Ethnicising Afghanistan?: inclusion and exclusion in post‐Bonn institution building

Abstract

This article argues that ethnicity has become increasingly salient in Afghan politics and society during the years of war, and discusses how the country's new institutions can be designed in a way that will contribute towards a reversal of this trend. The article examines a series of policy issues with a bearing on inclusion vs exclusion in inter‐ethnic relations: political institution building (institutions of government, electoral system, and centre–region relations), land rights, state religion, the census and the new identity document. For each of these the article discusses what outcome would best contribute to longer‐term stability and integration by stimulating inclusive, integrative identities—and what the problems and prospects are for these outcomes to be realised. The article specifically discusses warlords' role as spoilers, and the potential and limitations to the leverage on Afghan politics that is held by international actors, above all the USA.

Notes

Sven Gunnar Simonsen is at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Fuglehauggata 11, 0260 Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected].

The article thus has a constructivist perspective. In this context it should be emphasised, however, that the favoured outcome in the post‐conflict setting—a de‐ethnicisation of politics—is different from an ethnic re‐identification among the country's citizens. Simply put, the former is here used to describe a situation where being, eg Tajik becomes less important to someone participating in politics, whereas the latter would mean that he would feel less a Tajik and more eg a Pashtun. There may well have been pressures towards re‐identification under the Taliban, when power was held by a group with an ethnocentric vision, which also represented the country's largest ethnic group. Today, with power less concentrated (and much less so in Pashtun hands), such assimilation is less likely to happen.

Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2nd ed., 2002, pp 22–28; and Gabriele Rasuly‐Paleczek, ‘The struggle for the Afghan state: centralization, nationalism and their discontents’, in Willem van Schendel & Erik J Zürcher (eds), Identity Politics in Central Asia and the Muslim World. Nationalism, Ethnicity and Labour in the Twentieth Century, London: IB Tauris, 2001, pp 150–152.

‘New census key to progress’, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) Afghan Recovery Report, 45, 24 January 2003.

Interestingly, Dupree also made the point that, almost always, men of the dominant group would take a wife from the lesser group; the opposite would almost never happen. Louis Dupree, Afghanistan, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973, pp 187–188.

Ali Wardak, ‘The ethnic and tribal composition of Afghan society’, in Edward Girardet & Jonathan Walter (eds), Afghanistan. Essential Field Guides to Humanitarian and Conflict Zones, Geneva: International Centre for Humanitarian Reporting/Crosslines Communications, 1998, pp 78–91.

M Nazif Shahrani, ‘State building and social fragmentation in Afghanistan. A historical perspective’, in Ali Banuazizi & Myron Weiner (eds), The State, Religion, and Ethnic Politics. Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan, Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986, p 25.

Qouted in Ahmed Rashid, Taliban. Militant Islam, Oil & Fundamentalism in Central Asia, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001, p 212.

Between the two, the Parcham faction had more of a multi‐ethnic profile than the Khalq.

Olivier Roy, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War, Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1995, p 105. One intriguing example Roy gave was that of the ‘Tajik’: this was earlier used to design only one subgroup of Persian‐speakers, mainly in Badakshan. Later migrations, the joining together of groups for political reasons, and the ascription of anthropologists and journalists have turned ‘Tajik’ into an ethnonym used for most Sunni Persian‐speakers.

Amin Saikal, ‘Afghanistan's ethnic conflict’, Survival, 40 (2), 1998, pp 114–126.

Rashid, Taliban, p 83.

Mohammed Haneef Atmar & Jonathan Goodhand, ‘Afghanistan: the challenge of “winning the peace” ’, in Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Tongeren & Hans van de Veen (eds), Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia. An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2002, p 115.

Nancy Hatch Dupree, ‘Cultural heritage and national identity in Afghanistan’, Third World Quarterly, 23 (5), 2002, p 978.

Timothy D Sisk, ‘Elections and conflict management in Africa: conclusions and recommendations’, in Timothy D Sisk & Andrew Reynold (eds), Elections and Conflict Management in Africa, Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 1998, p 160.

‘Agreement on Provisional Arrangements in Afghanistan Pending the Re‐Establishment of Permanent Government Institutions’.

Gender‐wise, the distribution was less impressive: a mere 12.5% of representatives in Bonn were female.

‘Afghanistan's constitution to be unveiled’, Guardian, 3 November 2003.

