Daily Times

“There is no government without
an army, no army without money, no money without flourishing and no flourishing without good administration and justice” — Ibn Qutayba (a ninth century scholar).

Recent analyses of the BBC, International Crisis Group and Foreign Policy magazine about the future of civil war in Afghanistan give us disappointing messages that the country is heading towards civil war after 2014. Ethnic and sectarian violence on a provincial level greatly disturbed the process of nation building. The present feature of the governance structure in the country is nothing more than a mockery of citizens, where political bargaining and corruption has created an alarming situation. Interestingly, at present, 102 governors control 34 provinces with different administrative mechanisms. Each province has three governors: the formal governor (appointed by the Afghan Interior Ministry, informal governor (appointed by warlords and war criminals) and invisible governor (appointed by the Taliban). The three run the country’s administration in diverse directions based on different politico-religious ideologies. Their source of revenue and their way of governance, prosecution and justice is quite different. They all collect taxes, share in poppy cultivation, protect the containerised criminal trade and black market economy. They forcefully bring young people to the Governor’s House, train and arm them for the future civil war.

As we read in history, governance is the manner in which communities regulate themselves and government is the consecutive exercise of state authority, but in Afghanistan, the case is different. Some analysts are of the view that Pakistan runs a shadow government and controls several provinces but the majority term this perception exaggerated. Pakistan’s religious and political influence cannot be ruled out, but in parts of Northern Afghanistan, Iran’s political, religious and military influence is strongly felt.

Apart from international and regional influence, the method of intractable governance across the country has become a strong challenge to sub-national governance. Every governor has his own Inspector General Police, maliks, forces commander, paid community elders, councils and municipalities. Competition over political influence is another challenging problem. Sometimes the forces of these three governors attack each other. Their areas of operation have been specified but they often negotiate their mutual differences on a community level. The government’s appointed governors, Mujahideen leaders and the Taliban have specified areas of their political influence. They do not interfere in each other’s provincial revenue collection. They operate separately and maintain their own militias and prisons. In the business of kidnapping, they do not rob or kidnap one another’s members’ houses. They are corrupt and unable to bring peace and stability in their managed provinces. They are involved in kidnapping, human trafficking and child abuse. Ordinary Afghans have become frustrated, alienated and disconnected from all these politico-religious actors. They are in despair over corruption, torture and the administrative policies of these corrupt people.

All provincial governors have divided the total 166,000 mosques and 6,000 imams across the country. In the total number of 330 religious madrassas, more than 100,000 students are being taught with different syllabuses. They have failed and cannot exert control over the whole country. The issue of mapping conflicts among communities has never been taken seriously. Community leaders have been humiliated, killed, and their houses set on fire. Thus the traditional administrative system has come to an end gradually.

Author Robert D Lamb explains the disruption of social and traditional systems in Afghanistan: “Informal governance includes not only patronage networks and corrupt practices, but traditional and customary structures as well, including tribal, religious, ethnic and kinship networks. The customary institutions, most people associated with Afghanistan — mainly Pashtun tribal codes, elders and community councils — have been greatly degraded over the past 40 years. The elders were attacked by communists in the 1970s, Soviets in the 1980s, Taliban in the 1990s. Traditional authority was displaced by the elevation within Afghan society of Mujahideen commanders in the 1980s and religious leaders in the 1990s. Social systems were physically disrupted by the massive population displacement that took place during 30 years of war.” These sociopolitical fluctuations in Afghan society greatly affected the traditional way of governance. The present shadow governments have created more problems of ethno-religious rivalries. The sectarian violence in Ghazni and Wardak provinces and ethnic violence in the northern parts of the country compelled business and investment communities to leave the country.

Specialist in Middle East and Eastern Affairs Kenneth Katzman in her recent report (2012) on the governance performance in Afghanistan highlighted the recent administrative reshuffle of the Afghan government in response to the corruption complaints of the international community. In her report, she has also pinpointed the weak performance of some governors and their exercise of excessive independence and distance from central authority. “On September 20, 2012, acting subsequent to his July 2012 administrative decree, Karzai shuffled 10 out of 34 provincial governors, asserting that those taken out of their positions had fallen short on improving governance or combating corruption.” The problem of corruption at the national, provincial and local level continues to undermine people’s trust in government.

Unfortunately, the Karzai government has failed to control corruption. The stark reality in today’s Afghanistan is that the government does not know what to do and how to manage the affairs of the state. Power is in the hands of criminal and corrupt mafia groups who control the whole economy of the illegal market, poppy cultivation, human and arms trafficking. Unfortunately, the future of our children is in the hands of these corrupt mafia groups. According to the BBC recent report, the Afghan government will collapse as soon as NATO, ISAF and US forces leave the country. The International Crisis Group in its recent report warned that the Afghan police and army are unprepared for security responsibilities. According to European diplomatic sources, the US-backed Afghan government could be on course for what it calls a devastating political crisis after 2014. Foreign Policy magazine suggests that the international community should not abandon Afghanistan and should include Pakistan as the mediator.

The writer is author of Policing in Multicultural Britain, can be reached at zai.musakhan222@gmail.com