Rediscovering Traditional Local Centers of Authority
Conventional wisdom has been turned upside down.
In the bad old days (colonial and post colonial), the conventional wisdom was that the west offered a superior framework for managing society. There was something inherently better about the west. Perhaps smarter. Perhaps more resolute. Whatever the reason, nation building exercises were therefore by definition westernizing exercises. And from the western point of view, a non-western culture was lucky to have the chance to benefit from them. It seemed to work in Japan and South Korea. But it failed in Algeria. And it failed in Vietnam. But perhaps one could blame those failures on the French. And, what about Iraq? Perhaps it was Churchill’s fault for cobbling together such an odd mix of peoples just to suit British colonial interests. The point - there was always an excuse for the failures. The paradigm was correct.
Now Robert Gates articulates a rather different view of the nation building strategy for Afghanistan. The strategy now is to facilitate empowerment of ”traditional local centers of authority” with “an overlay of human rights”. Fascinating. I am not sure what an “overlay of human rights” would mean. Weekend courses on the UN Universal Declaration? Surely it will not mean imposing values that might disrupt military alliances of convenience. Note, for example, the recent flap over the discovery that the taliban were paying locals much more to fight than the US. Gates corrected that in a hurry.
But back to the point. Aren’t these are the same local authorities who in the early and heady days of invasion, were at the root of the problem, or at best irrelevant? Wasn’t the idea that a strong central and westernized government in Kabul with a kick ass army could keep the barbarians under control? Indeed, I seem to recall that local authorities were even referred to as ”warlords” from time to time. Backward. Reactionary. Uncool. Now they are cool.
The bottom line- Right or wrong, in light of the prolonged nature of the insurgency and the relatively weak appeal of westernization in Afghanistan, the Obama Administration accepts that it is severely constrained in imposing US values as part of the nation building exercise there. This is an extreme repudiation of the Bush doctrine, and a slap at the Karzai crowd in Kabul. The “human rights overlay” will be mainly a fig leaf. The emphasis instead will be on humanitarian intervention (health, schools, sanitation, etc.).
My prediction — In the mid term, an era of aggressive, principled ”nation building” by the west is drawing to a close. The “war against terrorism” is imposing a new sense of realism about the limits of western power and interests in making ”clones” of itself. Put another way, local history may start trumping western history. It remains unresolved how this will play out on the streets. How much will the west continue to stand for the notion of “empowerment” of non-western individuals? We shall see.
My humble opinion - This should not mean building a “fortress west” against Islam and other bogeymen. It should mean investing in and using less coercive tools to engage people and build relationships over time (taking the longer view of things rather than talking about “assistance projects” and “intervention”). Gates is right in this respect — the current “blow back” problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan stem from the days after Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan and the US declared “victory” and disengaged. Oops.
FOLLOW - I did not refer in this post to President Obama’s speech in Oslo about foreign policy, but I will be posting on it soon. Dave Brooks offers an interesting (and supportive) view of the speech in this editorial. Dave Bromwich offers this summary for HuffPo. Here is the transcript, from NYT.
2d FOLLOW - Tom Friedman made a similar argument today with this comment
A corrosive mind-set has taken hold since 9/11. It says that Arabs and Muslims are only objects, never responsible for anything in their world, and we are the only subjects, responsible for everything that happens in their world. We infantilize them.
I would dispute one aspect of this — that this mindset started with 9/11. I think the idea that non-western cultures are “objects” rather than “subjects” is far more deeply rooted in our language and thoughts.
Happy holidays!