Benjamin Reilly, Democracy in Divided Societies. Electoral Engineering for Conflict Management, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, p 14.

Donald L Horowitz, Electoral Systems and Their Goals: A Primer for Decision‐Makers, at http://www.cic.nyu.edu/pdf/E6ElectoralSystemsHorowitz.pdf, accessed January 2003.

Ben Reilly & Andrew Reynolds, Electoral Systems and Conflict in Divided Societies, Washington, DC: National Academy Press Papers on International Conflict Resolution, 2, p 55.

Reilly, Democracy in Divided Societies, p 6.

George Tsebelis, ‘Elite interaction and constitution building in consociational democracies’, Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2 (1), 1990, pp 5–29. I owe this reference to Pippa Norris, Electoral Engineering: Voting Rules and Political Behavior, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, ch 9, p 2, at http://ksghome.harvard.edu/∼.pnorris.shorenstein.ksg/Institutions.htm.

Andreas Wimmer & Conrad Schetter, State‐Formation First. Recommendations for Reconstruction and Peace‐Making in Afghanistan, ZEF (Center for Development Research, University of Bonn) Discussion Papers on Development Policy, 45, Bonn, April 2002.

Afghanistan's Flawed Constitutional Process, International Crisis Group Report, 12 June 2003.

Barnett R Rubin with Helena Malikyar, ‘The politics of center–periphery relations in Afghanistan’, unpublished paper, March 2003.

For a thorough exploration of the regional context after 2001, see Kristian Berg Harpviken, ‘Afghanistan: from buffer state to battleground—to bridge between regions?’, in James J Hentz & Morten Bøås (eds), New and Critical Security and Regionalism. Beyond the Nation State, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

James Purcell Smith, ‘Debate over federalism in Afghanistan continues’, Central Asia–Caucasus Analyst, 23 October 2002.

Anatol Lieven, ‘Afghan statecraft’, originally published in the January 2002 edition of Prospect, at http://www.ceip.org/files/publications/Lieven‐Afghan‐Statecraft.asp.

As part of this programme, 7680 villages will each be awarded a block grant for development purposes. The village development councils will decide how to spend the money. Author's interview, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, Kabul, August 2003.

Human Rights Watch, Anti‐Pashtun Violence in Northern Afghanistan: Recent Testimonies, HRW, 6 March 2002, at http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/03/pashtuntestimony.htm.

Example related by United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) worker in Mazar‐e‐Sharif during interview with the author, Mazar, August 2003.

Liz Alden Wily, Land Rights in Crisis: Restoring Tenure Security in Afghanistan, Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), March 2003, pp 4–5.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

The author was provided with details on such transactions from reliable sources in Kabul, but cannot reveal their origin. More recently, they have been underpinned by the UN and international media. See, for example, ‘Afghans protest homes' destruction’, Washington Post, 16 September 2003.

Author's interview with Dr Rafiullah Bidar, Regional Program Manager for the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, Mazar‐e‐Sharif, August 2003.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

Ahmed Rashid, ‘Lessons from Loya Jirga for Pakistan’, The Nation, 12 January 2004.

As an admission to smaller groups, the CLJ added: ‘Turkic languages (Uzbaki and Turkmen), Baluchi, Pashai, Nuristani and Pamiri (alsana) are—in addition to Pashto and Dari—the third official language in areas where the majority speaks them.’

See J Alexander Thier, ‘The politics of peace‐building. Year one: from Bonn to Kabul’, in Antonio Donini, Norah Niland & Karin Wermester, Nation‐Building Unraveled? Aid, Peace and Justice in Afghanistan, Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press, 2004, p 49.

Interview with Col Darrel Branhagen, Director of the coalition civil–military co‐ordination centre in Kabul, IRIN News, 8 January 2004.

Translation of Constitution from http://www.afghan‐web.com/history/const/const1963.html.

Estimate from Rashid, Taliban, p 83.

Unofficial translation, at http://www.constitution‐afg.com/resrouces/Draft.Constitution.pdf.

Unofficial translation, at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/afghaniyat/message/5633. This is a modification of the draft constitution, which read: ‘In Afghanistan, no law can be contrary to the sacred religion of Islam and the values of this Constitution’.

