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24 May 2018 - 16:49
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24 May 2018 - 16:49

Almost every morning since the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan and children everywhere and from every background.

“Peace” has for a long time been the only wish, the only need and the only prayer of ordinary Afghans. The lack of peace, and the manifold forms of violence through which it is manifested, is believed to be the mother of all the misery experienced by the people. Deprived of this inalienable right for the last four decades, the current generation of Afghans, particularly those living in rural areas, consider peace to be the ultimate luxury. So the fundamental question facing the people and Government of Afghanistan as well as its partners is, what tangible steps have been taken to pursue peace? And how much of a commitment has there been to this pursuit?

Since 2001, the vast majority of the efforts have been focused on military combat. This is apparent from the amount of money spent on this war, which could have otherwise transformed Afghanistan economically even if we had had to “buy peace”.  Dialogue and peace negotiations remain at the top of the discourse of the Government, the international community and the neighboring countries. However, one loses count of all the initiatives that have been taken to this end with very few results. When, during an exclusive interview with the BBC, President Ashraf Ghani was asked what the ultimate aim is, he replied, “Peace agreement with the Taliban”, such a statement providing a sufficient preamble for a “strategy towards peacebuilding”. But is there any real “strategy for peacebuilding” in Afghanistan? Do the Government and the  High Peace Council (HPC) have any roadmap to pursue dialogue? The answers to these questions determine the seriousness of the commitment to peace and enable us to adequately assess these efforts currently being made.

 

It is true that, sadly, Afghanistan has been the site and the victim of a conflict that has never been internal. Unfortunately, the country has long been a battleground for the balance of power among the major global and regional powers. However, these powers have relied on Afghan people to pursue their interest. Hence, I do not believe it is enough for Afghans (both the people and the Government) to simply hope for changes in policies in Washington, Islamabad, Moscow, Shanghai, Delhi, or Tehran. We should rather build our own internal resilience that can serve to repulse adversary foreign influence that is harmful to Afghanistan. Nations survive among competing interests of others by building their own strength otherwise interaction in international politics is not always for the sake of the will of God or sympathy with one another. Peacebuilding and resilience are endogenous processes that need to evolve from within the country itself. They involve multiple factors that need to be cohesively targeted in order to pursue lasting peace. External support is needed to help nurture those processes without molding them against the wishes of the Afghans, who need to take their own destiny into their own hands.

The recent offer by President Ghani to the Taliban to engage in peace talks without any preconditions is an encouraging step. However, we must also look at what additional steps are needed in order to play a catalytic role in pursuing sustainable peace in this war-torn country.

1. Countering insurgency solely through military means is not enough and may not even function only as palliatives to deep rooted challenge. One important lesson that can be learned from the last four decades of the history of Afghanistan is that war has not brought about stability and peace, but rather enmity and a cycle of revenge. Instead, we must mobilise the Afghan means of bringing peace to this Nation. Those means are our long -rooted tradition of Jirga, our culture of forgiveness, hospitality, and tribal and communal interaction. All of these have the potential to foster dialogue and reconciliation. To mobilize these means, the Government needs to empower the people to take ownership over and contribute to promoting dialogue, based on responsibility and accountability to this noble cause. This requires reducing the distance in the interaction between the people and the Government. We have elders in the rural areas of Afghanistan who are sympathetic and loyal to peace. The High Peace Council, but rather involve the grassroots level of community elders. Such an interaction between the Government and the people around promoting dialogue will not only build trust between these two parties, but also cultivate a sense of the commitment to peace that both must strive for. It will result in a nation-wide campaign to support dialogue and can thereby become a national motto capable of getting huge traction, since people need peace more than anything else.

2. A narrowly-defined narrative of jihad has been the main source of mobilization of people to join the Taliban and other insurgent groups claiming to fight for the will of God and for the survival of Islam. Unfortunately, this narrative has been around since the days when it was used to mobilize against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan – a jihad which, unsurprisingly, was also funded from abroad. With a literacy rate of only 38.2%, it is easy for the insurgents to mobilize support for their agenda. Motivated morally, it is very difficult to crush militants who have been brainwashed by the rhetoric of those who promote militancy.

The only sustainable solution is to create and promote a counter-narrative of Islam that contains peacefulness at its core. This will ensure the sustainability of peace in Afghanistan. The Ulema and scholars have a crucial role to play. A series of exposure visits and debates with scholars from other Islamic countries should be facilitated.  Public broadcasts should be disseminated through local media, and seminars should be held at the national and sub-national level. Mosques remain important platforms for public awareness in Afghan society and as such can be used to promote the true version of Islam, which teaches peace, forgiveness and tolerance. The recent meeting between Afghan, Pakistani and Indonesian scholars in Indonesia was an encouraging step, but such seminars can be even more effective if they are held systematically and more often, providing the Afghan Ulema with greater exposure to their counterparts in other countries and to alternative versions of Islamic Jurisprudence.  

3. Without public support, it will be difficult for the Taliban and other insurgents to carry out their insurgency efforts across Afghanistan’s provinces. Although recent surveys have indicated diminishing public support for the Taliban, the latter still wield significant influence in some remote areas where they have established their writ. The delivery of services such as justice provision is the main source of their legitimacy. In some cases, it has even replaced the customary justice system that has existed for centuries. Citizens in remote areas rarely approach formal courts and have instead relied on mechanisms established by the Taliban which they claim are cheaper, quicker and fairer. This does not necessarily mean that people like to rely on the Taliban for the resolution of disputes over land, water and personal grievances. But they seem to have no option, because they do not trust the formal justice institutions. The Government needs to prevail over the Taliban in this battle of parallel institutions in order to weaken public support for the insurgency. While institutional resilience is time-consuming and requires resources, interim mechanisms can be put in place to ensure that citizens have access to fair, quick and cheap justice, which is crucial to peacebuilding. One such means is a hybrid justice system whereby local elders are empowered to support the State in the delivery of justice.    

International politics is constantly changing. 40 years have been enough to prove to us that the changing order in regional and global politics brings about new actors and hence new dimensions to the fate of Afghanistan. Our country is located right at the crossroads of global powers, each of which has its own interests and radical views towards the others. Each of them will try to use Afghanistan as a stepping stone to pursue their own national interest. We, Afghans, would be lucky if the national interest of the winning power is in line with our own interest. But we will remain mere pawns on their chessboard unless we take our destiny in our own hands and assume responsibility for our own problems.

View expressed in this article are of the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok’s editorial policy.

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The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect Pajhwok's editorial policy.

Author's brief introduction

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@HabibMayar is Deputy General Secretary of the g7+ Secretariat based in Dili, Timor-Leste. He has served in the Secretariat since 2013 and leads on policy and advocacy for better engagement in fragile situation..

Prior to that, he was Head of the Aid Coordination Unit in the Ministry of Finance, Islamic Republic of Afghanistaninfo-icon. Like many Afghans who fled their countries during the Russian occupation in 1980s, Mr. Mayar grew up in a refugees camp in Pakistaninfo-icon. He completed his Master degree in Business Administration from Baluchistan University of IT and Management Sciences.

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