Political History of Afghanistan
From One Invasion to the Other One
When I write
this article, you better don’t judge or misjudge me or relate me to any political
ideology or political party or a country, because I really don’t know who I am,
as per the words of Rumi Balkhi; hey people of the world, I can’t recognize
myself, I am not a Muslim, I am not a Christian, I am not from the east nor
from the west, I am not from the Adam or eve, I am not from the water, fire nor
wind, I am not from the Empire of Khurasan nor from Iraq … my place is the
placeless and my trace is the traceless.
So I don’t
belong to any groups. I am just a person who lived in Afghanistan and I am
trying to describe the situation as I have experienced it and I am trying to tell
you how the political changes have affected my life and the lives of many other
people who live there in Afghanistan and have no voice to tell you what happened to them and they constitute the great silent majority.
I am not a
communist nor socialist, nor capitalist nor Islamist. I am a human being not
still found the right way to follow it. Just a lost person who is not hopeful
to live longer … so that is why I need to say, what I know, and what I have
experienced, before I close my eyes and rest in the peace I have waited all my
life.
Here is how my
article begins:
…………………………..
Afghanistan is a
mountainous country full of green valleys and rivers called the throbbing heart
of Asia having a great number of untapped natural resources including precious
stones, oil and gas, gold, coal, lithium, copper, iron, silver, lapis lazuli,
gem stones, murmur etc. Most of the natural resources of this country are rare elements found only in some countries.
The country is lagged behind with a very undeveloped
and unstable political and economic situation due to the four decades of
ongoing war in that country.
What makes this
country interesting for the world powers is its enormous amount of oil reserves
and the enormous quantity of its natural resources and the lower rate of human development
as well as its traitor minority leaders and non-educated majority with a unique and special strategic geopolitical location which make the country a suitable target for the invasions. All these factors in turn pave the way for access
to the fast growing and developing Asian economies located in the neighborhood
of the country.
Afghanistan is culturally
famous for hospitality, generosity and honesty of its people and that is also
in turn an influencing factor in continuous invasions of the country by the world
powers.
Afghanistan has
always been highly vulnerable of the impacts of foreign policies of the
western countries especially the foreign policy of the United States’, European
Union and its allies as well as the former Soviet Union countries and today's Russia.
Historically
speaking, this country has never had a chance to have its own president. Almost
all the former presidents were either supported or employed by Russia or the United
States and their allies. This negative competition of USSR and America was so tense in Afghanistan which have
always resulted in political unrest in Afghanistan and even murders of the
previous kings and presidents of the country, leaving behind millions of
civilian deaths and casualties.
Afghanistan has
never been able to balance its political relations with the former two polar
political powers of the world, and that brought this country, continues non-ending
40 year old war, which still continues.
The war
destroyed the infrastructures of the country and caused millions of death for
the people of Afghanistan and divided the neighbors of Afghanistan into three
categories concerning their relations with Afghanistan, those who were allied with
the USA and those who were allied with the USSR as well as the neutral ones.
Afghanistan is
culturally diverse and the war used that diversity to divide people into groups
so that they can use them as means to achieve their own goals.
The war used
every single means that Afghanistan had, such as the ethnicity, religion, cast,
tribes, languages, and even regions. They divided the people of Afghanistan
into groups and paid them to fight against each other for the benefit of the
two world powers, for example some of the parties were defending the interests
of the USSR and some others the interests of the USA.
Previously we
had a government supported by USSR in Afghanistan and the military opposition
called Mujaheddin Militia was supported by the USA in Afghanistan indirectly by
the mediation of Pakistan because the USSR supported government was strong and
ruled all over Afghanistan, the US therefore preferred to create, arm and send
groups from neighboring open borders of Pakistan. In the mean time the Russian
language was very important in Afghanistan because of the USSR invasion and only those had access to the political power who could
speak a little bit of Russian and the president was employed in a fraudulent election as a person who
lived or studied in Russia and could speak Russian fluently.
Russians were
very generous in that time and they supported that government with all kinds of
heavy military weapons such as tanks, Kalashnikov, RPGs, helicopters … etc.
They had
scholarships for the young boys of Afghanistan too. They supported the military
army of Afghanistan and made a very strong government which was able to meet
the needs of the poor in the country and it was almost the strongest army of the
government of Afghanistan ever happened to that country.
That government
was ethnocentric and it was based on superiority of one ethnic group (Pashtuns)
to suppress and remove others from the political sphere of Afghanistan. It was
based on political Pashtunism which killed almost everyone who talked against
the government. The government was forcing the young people to join the army by
an obligatory system of military service which caused millions of young boys to
escape the country, because they were not willing to join an army which was at war
facing many deaths on daily basis.
