Afghanistan’s presidential elections again have shed light on the political life of a nation still suffering from foreign military intervention, but whatever the result, the poll should remind the country and regional nations of the urgent need to pursue moderation.
Share It :
The presidential poll in Afghanistan is not the country’s first effort to integrate itself in the world democratic system and assume an active role in the global arena.
In 1979 and before the then Soviet Unionˈs invasion of Afghanisan, King Zahir Shah of Afghanistan was overthrown by his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, who established a new government, and declared himself the first president of the nation.
Khan was known for his progressive policies, especially in relation to the rights of women and for launching two five-year modernization plans which boosted the labor force by about 50 percent.
He led Afghanistan’s first fledgling democracy from 1973 to 1978, i.e., a year before the country was occupied by the Soviet forces.
Now after more than three decades of deaths and devastations caused by foreign militaries, the fractured nation for a third time since the fall of Taliban, is holding a democratic election that will sure enough serve Afghanistan as a symbol of development.
Yet, to some in the West the political process in Afghanistan is not going to serve the West’s interests, as it will hardly establish a Western-style democracy.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow with the Foreign Policy program at Brookings, argues that the presidential candidates in Afghanistan, regardless of their backgrounds, have their weaknesses as well as strengths.
The nonpartisan Washington think tank, warns that the US should not get ˈtrapped in the notionˈ that one candidate is better than the other, rather Washington should continue “to promote US interests” in the war-ravaged country.
But the million-dollar-question is that what are the so-called US interests in a country like Afghanistan, and why Washington should send its military forces thousands of miles away to promote its interests in foreign lands.
“Fighting off terrorism” and “creating a safer world” are not good excuses: It is crystal-clear that the US-led military invasion of Afghanistan resulted in the expansion of violence and terrorism; a bad phenomenon spilling over to neighboring countries and now casting its shadow over the whole region and even beyond.
ˈThey brought violence and extremists to this country,ˈ said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in his address at the 5th International Nowruz Festival in the Afghan capital of Kabul, referring to foreign occupiers.
These occupations, Mr. Rouhani added, have ˈbrought the unfortunate seed of violence in this country.”
Now the seeds of violence have started to spread throughout the region and it is the West that should pay the price of the terrorist spill-over.
“Terrorism has become a global issue that is geographically expanding and its aftershocks will reach European and international capitals in a short period of time,ˈ warned Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki at a counter-terrorism conference in Baghdad recently.
This is while Afghanistan is gradually setting itself free from the chains of violence and extremism and trying to set up its own natural, potential democracy, the United States still thinks it can and it have to define the rules of the game and forge its own style of democracy thousands of miles away.
ˈThe US continues to imagine the world is a chess board where it can cause things to happen,” Peter Van Buren, author and critic of the US reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan said.
In the absence of foreign interventions, countries like Afghanistan can create and maintain their own democracies by relying on their natural ethnic and religious diversities.
But the diversity has been used to cultivate violence and extremism instead; the bad phenomena that have justified foreign interventions, leaving no room for development.
Yet, what encourages peace and justice and can put an end to such stumbling blocks, as Mr. Rouhani noted in his Nowruz address in Kabul, is moderation.
“We cannot speak of moderation in a region where even a small group beats the drums of ignorance and sows the seeds of wrath, and where extremism claims victims,” Mr. President said.
The regional leaders whose countries share the same civilization, and enjoy a similar culture and ethnic and religious backgrounds and even a common language should adopt moderation as a driving engine for a regional alliance.
“We can be the founders of an inclusive regional alliance that would seek the development of nations as its common goal, and we can improve the standards of living in the region, and pursue moderation,” Rouhani said.
The future of the region, as Afghan outgoing President Hamid Karzai acknowledged during Nowruz Festival in Kabul, is “tied to regional integration and cooperation.”
“Without cooperation and alignment among regional countries we cannot address our problems,” Karzai said. /SR
