights, we will have nothing to look
Rawa and other pro-democracy groups forward to but some variety or other of
rather than excluding them from any role warlordism and oppression. To look for
in Afghanistan. positive developments in this area, the
We would then have a force comprised US and the international community
of liberal individuals and groups, which, must be unwavering in their defence
I insist, do exist and do enjoy a degree of Afghanistan’s own human rights
of popular support from Afghans fed up defenders. They must also be willing to
with the ruling warlords. Such a force help rebuild the Afghan government from
could draft a constitution and install war the solid foundation of accountability and
crimes tribunals, or truth and reconciliation fairness. �
committees at the very least, which would
prosecute all those guilty of human
rights abuse in Afghanistan’s chequered
past. After establishing a basic level of
accountability and ensuring that war
criminals can not force their way into
office, genuine free elections could be
held and development projects could be
pursued.
This may sound like an ideal or
a pipedream. However, it seems to
Joshua F Leach – currently a student at
me far more likely than any of the
solutions being offered by current US the University of Chicago – is a writer and
policy makers. Unless accountability is human rights advocate.
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