Is it all Afghans fault?

Western online media coverage on the NATO exit is coloured with remarks on the western experience of Afghans and the benefits Afghans could have reaped from western presence.

I believe such remarks are counter productive bordering racism. The failure to stabilise Afghanistan is not a fault of Afghans but a letdown by institutions, if anything the Afghans are the victims; Afghans are resilient and honourable people, kind hearted, welcoming, and brave warriors. They are not the childlike brutes stereotyped in western media.  

NATO did not go to Afghanistan to improve Afghan lives but part of a US led alliance for getting revenge. It was very much a debt the allies paid to the US for the Marshall aid, democracy and saving them from communism.

Here are a few things NATO could have done to help Afghanistan:

1.     Train and equip a national army.

2.     Economic development

3.     Integrate Afghanistan into international political and economic system.

4.     Foster national leadership.

Here is what happened instead

1.     Arm and fund militia with history of human rights abuse and atrocities to fight the Taliban. Waging war against a part of the population under the labels of terrorist and Taliban by arming an extremist wing of another part of population under the guise of ‘state’. This labelling fails to capture the political and economic subjectivities and diversities of actors. The boundaries between these groups may be more about the subjective act of naming than any real practical separation between them. The US wanted blood and the allies tagged along by radicalising a section of Afghan people to settle old scores against another. This revenge policy led to antagonising the Afghan people and have blow in coalition face while costing tens of thousands of Afghan lives.

2.     The core strategy of international community was aid which only delivers assistance to very few and leaves out the majority to fend for themselves. Treating the symptom of poverty while ignoring the dysfunction of the state, which should be tasked to look after the welfare of the people. 

3.     No significant trade treaty, no long term strategic partnership, relationship at its low of all time with neighbours and antagonised the very leadership the west appointed to rule over Afghan people.

4.     Warlords, drug lords and criminals were bundled together by giving them a share in ruling over Afghan people.

Whether this war was a good thing or a bad thing was the decision of Westerns and as such their leaders should be held accountable.

The Reason a woman is brutally murdered by a mob in Kabul

An angry mob lynched a woman in Kabul on Thursday, beating her to death and then setting her body on fire.  The incident happened in the centre of Kabul and under the watch of Afghan police. At the time she was accused of burning the Quran but it is unclear whether she had actually burned it or not. A government statement from ministry of Haj and religious affairs dismissed the account and added she was an attendant at the shrine, according to Tolo News. It has also become apparent that the victim later identified as Farkhunda suffered mental illness, “Farkhunda had a mental malady, and we have been seeing many mullahs and doctors to seek a cure for her mental illness,” her mother told reporters.The last couple of days I have been thinking why such a barbaric and anti-Islamic travesty happens yet a large number, but not all, Afghans support it. The New york times in a story reflects on Afghans Reaction reporting approval. Reuters Report of support from cleric who in a sermon broadcast by loudspeaker told devotees that the crowd had a right to defend their Muslim beliefs at all costs.

Before we lose perspective and infer bile stereotypes of Afghans and slash any hope for this nation where a mob of angry men bludgeon to death an innocent woman, lets remind ourselves of murder and death in the state of nature. No other word depicts the human condition than the visionary masterwork of Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel, The Triumph of Death, it is not of course a work of realism, but Breugel certainly did not have to rely entirely on his imagination to depict a scene of stomach wrenching death and destruction. In a land ruled by an army of skeletons, a king lies dying, his treasure of no avail, while a dog gnaws on a nearby corpse. In the background two hanged men on gibbets, four men broken on wheels, a man about to be beheaded. Armies clash, houses burn, men and women young and old soldier and civilians are all driven pell-mell into a narrow tunnel. No one is spared. The artist himself died in his early forties. The portray.