See, for example, the statement (on the draft constitution) from the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, reprinted in Afghaniyat Digest, 784.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

Remark by Sima Simar at her seminar, ‘Reconciliation in Afghanistan’, PRIO, Oslo, 25 September 2002.

Jones made the point that, even if one should need figures for minority populations, this may not be a nation‐wide problem. If the issue is much more local, it can be addressed in a different way than through the census. Moreover, since different ethnic groups mostly live in different parts of the country, one could argue that there is not even a statistical need to include ethnicity in the census in order to determine the rough distribution of the population.

On Soviet nationality policies, see Sven Gunnar Simonsen, ‘Inheriting the Soviet policy toolbox. Russia's dilemma over ascriptive nationality’, Europe–Asia Studies, 51 (6), 1999, pp 1069–1087. The fascinating story of how Afghanistan introduced a similar system is outlined in Kristian Berg Harpviken, Political Mobilization among the Hazara of Afghanistan: 1978–1992, ISO Report 9, Department of Sociology, University of Oslo, 1996, esp pp 50–54.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

One interesting example is Afghanistan's accession to the International Criminal Court. The decision to join the court was attributed to a cabinet discussion, but it appears that, in reality, several ministries, including the Justice Ministry as well as the Supreme Court, were informed about the decision only after it had been made.

This and other contradictions in the international efforts in Afghanistan have inspired a new term: ‘conflictual peace‐building’. See Astri Suhrke, Kristian Berg Harpviken & Arne Strand, ‘After Bonn: conflictual peace building’, Third World Quarterly, 23 (5), 2002, pp 875‐891.

Author's interview with leader of group, Mazar‐e‐Sharif, August 2003.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

For an illustration, see Human Rights Watch, All Our Hopes Are Crushed: Violence and Repression in Western Afghanistan, HRW, 5 November 2002.

The ISAF forces count 5300 members, compared with the 12 500 serving in the US‐led coalition force that is fighting militants in the southeast. Figures from AFP, 1 September 2003.

Antonio Giustozzi, ‘Military reform in Afghanistan’, in Mark Sedra (ed), Confronting Afghanistan's Security Dilemma, Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) Brief 28, September 2003, p 28.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003.

See Mark Sedra ‘Afghanistan: assessing the progress of security sector reform, one year after the Geneva conference. Results of the BICC e‐conference 4–11 June 2003’, available at http://www.bicc.de/forum/papers/afgh_e‐conference_final_report.pdf; Andrew Wilder, ‘Afghanistan's lack of security’, International Herald Tribune, 28 June 2003; and Chris Johnson, William Maley, Alexander Thier & Ali Wardak, Afghanistan's Political and Constitutional Development, London: Overseas Development Institute, January 2003, p 8.

The report was clear in pointing to the leaders responsible, saying perpetrators were soldiers and police under the command of leaders including Mohammad Qasim Fahim, Hazrat Ali (the military leader of the Eastern Region), Younis Qanooni (the Minister of Education), Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rabb al‐Rasul Sayyaf. Human Rights Watch, ‘Killing You is A Very Easy Thing For Us’: Human Rights Abuses in Southeast Afghanistan, HRW, 15 (5), 2003.

‘Karzai approves reform of Afghan defence ministry’, AFP, 1 September 2003.

Author's interview, Kabul, August 2003. A discussion of what is known so far about ethnic bias in the military is provided in Giustozzi, ‘Military reform in Afghanistan’, pp 23–37.

See ‘Afghan native son, home from America, gives orders’, New York Times, 14 December 2003.

Shinwari is openly committed to hard‐line sharia, and has called for stoning of adulterers, amputation of thieves' hands, and lashing of those who consume alcohol. (The 40–60 age frame is not repeated in the 2004 Constitution.)

Like so many other agencies, HRW also called for more attention to be paid to security and human rights issues, including through a substantial geographic expansion of ISAF. Afghanistan's Bonn Agreement One Year Later: A Catalog of Missed Opportunities, Human Rights Watch briefing paper, 5 December 2002.

Human Rights Watch, ‘Killing You is a Very Easy Thing For Us’.

‘Karzai gets agreement from local leaders’, Washington Post, 21 May 2003.

Author's interview, Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, August 2003.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sven Gunnar Simonsen

Sven Gunnar Simonsen is at the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO), Fuglehauggata 11, 0260 Oslo, Norway. Email: [email protected].