November 18, 2001	Sunday	Ramazan 2, 1422

LONDON: For Afghans, only the formation of a stable, democratic government can justify the US air strikes and current instability. And the possibility of creating such a government rests not in the hands of regional powers or a council of tribal leaders, but in the hands of Afghanistan’s own intellectuals, academics and business people. Unless these educated Afghans, who are either in exile or marginalized throughout the years of civil strife, are brought promptly into the political process, the changes of the past week likely will amount to no more than the beginning of a new phase in the vicious cycle of war and violence.

For all the talk about the need for a broad-based government, no one has put forward a concrete definition of what that would mean. Various foreign powers, from Pakistan to Iran and Uzbekistan, add to the confusion by promoting their favoured individuals and ethnic groups to be the main representatives of the Afghan population.

The core of the problem is the lack of an alternative national leadership. Mohammed Zahir Shah, the former king, is the only individual able to play a central role in reviving state structures. But he commands no organized political or military force, so his role could only be symbolic and temporary.

With civil war in the past and possible civil war in the future, Afghanistan’s educated class has long been dismissed as having no practical role to play. Such an approach is shortsighted. These people are vital to the country’s reconstruction and would be the driving force in any effort toward peace and democracy.

For a country that is by many measures so backward, Afghanistan was, until the early ‘90s, home to a surprisingly large educated population. Many gained valuable experience in government during the Soviet era of the ‘80s, working in the bureaucracy and in specialized institutions.

Drawn from all ethnic groups and from rural as well as urban backgrounds, educated Afghans learned to replace tribal loyalties with higher ideals. Many fled, when the Mujahideen gained power in 1992, but they have not forgotten their homeland. Once assured of their safety, many of the Afghans who settled in the republics of the former Soviet Union, and in Iran, Pakistan and India, for example, undoubtedly would return to commit their knowledge and experience to reconstruction. That process would attract ambitious, skilled individuals.

They are the best hope for Afghanistan’s ‘silent majority’ - for those who for years have endured hardship and misfortune. Some doubt talk of democracy in a land riven by decades of war. But, in fact, it is the habit of ignoring the will of the people that has culminated in the Afghan catastrophe. Much of what outsiders claim to know about the country is hearsay - and will remain so until each man and, above all, each woman is given a vote.

All this requires the political determination, financial generosity and military support of the international community in standing behind Afghan individuals and groups committed to democracy.

The conceptual flaw in most discussions of a post-Taliban settlement has been the assumption that groups that have long made war will now make peace. War is their way of life. They understand they will have no role in a peaceful environment. As one Afghan businessman said, referring to the four years of Mujahideen rule before the Taliban took control in 1996, “People are praying that God saves them from the Taliban, but not at the cost of bringing back the others.”

There is good reason to fear the return of ‘the others.’ As soon as the Taliban menace and US military pressure recede, these groups - including members of the Northern Alliance - may well turn on one another. Alternatively, they may confront the US forces in the name of fighting an army of occupation, or defending Islam. Of course the armed groups must continue to be taken into account, particularly in the ongoing military campaign. But it’s vital to help the militias shed their weapons and transform themselves into political parties.

To escape their past, the people of Afghanistan need a new cause to fight for. That idea is democracy, which many of us remember from the last decade of Zahir Shah’s reign, when he instituted a system of constitutional monarchy. When each man and woman has a vote, we may be surprised about what we learn from them about Afghanistan. The country’s educated classes are the best hope of bringing that about.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.