Much of human history is some version of agony depicted by Bruegel in the state of nature. Islam as cultural framework lifts the state of nature by creating an individual value system conducive to peaceful coexistence and as subjects of a legitimate Islamic state that is tasked to be a vessel of collective decision-making and enforcement. The laws of Islamic State of Afghanistan is based on Islamic values and principles. The basis for a judgment in Islamic law is the jurist’s ability to carefully apply knowledge to theory and practice. In order to be qualified to interpret the sources of law, a jurist should master many branches of knowledge such as logic, Quran, Hadith, history and general knowledge as well as specialised areas like commerce or international relations. This approach adopted by Islamic law to reach judgement through Fiqh, Ijma, Qiyas, Urf and Istisahan is to ensure due processes and streamline justice. Mob justice undermines due process of Islamic justice and is a manifestation of Jaliyat, it undermines Islamic foundations of Afghan society. It also shows obsession and compulsion with icons and symbols of religion that is only valued for its physical material. From the onset Islam opposed Icons and Statues in Kaba that were worshiped by the pagans. Islam is world-affirming by construing the created world as fundamentally a good place and placing responsibility on individual action. For such a system of belief conduct and laws are fundamental than icons and symbols.

I believe for such barbarism is a failure of state policy and structures. The state should create a monopoly on the means of violence. In practice, this criterion has often been reduced; first to a simple monopoly on violence and then to little more than control of capital city. However, it is the legitimacy of the state’s monopoly on violence as perceived by the citizens of the state that is the key to using this monopoly as a criterion of statehood. If the polity rejects the legitimacy of the state’s monopoly on violence, then that monopoly is inherently unstable. Hence the state’s monopoly on the means of violence must be balanced by the presence or creation of credible institutions that provide checks and balances on the use of force; that the state itself must be constituted through, and accountable under, the rule of law. The rule of law is undermined by the very same leaders and clerics who are high-level functionaries of the state. The powerful men and the current patronage system of state power distribution are impediments to rule of law and the real reason for the troubles that ravage Afghanistan. The violence of gangs and mobs are unnerving but they are nothing more than symptoms of an ailing system.

The Lesson From Afghanistan

Western military presence in Afghanistan was dominated by an ideological paradigm with the mission to establish democracy and spread freedom. The insurgency was labelled as terrorism and to be militarily defeated, until the very end of the military mission little effort was made to understand the nature and context of the war in Afghanistan. The development industry, media, the Afghan state and western political and military institutions broadly subscribed to some version of such mission, not necessarily following the same narrative but the same general framework. The failure of the west in stabilising Afghanistan is not an Afghan specific issue but points to a general shortcoming of Western conduct in international relations.

The shortcoming of the Western governments that has contributed to global instability and violence is the fragility of its international discourse, while Western institutions are robust for national governance the foreign policy is not conducted in accordance with the same scrutiny, accountability, oversight and rule based approach. Instead the media and elites have created a myth about the role of the Western democracy in the world that they have now fallen for it themselves. Western diplomacy is spearheaded strongly by a subjective moral approach at the cost of consistency in international law, which has contributed to problems from tension with Russia, spread of violent religious extremism and instability in the Middle East, Africa, south and east Europe. 

Many Westerners, particularly the elites, are convinced that Western democracy is moral and superior and should actively be spread around the world; all who oppose it are evil. A narrative reinforced by retrospective view after collapse of Soviet Block as well as massive economic developments of the last few decades. Western diplomacy is conducted from the position that the future belonged to them as a result those who resist are not (and were not) just rivals, but reactionary forces resisting progress and freedom, even evil. Working from this position of righteousness Western governments shape international relationship in whatever way they deem fit because by virtue of their nature it is only going to be moral and just. As a result we have seen a spate of military interventions in the last few decades that in most cases overruled national sovereignty and/or international law.  

There is a good reason for the international democracy mission that could be explained by understanding the current state of modern Western nations. Nation states are cultural and political entities that have successfully unified the population for progress, unconstrained by their class, race or religion. When governments are unable to exploit all human resources it will result in social fragmentation and reduced social solidarity the symptoms of which are the strengthening of regional identity and anti-political far right or far left movements. This is obvious in the debate around immigration where natives and the government respond to them are anxious about the allegiance of new comers. The crisis of the Nation State in the post-industrial information age is the diversification of culture, the total liberation of individual from traditional bonds, globalisation and market powers resulting in the erosion of the role of the nation state and its legitimacy. The leaders of nation states have been reduced to mere Managers of public life jiggling regulations and clauses that are laid out in the big rulebook, which is scientifically proven to work.

The only area of real decision-making is the international arena where western leaders are effectively members of a club. The short term and direct outcome of aggressive international military intervention is to demonstrate leadership toughness to the voters which incidental is very important. Secondly and more importantly it gives the nation a sense of purpose and solidarity by emphasising a cultural framework that is distinct and superior.

