‘For our repeated attempts to re-write Afghan history, the Afghans now hate us. They feel what we would have felt if the Indians started re-writing our history,’ argues Ahmed Rashid


AHMED RASHID, who has written extensively on issues related to Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asia, believes Pakistan in the past has repeatedly tried to rewrite Afghan history for the Afghans, and that is now causing a reaction from the other side. “Afghans will not forgive us easily,” says Ahmed Rashid, who is the author of the bestseller, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, which is now used as a course book in 220 American universities and has sold more than 750,000 copies.

In an interview with Dawn Magazine, Rashid strongly criticized what he called the wrongdoing of successive Pakistani establishments. The following are excerpts:

Q. Why anti-Pakistan sentiments run so high in Afghanistan?

A. There was a cell within the intelligence agency not long ago that was working to justify Pakistan’s support to the Taliban in an academic and intellectual sense. It had retired brigadiers and colonels justifying the Taliban rule: that this was the norm — the Afghans were always brutal to women, the Afghans have always been indulging in sectarian and ethnic conflicts, the Taliban behaviour is the normal Afghan behaviour!

We, in fact, re-wrote Afghan history for the Afghans. At several instances, these retired officers had taken words from my writing to support their policies. I had written that Dostum was a brute. So, to them, it meant that all Uzbeks in Afghanistan were brute and, thus, what the Taliban did to the Uzbeks in Mazar-i-Sharif was justified. I was quite horrified by this.

The re-writing of the history in the last six years by the military and the establishment in Pakistan has put us at odds with the Afghan nation for many years to come. They will not forgive us easily. Afghans do not trust Pakistan — the government, the ISI or the foreign office. And even today, we are not prepared to offer any kind of apology to them. How would we feel if Indians start re-writing our history?
 

Q. The Time magazine wrote that Hamid Karzai is the only Afghan leader with vision. Do you agree?

A. No. There are other Afghan leaders with vision. There are a lot of Afghans outside Afghanistan who are not coming back, who also have a vision.
 

Q. What challenges the Karzai administration and the Afghan society is facing today?

A. Uniting the warring factions and bringing peace to the country are probably the most arduous challenges to the Karazai administration. Lack of funds for reconstruction is the biggest disaster for his government. The injection of money and reconstruction is indispensable to empower his very weak government and extend its writ in the interior of Afghanistan.

The Afghan society has this issue of warlordism. There is anarchy and disarray in the Pashtoon area because of the lack of a good leadership among them. There is the very disturbing factor of the growing power of the Panjshiri faction in Kabul.

Afghanistan may face a situation where disparate Pashtoon forces may unite with other minorities — Uzbeks, Turkmens, Hazaras, Heratis — against the Tajiks. So they could have the reverse of what went in the Taliban period. This will be very tragic.
 

Q. Have Afghans succeeded on any front under Karzai’s leadership?

A. Yes. The most important element is, at present, none of the warlords are prepared to take on the central government. The Afghans are trying to institutionalize the traditions of democracy. This is the process that 90 per cent of the population supports. Some warlords and other elements don’t support it. To institutionalize the legitimate traditions of democracy, to rebuild them from scratch and enthrone them as the legitimate mechanism of the relationship between the ruler and the ruled; this is what the Afghans are trying to do.

I think it will work because the population is fed up with war. People are exhausted and they want to see the fruits of peace and stability. The really interesting aspect is the speed with which they have dropped the Taliban politics and culture. As many as 1.5 million children were back to schools and 50,000 women were back to work soon after the Taliban’s fall. The enthusiasm for education is so momentous that Karzai believes Afghanistan will attain 80 per cent literacy rate in the next five years.
 

Q. You have recently written that Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Central Asian countries are in a state of political turmoil. Why do you think so?

A. They all share a crisis of legitimacy, which emerged in the Central Asia after the breakup of the Soviet Union; in Afghanistan after Daud’s coup de’tat, and Pakistan is facing it since Ayub’s coup de grace in 1958. The crisis of legitimacy that exists between the state, government and the people is something pronounced right across the region.

It is the most underlined theme that is going to affect the future stability of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the five Central Asian states. This crisis is due to the lack of an intrinsic institutional relationship between the peoples and their governments. This is so because the governments have not addressed the issues that people are most concerned about.

This crisis had come to its climax in the region after the events of 9/11 where these regimes were trying to extract another bout of long-term survival in the hope that they can use the international attention as a means to limit the reforms that are needed to change their ways.
 

Q. Which Central Asian country is most vulnerable to fundamentalism?

A. I think it is Uzbekistan. It is the largest Central Asian country. It has perhaps the most suppressive regimes. It has carried out the least amount of reforms, either political or economic. It has a tradition of revolt and rebellion in the Farzana Valley.

The Uzbek democratic opposition is in exile — in Europe and Scandinavia. Uzbekistan also faces the most militant Islamic movements in the shape of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan which has been destroyed in Afghanistan, but still has a powerful underground network.
 