USA paid
Pakistan to support religious extremists and Mujaheddin against that USSR
supported government. Finally Mujaheddin won the battle after many years of war in Afghanistan killing millions of people and the USA supported political parties "The Mujaheddin" came
to power in Afghanistan. They destroyed once again everything Afghanistan had, even the culture and the music and they even changed the names of schools which
were secular names into Islamic names. They deprived women from education, work
and going to school, they had the same rules and regulations as the Taliban
with a low level of extremism, for example they would not punish a person for
not attending mosques for five times prayers which was what the Taliban did.
There were
different groups created, made and funded in Pakistan to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.
When they succeeded, they started to fight for power among each other. Pakistan
actually used them very well against each other. There were no pre-planned
actions foreseen to re-establish a new government and an economic system for
Afghanistan to replace the former soviet supported government. Every leader of
the political party of Mujaheddin wanted to be the president of the country
without any qualifications. There were no elections. Misunderstandings began to arise and the unsuccessful division of political power among different Mujaheddin parties resulted
in other wars in Afghanistan. Muslims were blamed for not being Muslims. Every
group started to call the other group a non-Muslim group. They had enough
weapon and reasons to fight each other. Pashtun groups were claiming that they
are the only ethnic group which has had the right to rule, the others would not
accept that. There were Shias and Sunnis. There were Dari speaking political
parties and Pashto speaking political parties. There were ethnocentric,
regio-centric and religious political parties formed. Hazara political
parties, Pashtun political parties, Tajik political parties were the most
famous ones which actively participated in the imposed wars in Afghanistan.
All these
political parties were somehow primarily managed in traditional ways with one
leader as a mono-leadership and monopoly of political power and the lifetime of
political parties were equal to the lifetime of their leaders.
There were no
single sign of democracy or pluralism in the structure and leadership of the
political parties. They were quite similar to robbers’ gangs with a one man in
the top who made all the decisions for his own families’ benefits, but used
ethnic interests, religious interests, and tribal interests as mottos and means
to motivate people to fight for them by the money received from neighboring
countries.
They were all
financed by foreign countries for different purposes. The main victims of the
war were the civilians of Afghanistan who were not part of any of these
political parties but they were murdered on daily basis through bombardments
and firing of rockets on their houses when the parties began to fight and fire
at each other.
The war
continued and killed millions of people of Afghanistan. Millions of others
immigrated to other countries. The British colony Pakistan was gaining from
every day of war in Afghanistan because they were stealing and buying all military
weapons, machines, precious and semi-precious stones of Afghanistan and the
same gains were going to other neighboring countries. Some countries even
collected all researches of the Universities of Afghanistan for free; they
carried them back in their own country and published them by their own names.
Natural
resources, museum, libraries, cultural heritages and relics, precious and
semi-precious stones were robbed.
The economic
infrastructures like highways, streets, electricity network, telephone
networks, water systems and radios were destroyed. Schools were destroyed and
burnt. Men, women and children were murdered on the streets.
Many people
immigrated and escaped to other countries as far as they could. Some of them
who were supported by Russians before went to former Soviet Union countries,
some people escaped to USA and some others who thought the Europe was a best
place for them and believed in humanity of European countries’ citizens, they
immigrated to European countries and some others who had not enough money
escaped into neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran.
Some people who
were Shias preferred to immigrate to Iran and some Sunnis immigrated to
Pakistan and the Jewish community immigrated to USA and the Hindus and Sikh
communities escaped to India. Dari speaking people preferred to go to Iran
because they thought they might be able to understand the language of host
country and Pashtuns preferred to go to Pakistan because they had a common
language with the Pakistani people. But they were all naïve and simplistic
unrealistic believes, the host countries were never kind to them. They never
appreciated and welcomed them but they were making the life hard on them and
they were very cruel to them. The host countries never behaved with the Afghan
refugees based on human rights and Geneva conventions. Instead they tortured
all of them in different ways continuously.
The Taliban were
created and supported in Pakistan and came with the support of Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia and USA in Afghanistan and they killed almost all those who were
favoring the former government of Afghanistan supported by Russia and those who
were anti-Taliban and Anti-Barbarism.
The Taliban
destroyed all the remaining of the life and infrastructures in Afghanistan.
They destroyed culture, they banned music and all kinds of happiness on the
civilians of Afghanistan and they were actually there for the following
objectives:
- Making the
people of Afghanistan hate their own religion through showing a very horrifying
unrealistic picture of Islam to them so that they will embrace any kind of non-Islamic
occupation.
- Using and
supporting Political-Pashtunism in order to bring the political power to those
tribes who were about to lose it.
- Eradication of
other tribes than Pashtun from Afghanistan by forcing them to escape from
Afghanistan or mass murdering them in different regions.