Lets take France for an example where polls show it’s becoming ever more socially fragmented, pessimistic, xenophobic and economically under pressure and experiencing a rise in far-right politics where Marine Le Pen has emerged as a key figure for the 2017 presidential election race. In 2013 France launched Operation Serval in Northern Mali to uproot Islamists threatening the region. President Hollande’s approval ratings doubled, which had plummeted for several reasons since he was elected to office in May 2012. A poll in January 2013 showed that 75 percent of people questioned in France supported the intervention in Mali, there is not a single other issue that can command that kind of public support hence legitimacy.

Western leadership is nurturing a religiously belief in the gods of liberty and democracy, worshipped in flag rituals, national days and a godly mission to save the less fortunate by bombing them to civilisation. The soldiers of the nation are for the sacred duty, but unlike the religious duty of dying for God they are to kill for the nation, what Benedict Anderson called the “imagined community”, inadvertently nevertheless very well depicted in the Hollywood movie American Sniper. The problem with such an ideological approach to international problem in the modern day is that it exacerbates the situation for which it purports to be the cure.  A qualified argument can be made that western military action in Afghanistan intensified extremism, the same is true for Iraq, Libya and Syria.

The ideology of international democracy mission produces a perverse solidary that gives the nation its purpose at the cost of capacity to reason and apply rational solutions to international relations. The NATO military mission had little respect for Afghan life or decision-making, most key decisions were made by Westerners; some of this can be attributed to lack of sound Afghan leadership. The argument still holds by studying the dysfunctional relation of NATO members who were preoccupied by pity squabbles and showed little appetite for collaboration and coordination.

In the course of Afghan war we came to witness Westerners committing torture, illegal detentions, killing civilians and in some cases targeting civilians, large scale corruption, propping up warlords and drug lords and general abuse of power. This does not reconcile with the high moral stance the West take and only comes to show not only that the assessment and solution applied to Afghanistan was ill-suited but also the moral principles that the west pride to is conditional and only applies to some people. This is while the conflict was of low intensity in comparison to other wars fought in the last three decades that means the destruction and distress caused by the war should have been manageable especially given the tremendous military and economic capacity of the west. Afghanistan and any other country have its own context and challenges that are unique to it.  The structural injustice of agrarian state and the impediments to intellectual and political liberty created by poverty will not allow the creation of an environment in Afghanistan that is free and democratic but as experience showed it can neither be created by the military and economic power of the west unless structural issues are addressed. This includes promoting international law, funding for education, promoting regional collaboration and facilitation of free trade.   

Centre Left is losing vision in the West

On 1st of March BBC broadcasted the 17 edition of Storyville 2014-2015 titled The Great European Disaster Movie. The program was created by Bill Emmott and Annalisa Piras, two liberals whose centre left politics are known in previous programs such as Coma and their work in The Economist.

The program discusses the threat from the rise of the anti-establishment parties in Europe and the producers express their interest in highlighting the dangers of the movement and the real possibility of disintegration of the EU.

They argue for the European project in order to create a supranational institution that can project power in the world by emphasizing on collective security at 01:03:00 Philppe Legrain Author of European spring comments that “Europe is not a postmodern Lalaland, we have real security threats and need to cooperate much more in order to guarantee our security.” Security is a very common reason given by the centre-left to justify intervention in other countries and advocate EU expansion. This expansionist vision in itself is a manifestation of the Neo-European quasi imperialism. The EU and its member states use military and economic tools to undermine or influence sovereign states in the periphery of the EU. I believe this is a departure from the traditional left approach that emphasized on collaboration and dialogue to resolve conflicts and security challenges. 

The Program continues with 01:03:40 Radek Sikorski, Former foreign minister of Poland who commented, “We have security challenges and actually civilisational challenges all around Europe, from Mali to … Syria to … Caucasus...”

This Huntington style approach is fundamentally flawed since it attributes traits qualities that are actually determined by context. There are no civilisational challenges, people do not live in distinct blocks of civilisation but are simply responding to their predicament in order to survive. People in Muslim countries are living under regimes that rule by fear. In these circumstances, most people share the conspiracy mongering and political passivity that has been cultivated for hundreds of years. This is intermittently marked by populist outrage in the form of revolution that in turn is suppressed and reinforces the view that political oppression is the only answer for stability.

