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Editor's
note: The opinions expressed in this article are the author's
and do not necessarily reflect the views of NDU, the Department
of Defense, or the government of the United States.
 s
an octogenarian living in Italy the answer to Afghanistan's problems?
Mohammed Zahir Shah, former King of Afghanistan, in exile in Rome,
has offered to preside over a Loya Jirgha, a traditional
gathering of tribal and religious leaders, to set up a post-Taliban
Afghan government, and serve as interim leader until parliamentary
elections can be held. The United States, Britain, Russia, and the
U.N. are considering the proposal seriously. The Northern Alliance
resistance movement has signed on. But not everyone is happy about
the prospect of the king's return. This weekend, six Afghanis were
taken into custody in the cities of Khost and Gardez for distributing
pro-monarchy leaflets in; they will face the death penalty. Opposition
leader Golbudin Hekmatyar has stated, "If Zahir Shah wants
to return, he should shade his eyes," meaning he would be killed.
But the aged monarch is philosophical about these kinds of threats.
"At my age there is nothing that can happen to me," he
said. "My aim is to see a happy Afghanistan."
"Happy
Afghanistan" may sound like an oxymoron, but many older Afghans
can recall the calmer days of Zahir Shah's reign. He ascended the
throne in 1933 at age 18 after the assassination of his father Nadir.
The boy king, guided by his advisers, ushered in a 40-year period
of prosperity and stability. Zahir Shah was a pro-western, moderate,
liberalizing monarch who brought about parliamentary reform and
economic development. He instituted universal suffrage, expanded
educational opportunities, and pressed for women's rights. At the
same time he respected the traditional powers of the Afghan tribal
leaders and the customs of the many peoples who lived in his kingdom.
Zahir Shah faced opposition from both religious and secular radicals,
but they were not as influential as they would later become, and
most Afghans supported him. His Afghanistan was far from perfect,
but was on the right path, and was at peace.
The descent
to madness began in 1973. Prime Minister Daoud, Zahir Shah's cousin,
staged a bloodless coup while the King was in Italy for medical
treatment. Daoud abolished the monarchy and declared himself president.
He imposed one-party rule and stepped up the pace of "reform,"
which meant centralizing power in Kabul. These moves were welcomed
as progress by the western international development establishment,
and Daoud was rewarded by UNESCO the following year when the ancient
city of Herat was designated "part of the world's cultural
heritage." (Today it is a war-torn ruin.) In 1978 Daoud was
overthrown and murdered by Moscow backed communists, who instituted
an 18-month reign of terror. Ironically the Soviet Invasion of 1979
was an attempt to impose a more moderate Communist regime.
The Soviets believed they could accomplish this in a few weeks;
instead they were drawn into a ten-year guerilla struggle resulting
in hundreds of thousands of deaths, millions of refugees, and, ultimately,
a humiliating withdrawal. The Soviet-Afghan War was the trial by
fire for Mujahedin who would later coalesce in Osama Bin Laden's
al Qaida network, and also spawned (with Pakistani backing) the
Taliban movement that seized power in 1995. The Taliban have proved
to be no more humane in their pursuit of the perfect Islamic order
than the Communists trying to build socialism. Today Afghanistan
is in ruins, impoverished and isolated from the world. Zahir Shah's
reign was a golden age by comparison.
The former
king has stated that whether Afghanistan becomes a monarchy or republic
will be up to the Afghan people, and there is some indication that
they are in his corner. The State Department conducted an opinion
poll in the Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan last summer
showing half the Afghans consider Zahir Shah to be the best leader
to resolve the problems of Afghanistan. Taliban leader Mullah Omar
came in second with a weak 11%. The poll also showed that about
55% believed that cessation of war and national revival are the
most important priorities. (One wonders what the priorities of the
other half were — probably food.) The Taliban denounced the
poll as senseless and biased because it asked about a crisis when
"none exists."
So is the way
forward to put an 87-year-old former monarch on the throne and switch
Afghanistan to autopilot? Hardly. The resolution of Afghanistan's
problems only begins with new leadership. Foreign aid will play
an important role — indeed already does — and the United
States may lend a hand rebuilding the infrastructure it originally
built in the 1950s. A demining effort will have to be undertaken,
and Afghanistan my require a U.N. peacekeeping presence, although
kharjian (outsider) troops on the ground may lead to clashes
organized by opponents of change.
There are many
competing interests in Afghanistan, and many wrongs to be avenged;
but Zahir Shah has been removed from the last three decades of struggle.
He has nothing to prove, and little to gain. The King would be a
figurehead with limited powers — he would not be able to dominate
the country any more than his predecessors have. What he brings
to the process is respect, legitimacy, and the approval of the world
community. He could preside over the establishment of a new constitution
that recognizes Afghan tradition and uses the time-tested ideas
of the enlightenment to allow local autonomy, establish power-sharing
mechanisms, and institutionalize compromise. It would, in Madison's
phrase, "pit ambition against ambition," and move Afghanistan
from the world of Hobbes toward that of Locke.
Those who desire
to reform Afghanistan should avoid the urge to seek a utopia of
results. We should help the Afghans establish a balanced political
process, but not try to impose values. An Afghan constitution, for
example, explicitly protecting the right of sexual orientation,
banning prayer in school, and enshrining "a woman's right to
choose" is bound to fail disastrously.
That being
said, it is also a mistake to write off the Afghans as a backward
people in the grip of primitive traditions. Far from it. The problem
in Afghanistan is not too much freedom but too little — not
chaos, but the attempt to impose state order by force. Afghanistan
has been a laboratory for radical experiments in social organization.
First Daoud, a bureaucratic centralist, a classic World Bank-friendly
autocrat; then the Communists, who experimented so vigorously even
the Soviet Union was alarmed; and finally the Taliban, who have
sought to extinguish what remains Afghan tradition and replace it
with the "full imposition of the sharia of Mohammed."
The traditional Afghan way of life, which can be summed up in the
word Autonomy, has had to survive despite the impulses of others,
quoting Burke, "to make men mere machines and instruments of
political benevolence." If the 20th century taught anything,
it is that utopian political schemes lead chiefly to tragedy and
human suffering. Afghanistan was a casualty of that impulse.
The return
of Zahir Shah would be much more than a gesture towards moderation
and stability. It would be an acknowledgement of the mistakes of
the past, a repudiation of the quest for the "prefect society,"
a rejection of the notion that the state is the sole and ultimate
force for good, and a recognition that people can live together
in harmony without centralized control of their daily lives, either
by socialist planners or radical Muslim theocrats. In short, the
king would serve as a rallying point, an honest broker, allowing
the opposing factions to place their country above their bloody
feuds. Zahir Shah is the only man who can give Afghanistan this
opportunity for peace — and it would be up to the Afghans to
take it.
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