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AFGHANISTAN: A FRACTURED FUTURE
The Taliban should modernise and team up with sensible countries to establish democratic institutions, writes Rajendra Aneja
The American troops have abandoned Afghanistan. Now, the Taliban, ISIS, etc., will forge to ferment trouble in the USA, Western democracies and countries like India. Extremist groups like Taliban, ISIS, etc., loathe the western democratic way of life. They abhor education, women’s uplift, free media, independent thought, music and media, etc., in this time and age. The extremists will perpetually battle modernism. The leaders of the extremist movements may change, but their ideological combat will continue unabated. As it has, for many centuries.
Afghanistan is an agrarian economy. It has no industry. Half the population of 40 million, subsists below the poverty line. Opium contributes seven percent to the GDP of Afghanistan, at 9,900 tones, valued at US$ 1.4 bn. Afghanistan is not self-sufficient and does not export many commodities or products. Wheat is grown locally, but is also imported. About 75 percent of the economy depends on foreign aid handouts from Western nations. Now, those taps are drying. The USA has frozen $9.5 billion Afghan reserves. World Bank has suspended $ 5.3 billion development aid. The IMF has also choked funds.
The West will not pump money into a country, which lacks a trustworthy, cogent government. The Taliban has no institutions, systems or protocols. The Taliban is not a government; it is an amorphous movement.
The educated global elites, will not fund a group, which shoots women for going to school or not wearing a “burqa”. Taliban will have no money to import even basic necessities like food or medical supplies.
The local currency, the Afghan, has eroded by 10 percent in four weeks. It could depreciate further. Prices of basic food products like wheat and lentils have soared by 25 percent in recent weeks. Many traders and middlemen, who imported food grains have fled the country. So, sourcing basic foods will be a challenge. Local Afghani citizens are desperately withdrawing moneys from local banks.
The Afghan economy could crash perilously, since there are no macro-economic strengths to support it. The Taliban are fighters, not economists. Some friendly countries like Pakistan may help. However, such countries themselves, are surviving on IMF and World Bank handouts. Unless the Taliban beat their guns into shovels, they will not be able to feed the Afghans.
This will result in aggravated misery for common Afghans. Unfortunately, the world may watch, rather than help. Western nations like the USA, are weary of carrying the burdens of others. President Biden is clear on this.
It has been a serious error for the USA to exit the region. Super-powers like USA, Russia, China, etc., have the crucial responsibility to maintain global peace, directly or via a global policing force, e.g. NATO, UN, etc. They cannot flee from it. If the Western and developed countries like the USA, Europe, Japan, etc., wish to relish their freedoms, then they are obliged to protect their way of living. As in a school, the world too needs a monitor or a prefect, to ensure discipline in the class.
Nobody wants to see a repeat of the 1998 Embassy bombings in Dares Salaam and Nairobi, 9/11 attacks in 2001 in USA or the 2008 Mumbai attacks. I saw the impact of the bombings in Tanzania and Kenya, when I was on a Unilever posting in East Africa in 1998. It was gut-tearing. We have to monitor the manufacturers of terrorism. Democratic nations cannot abdicate their responsibility to protect their people. Otherwise, radicals will manage rogue nations and strike at will.
The USA entered Afghanistan to flush out the Al Qaeda operatives responsible for the 2001, 9/11 attacks. Since then, the Al Qaeda is debilitated. There has not been another 9/11 genre attack. This alone, makes the 20 years of the USA’s longest war in Afghanistan, worth it.
These extremists will continue to stir havoc in Pakistan too. Yet, Pakistan will rejoice that some of these extremists will trouble India, in Kashmir. Pakistan is being short- sighted. It too, will be pricked by the Taliban. Recall, when the USA needed Pakistan’s support to ferret Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the USA Deputy Secretary of State, Mr. Richard Armitage warned Pakistan, “Be prepared to be bombed. Be prepared to go back to the stone age.” President, Musharraf admitted this on CBS Television in 2006. Yet, Osama Bin Laden took refuge in a villa, barely a mile from a military compound in Abbottabad in 2011.
Pakistan has floundered between a small educated minority and a vast ideologically impacted population. The elite, frustrated with the domestic imponderables, prefers to work as expatriates in the USA, Europe and the Gulf countries.
Pakistan has faced an identity crisis for decades. Prime Minster Imran Khan was expected to shed the shackles of the past and build a modern Pakistan. However, by eulogizing the victory of the Taliban over the USA, he too has shown that even idealists and modernists can have clay feet. Sad.
The Taliban lacks leadership and institutional skills to govern Afghanistan. A gun spouts a bullet. Guns do not spout systems to manage countries. The immediate future could see clashes between the Taliban and the ISIS for a leadership struggle. If Afghanistan devolves into a civil war, it would exacerbate the humanitarian disaster. Afghanistan could become the global terror capital, as it was in 2001. Then, expect history to repeat itself. Western troops will march in again to control the mayhem, within a decade. However, if the Taliban decides to modernise and teams up with sensible countries to establish democratic institutions, there could be hope. If Taliban turns a new leaf and relaunches itself, to bolster the economy and hold general elections, it will be a panacea. This is the only way forward, for a country whose people have battled poverty, bullets and tears for centuries.
Afghanistan is renowned a s the graveyard of empires. However, this graveyard, cannot even grow enough wheat to feed its people. It is time to harvest wheat and maize, instead of zealotry.
Aneja was the Managing Director of Unilever Tanzania. He is an alumnus of Harvard Business School and the author of books entitled, “Tiny Thoughts for a Better World”
• Aneja is a journalist and poet