Q. Do you, then, think Central Asia is going to be a haven for terrorists?

A. No. What I’m saying is that the Central Asia is going to go through a very serious and heavy social, political and economic crisis. It needs a lot of support and at the same time it needs a lot of pressure on these regimes to change that behaviour.
 

Q. Why most Muslim regimes are not democratic?

A. This is the legacy of the Cold War where the regimes were tied in with either the Soviet Union or the US. It was very easy to remain in power and not carry out any reforms. After the end of Cold War, a new era has evolved in the wake of which the Muslim regimes have to open up their societies that they are still refusing to do. It is very important to have greater democratization in the Muslim societies. I don’t think it is part of the psyche of the Muslims to be autocratic or that the Muslims want kings or emperors.
 

Q. Is it the erstwhile USSR or the US that radicalized Muslims?

A. I think both have. The greater player is probably the US because the Americans backed all these jihadi groups in 1979 and then abandoned Afghanistan. It backed many such groups in Pakistan which were anti-communist, and then abandoned Pakistan. The US had a very short-term interest in this part of the world which allowed giving support to these groups, but not understanding the consequences of this.
 

Q. Looking back, was the breakup of the Soviet Union in the interest of Pakistan?

A. It was certainly in the interest of Pakistan. But then we also wasted some good opportunities that came in the wake of that event. For instance, we failed to forge closer ties with the Central Asia; to end the war in Afghanistan; to build a new relationship with Russia. I think we lost all these opportunities because we supported the Taliban and we continued to support one faction that continued the civil war in Afghanistan.
 

Q. What should be the role of an intellectual in society?

A. An intellectual should stand for honesty and truth, which is incredibly missing in Pakistan among the intellectual community. Honesty and truth where you don’t serve the state. It is not the role of the intellectuals to serve the state. It is the role of the intellectuals to remind the state of its mistakes and follies.

Unfortunately, some Pakistani intellectuals have been the lackeys of the state. They have been serving the strategies set out by the military. They need to serve their particular discipline, serve honestly and truthfully the objective realities around them.

An intellectual should have an enormous integrity, which should not be bought with naive ideas simply because powerful men are selling it. We, as intellectuals, are very easily bought by the powerful men’s unrealistic ideas.

We talk about the corruption of army, politicians and bureaucracy, utterly ignoring the corruption of the intellectuals. An intellectual will not indulge in any kind of double talk or corruption. An intellectual must be courageous. He should stand by his convictions in the midst of coups, wars, civil wars, martial laws, harassment and all sorts of other things.

Courage means you are not willing to take a U-turn because the state has taken a U-turn. We have a plethora of intellectuals that have been supporting the Taliban, but the moment General Musharraf took a U-turn, their views became anti-Taliban. An intellectual must not be justifying the mistakes of the state whether it is the Dhaka debacle, the Kargil misadventure, the support to the Taliban or the jihadis.
 

Q. How do you view the Pakistani media? How does it compare with its Indian counterpart?

A. Pakistani media has emerged in the last ten years as a very strong pillar of the state. It has become very free, very independent. It is very highly thought of internationally and domestically. It is playing a very important role at the moment to support the democratic process.

I really don’t know much about the Indian media. But my impression is that the Indian media is much more introspective, at least on foreign policy. Pakistani media is much freer, is much more critical. The Indian media has always been very supportive of government policies, whereas the Pakistani media is much freer as far as foreign policy issues are concerned.
 

Q. Why has secularism become a dirty word in Pakistan?

A. I don’t think secularism generally has become a dirty word. It might have become a dirty word in certain sections or circles of society. In my opinion, a large majority of the people wants to see a democratic system in Pakistan and for the religion to remain a private matter.
 

Q. Why has Islam become a word of ‘suspicion’ in the West?

A. Well, obviously the 9/11 events have made the West very paranoid about Islam. There is a lot of ignorance about Islam in the West. And that is not helped by the actions of the Muslim regimes that are mostly authoritarian or dictatorial and where people’s rights are not respected. While the West needs to be educated about Islam, the Muslim world also needs to make serious changes in the system by which they govern the people.
 

Q. Without the jihadis, it is said, Pakistan won’t be in a good negotiating position with India. Is it true?

A. On the contrary, the jihadis have undermined Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. We would have been in a much stronger position if we had supported the Kashmiri people’s national struggle morally instead of injecting the Pakistani militants into the situation, and we would have got much more attention from the international community.
 

Q. You recently said Gen Musharraf was not serious about clipping the jihadis’ wings. What’s really hampering him?

A. Lack of will. The linkages between the military and the jihadis, the umbilical cord is not broken yet. It needs to be broken at some stage. The fact is that the military has sponsored many of these groups for many reasons. But we are now at a stage where the military needs to break this cord.
 

Q. You also seem to have portrayed Pakistan as a ‘failed state’. Is that so?

A. I don’t think Pakistan is a failed state at all. Pakistan is a very viable state. I think it has huge problems. The ruling elite has not faced up to its problems. The moment the elite faces up to the reality of the situation, many of its problems will be solved.