- Promoting Pashto
language as the only main language of the country.
- Mass murder and
removal of Shia minority groups from Afghanistan who were thought to be
non-Muslims by the Taliban and some other Pashtun tribes.
- Solidarity and
revival of racism, chauvinism, new Nazism and language superiority through
supporting only one tribe “Pashtuns” as the main Nazi group in Afghanistan organizing
them under one ethnocentric political party and naming it the Talibanism using
Wahabi or Salafi branch of Islam imported from Saudi – Arabia as the main
motivation to fight, because other branches would not be extreme and would not
fight and kill under the name of religion.
The 9/11 in America happened and it had no
ties with Afghanistan but it was a great intervention and occupation plan of
Afghanistan in which the Taliban were used as indirect pressure group to make
the people of Afghanistan ready for foreign intervention. Afghanistan and its
people were living in a dark area under the Taliban regime as hostages without
electricity, without TVs, without Radios channels, without water supply system
and without canalization of the cities as well as without schools. Half of the
population had no work permits or permission of going out of their houses
because they were female and they were deprived of their basic human rights by
the Taliban.
The new era of a new invasion of
Afghanistan began. A strong nation who were deceived and used to fight against
Russia for the benefit of USA but suffered 40 years of continuous war was taken
as hostage by the Taliban and now they were punished by those countries that
financed and forced some of their political parties to fight a war against
Russia.
The political parties who were involved in
war were weak and tired enough because of the 40 years of war which took all
their energy and spirit and there was no more strength in them to defend their
own country. The people of Afghanistan being tired of the suppression, cruelty,
barbarism, ethnocentrism, despotism, autocracy, resilience, totalitarianism, backwardness
and fascism of the Taliban as an extreme religious tyranny of foreign
occupation of Afghanistan, led by Arabs and Pakistanis who were using their own
religion against them, were ready to accept any kind of foreign intervention to
get rid of the Taliban.
Politically the situation of Afghanistan was
and it is a mess and it is a political crisis intertwined with foreign invasion
and foreign troops at both sides of the war and the people of Afghanistan has
no say in that war.
The new collective colonialism of
Afghanistan remains no chance for the local politicians because their views are
too narrow and too traditional and does not fit with the current situation of Afghanistan.
This invasion is not much different than the previous Soviet Union invasion. They
both invested on Pashtun ethnic groups.
The only difference is that this time there
is no choice for the people of Afghanistan to join a freedom fight for
Afghanistan because the military opposition fighting against the government of
Afghanistan is also created and controlled by the invaders’ biggest regional
ally “Pakistan” who has historically been against Afghanistan because they
think that half of their soil belongs to Afghanistan and the other half belongs
to India.
Pakistani politicians suffer from a
misconception which makes the core ideology of their violent intervention and
unstable diplomatic relation with Afghanistan and India and that misconception
is that “If Afghanistan and India get together and grow as two military
countries in two sides of Pakistan, they will claim their soils and there will
be no such country as Pakistan anymore”.
This misconception makes the politicians
of Pakistan to suffer and that makes them go and ask biggest countries like USA
and Britain to fund some nasty projects in the region which endangers the
regional security and the regional as well as world peace.
For examples we can mention creation and
supporting terrorist groups such as Tahreek-e-Taliban, hosting and supporting
Al-qaida leader Osama Bin Laden, creation and supporting of Lashkar-e-Taiba,
creation and supporting of Al-Tahreer terrorist group, creation and supporting
of Haqqani Network as a terrorist group … are all foreign policy tools of
Pakistan and their allies being used against Afghanistan and India.
The most interesting similarities of
current invasion by USSA (Unites States and States’ Allies) and the previous
one by the USSR from the viewpoint of the neutral people of Afghanistan are the
following:
- Russians employed
a Pashtun president for Afghanistan who was a citizen of previous Soviet Union countries
or at least had studied in those countries and a person who could speak Russian
language fluently and now the same thing happened to Afghanistan when the US is
there and they employed firstly a Pashtun hotel manager who was a citizen of US
and had has hotel management business in US and they had their own saving
accounts in US banks so in case if they rob banks and public properties in
Afghanistan, the money will be invested in the economy of the US. They might
have picked him up from a random list of Afghan refugees in the US and brought
him in Afghanistan to be a president for the country. He was previously ready
to accept a position as the speaker of the Taliban in Pakistan before he was
appointed as the president of Afghanistan. The second president of Afghanistan
is also a Pashtun Afghan refugee living in the US married to a Christian woman.
