Himal Southasian/�Terrorism�, Taliban and the tribal militia

Himal Southasian/�Terrorism�, Taliban and the tribal militia
December 2008 completes seven years of the Karzai reign; seven years since the Taliban has ostensibly been ousted. Yet for the past three years Afghanistan has been caught in an expanding spiral of violence that today threatens large sections of the Afghan population, the new institutions of state as well as development initiatives. It is a violence that is being increasingly felt in larger areas of neighbouring Pakistan and managed to strike India’s financial capital in late November.

As Southasian governments attempt to tackle murderous attacks striking at the heart of densely populated cities against citizens, Afghanistan offers important lessons. Why has a combined effort by the world’s largest superpower, the NATO countries and the Afghan government, involving both military might and billions of dollars, been unable to contain, let alone reverse the violence? Who is the Afghan government going to negotiate with as it attempts to talk to the ‘Taliban’? At the heart of the issue that confronts the whole region is the central question: what is ‘terrorism’? In focusing the battle against individuals like Osama bin Laden and groups like al-Qaeda or the Taliban, is the war against ‘Talibanisation’ itself being lost?

In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to revisit the end of 2001. It is now well established that US claims to having “liberated” Afghanistan from Taliban oppression notwithstanding, the Taliban’s denial of the basic human rights of Afghans did not invite active military intervention by any power until such time as the attack on the World Trade Center in New York. Though the Taliban’s ‘ideology’ of crushing women’s rights, limiting schooling and education, health and freedom of information and refusing to allow all forms of democratic principles proved convenient in subsequent efforts to demonise them, there was little attempt to differentiate between the ideology itself and the dangers of the group utilising the ideology as a tool of control. The assumption was that the elimination of a group or a set of individuals would disappear their ideology. As is now evident, not only have individuals been replaced, more worryingly, the conservatism that spawned and kept the ‘terrorists’ in power, is creeping insidiously back.

Many of the tenets of the Taliban were only an extreme form of an ideology that had its roots in the traditional practices and customary laws of some tribal groups. Inspired by tribal codes and principles of restorative justice, many of the customary laws of Afghanistan, especially the Pashtunwali (the unwritten code of honour of the Pashtun people practiced even today), would be considered abhorrent and a complete violation of basic principles of internationally recognised human rights including the right to life and liberty. The use of women as private property in dispute settlement; taking lives in exchange for injury or murder; treating the sheltering of a battered woman as a kidnapping which demands retribution through murder; all of this did not begin or end with the Taliban. Nor did the practice of summary or public executions. The brutality that is now seen to characterise the Taliban regime was evident in the behaviour of the ‘commanders’, ‘warlords’ and power brokers, with long years of conflict having brutalised the fighting men and having entrenched the most egregious aspects of the ‘spoils of war’ as routine practices.

While the Taliban undoubtedly epitomised the worst of these horrific practices, demonising the group, rather than viewing ‘terrorism’ as a tactical tool, has allowed the international community as well as the Afghan government to stop short of examining and tackling the roots of this behaviour. Conduct which originates from a combination of factors: the dehumanisation after years of war, the culture of conquest and pillage, the hostility towards outsiders and external influences, the severing of geographical, cultural and social roots, the loss of identity and the destruction of family and homes.



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