People whether they are Protestant, Buddhist, Orthodox, Jewish or Muslim have multiple authentic selves. In some circumstances, one set of identities manifests itself, but when those circumstances change, other equally authentic identities and desires get activated. Its wrong to perceive people as enemies because they have a different religion, this again is contrary to traditional left views which emphasised on solidarity and equality.

The most troubling of all is at 51:40:00 the scene on the plane where a man tells his daughter that the beard he holds belongs to Conchita Wurst, he continues  “when some homophobic Russians try to kick her out of the euro vision song content, the whole of Europe was outraged so they deliberately voted for her so she won.” This is racial profiling; this line of reasoning portrays Russians as homophobic that need to be confronted by the superior Europeans.

Understanding people of particular nation, religion, colour, race and gender by a set of attributes is lazy and backward.  Any of these attributes are important, but underneath cultural differences there are universal aspirations for dignity and respect. Each of us is like every person on earth; in some ways, each of us is like the members of our culture and group; and, in some ways, each of us is unique. This is where programs like this waltz on the margins of legality. The Hate Crime Act sets out to protect people from hostility and prejudice based on a personal character.  Although the program appends the word “some” to stop it from outright statement of hatred, as far as racial social discourse is concerned comments of this nature has detrimental impact on public perception of minority group.

The Elites have become so invested in their projects and discourse that they cannot gain a perspective on the wider issues.  Their rhetoric has sunk into racism in order to further their ideological aims. The EU expansion has degenerated from a tool for furthering European values and objectives to a policy on its own right.  Instead of addressing the democratic deficit created by the EU and mass immigration from the poor to rich countries, the elites have been too busy brewing tension with Russia in a ploy to divert attention. This is not an isolated view but signified by the popularity of anti establishment parties in the far right and left. 

Its ironic that the progressive politics of creating the European Union to facilitated regional integration is also the main reason for the rise of anti political movement whose main ethos is nationalism quite often bordering xenophobia.  

Who is editing Wikipedia?

I am working recently on Wikipedia Afghanistan country portal to dust of some edges and smoothen some rough patches. It’s important to me because Wikipedia is one of the main sources where people look for general information and topics of interest. It has several fold more readership than CIA factbook and BBC country profile combined and fortunately anyone can edit it.

Unfortunately my edits are quickly returned to a version that is more inline with the general media discourse and the views westerners hold about Afghanistan.  The version maintained is also in accordance with the current US policy in Afghanistan, portraying some people in favourable light and emphasizing some groups as evil. The stubbornness of the editor to maintain the current version, points to the possibility of a dedicated editor(s), which raise some curious questions.

Lets have a look at what’s out there, for instance the current summary on 1992-1996 phase of Afghan civil war has the following summary:

The 1992 to 1996 phase of the conflict in Afghanistan (1978–present) began after the resignation of the communist PresidentMohammad Najibullah. The post-communist Islamic State of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement under which all the Afghan parties were united in April 1992, except for the Hezb-e Islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the capital city Kabul which marked the beginning of this new phase in the war. In direct contrast to the Soviet era, the countryside witnessed relative calm during that period while major cities such as Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar witnessed violent fighting.

I don’t think that is accurate so I changed to the following:

The 1992 to 1996 phase of the conflict in Afghanistan (1978–present) began after the resignation of last president of Democratic Republic of Afghanistan, Mohammad Najibullah. The Islamic State of Afghanistan that succeeded the Republic of Afghanistan was established by the Peshawar Accord, a peace and power-sharing agreement under which most Mujahedeen Parties attempted to unite. While Negotiations under the auspices of Pakistan was still underway Hekmatyar's troops from the south, Massood from the North, Hezb-e-Wahdat from the West and Junbish Millie of General Dostum through International Airport infiltrated Kabul, followed by looting of Afghan Army equipment and government infrastructure.[1] The war broke out immediately for control of buildings and districts in major cities while negotiations were still underway in Peshawar.[2] Throughout the period the fictions formed kaleidoscopic variety of coalition to gain full control of Kabul city. [3]

  

The best way to writing an accurate summary of historical event is by doing sufficient research, fact checking and vetting the credentials and sniffing out conflicts of interest that might colour sources. Editors must avoid fuzzy statements, contradictions, or sweeping conclusions beyond what’s supported by evidence. Multiple and diverse sources should be provided for summary statements, quality of the statement depends on the quality of sources.