He is also a US citizen and speaks English fluently and his family currently lives
in the US. The reason why he was chosen as the next president is maybe because
of the religion of his wife who makes the first lady of Afghanistan a Christian
lady and his saving account in the US banks. The next president of Afghanistan
might be a Christian Afghan refugee currently living in the US or an Afghan-Jewish
family currently living in the US.
- Both invaders
chose to invest on Pashtun ethnic groups when it comes to political powers. I
think it is because of the loyalty of this particular ethnic group to these
invaders and their dishonesty to their own country and nation as well as their
high flattery and lobby inside the political sphere of these countries. The
Russian military bases were mostly outside the cities while the US military
bases are all inside the cities.
- The army soldiers
of USSR were much more civilized showing their highest respect for the civilian
people of Afghanistan because their army was formed out of an obligatory
military service system and all those who were involved in military were normal
civilians of the previous Soviet Union countries and they were all
well-educated and well mannered, but now the army of US currently present in
Afghanistan is made up of hired soldiers who have got nothing else to do in US,
so they joined the military to come to Afghanistan and the way they behave with
Afghan civilians are not appropriate.
- The USSR, during
their occupation of Afghanistan was paving the way for the people of
Afghanistan to go and study in Russia and travel freely without any barriers
but the US is not giving that much of opportunity for the civilians of
Afghanistan to travel to US and to learn from them, but they owe the occupation
of Afghanistan to Pakistan and that is why they are mostly favoring Pakistan in
all their policies inside and outside Afghanistan and help Pakistan much better
than the poor people of Afghanistan.
- The USSR was
supporting the army of Afghanistan and its air forces in a great manner and
there was almost no single hungry soldier in Afghanistan in that time and the
air forces of Afghanistan were one of the best in Asia by the support of USSR,
but now what the US is doing, they took what all Afghanistan got from USSR and
gave it to Pakistan.
- USSR was not
controlling the opposition of the government of Afghanistan by its allies and
the opposition in that time were Mujahidin armed forces being armed, trained
and sent to Afghanistan from Pakistan funded by the US, but now in the new
collective colonialism of Afghanistan, the opposition of the government of
Afghanistan are Taliban and they are being controlled, supported, financed and
armed by the US biggest regional ally to make sure that the people of
Afghanistan has no chance to join and support a freedom fighting opposition in
Afghanistan and those who are against the Taliban are being murdered in
mysterious ways.
- USSR was not
supporting religious extremism and those who were in power in that time were
those who believed in their mission but now we see in Afghanistan that the US
is supporting those who were Taliban before but they have just changed their
clothes. They don’t believe in democracy which is the main mission of the US in
Afghanistan. Those who are currently in power in Afghanistan rather believe in
Talibanism and ethnocentric tyranny.
At the end of all these wars and invasions
on Afghanistan, it is the civilians of Afghanistan who lost and will lose
everything they have.
At the end, there will be some ashes and destroyed
tanks and military weapons of US in the destroyed villages of Afghanistan. That
is what is left behind the USSR invasion and the British invasion of
Afghanistan along with millions of graves of civilians.
There will be some deserts and manless
ruined villages left behind in Afghanistan and millions and millions of
refugees who escape from the war zones and fall into the mouth of sharks or
live as slaves suffering in the racist hands of people of the countries offshore.
But let’s remind something here about
immigration as a human right and the only option for the people of Afghanistan
to save their lives leaving behind all their belongings.
The host countries who are mainly allies
of the US in that invasion of Afghanistan should clearly understand the
followings.
If your country has the right to invade
another country and send men with guns in their hands (military troops) in Afghanistan
to start a war, the civilians of those countries, without guns in their hands, should
also have the right to escape that war and come to your country and save their
lives. If your country has the right to open their prisons in Afghanistan and
imprison whoever they wish, the civilians of those countries should have the
right to apply for asylum and rent a room in your country or have access to a
refugee camp without any kind of torture, health intervention or food poisoning.
If your country has the right to kill civilians by bombardments on civilian
houses and hospitals in Afghanistan, the civilians of those countries should
have the right to come to a safer place in your country to find a job to earn a
living. If your country destroys the schools of children in Afghanistan, the
civilians of Afghanistan should have the right to come and study in your
schools with your children. Finally
don’t be racists, don’t be chauvinists, and don’t be a fascist. Be human beings
and open our borders to refugees and open your hearts to non-Christian refugees
whose houses and countries are being destroyed by your tax money and by the
guns made in your country.
If the houses are being destroyed and if
our world is being destroyed, the reason for that can be found in you. It is you
the human race who failed to think productive and it is you who failed to think
about others, it is you who failed to think the whole world as an ecosystem for
human beings. It is you who divided people in different colors of skin, race,
language, religion and cultures. You failed to think about others the same
equal human beings as yourself and there lies the sources of all miseries and
destruction of the world as our common home.