The summary statement should be related to the wider historical context. Most importantly, and I cannot overemphasize this, it should be accurate from an Afghan political and social perspective. The historical narrative available on Wikipedia that seems not to be revisable is a good representation of what the Americans think about Afghanistan.

What is the historical context from Afghan perspective that can lend meaning to the summary?

Following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, Afghanistan deteriorated into a brutal civil war between rival mujahideen groups, many of which had spent much of their energy fighting each other even during the height of the anti-Soviet jihad. This civil war claimed thousands of lives and decimated the country’s infrastructure. The civil war intensified after a mujahideen group took Kabul in April 1992. Shortly afterwards, Beirut-style street fighting erupted in the city, fictions along ethnic and sectarian lines. This civil war, fought with the vast surplus ordnance of the covert anti-Soviet military aid program and huge stockpiles of abandoned Soviet weapons, eventually wreaked as much if not more damage and destruction on the country than the Soviet invasion and occupation. Kabul, which was left virtually untouched under Soviet occupation, was savagely bombarded with rockets, mortars, and artillery. In Kandahar, fighting between Islamists and traditionalist mujahideen parties resulted in the destruction of much of the traditional power structures. In the rural areas, warlords, drug lords, and bandits ran amok in a state of anarchy created by the unraveling of the traditional tribal leadership system.

There is no good or evil here but rather a very important lesson that sectarian and fictional politics will give rise to militancy and violent religious extremism. This is not the creation of one evil man or group but brought about as a result of uncertainty and chaos of war.

sources:

---

[1] Conflict in Afghanistan: A Historical Encyclopedia By Frank Clements page 122

[2] U.S. Library of Congress, http://countrystudies.us/afghanistan/125.htm

[3] http://www.nps.edu/programs/ccs/docs/pubs/understanding%20the%20taliban%20and%20insurgency%20in%20afghanistan.pdf

closure of local radio in Baghlan

its unfortunate to hear reports of police crack down on local Khoshi radio in Baghlan. the closure of the radio and the arrest of radio staff can not be justified. The ministry of information and interior should investigate the threats made by the local council of Ulema to burn down the station. the Ulema council should be directed to complaint channels and legal redressing should they have concern about radio content, such measure are clearly laid out in Afghan media law. Threat to resort to violence over disagreement is against the law and goes against the spirit of Islamic conduct and decency.
this is also an abuse of power to arrest and cease by the police, its not there to be used at will of the police chief but to enforce the law. 

this is worrying as the international presence comes to a drawdown the future of media freedoms in Afghanistan remain uncertain and there is a chance in reversal of achievement gained in the last ten years with support from international community and journalist support organisations. 

a letter to Rory Stewart on light touch in Afghanistan

Dear Rory Stewart,

you are one of the luckiest public figures to see in your life time your theory being put through thorough tests by the turn of events to confirm or refute it decisively. its most astonishing for its time frame, a year after your argument against western presence in Afghanistan and how grotesquely Islamist threat has been exaggerated by the west in a TED talk, the Islamic State in Sham (historical Syria and Iraq) is rampaging through cities and towns destabilising the region and causing a human tragedy, its also posing a serious threat to western interests and security and will continue to if left unchecked. 

Rory Stewart here is an exerpt from your speech  “… its extremely unlikely that Alqaida would enhance its ability to harm the United States or harm Europe this isn’t the 1990s anymore, if an Alqaida base was to be established near Ghazni we would hit them hard and it would be difficult for Taliban to protect them… its a great picture of David Beckham on the submachine gun … ”   

first and foremost its not a submachine gun, its a a 50Cal heavy machine gun with Linkless feed system. 

Rory the analysis of Islamism you presented is flawed, it fundamentally misinforms the forces at play, the people, politics, the history, the regional and global interplay and the role of various institutions. this TED talk is a representation of what exactly is wrong with the west. your solution for everything is Air strike, you got a cough!? air strike! this is not how you promote global stability.  in an alternative universe would Britain be stable if the Afghan Air Force conducted a raid on UKIP HQ due to a remark by Nigel Farage or pay and train the French to burn down all the schools in Farage’s constituency? don't bother its rhetorical. 

Its not only the recent evidence but also the shortcomings of the argument, the approach you present is contradictory. while its argued against western support and mentoring of the young Afghan government you have been keen to argue for a Hawkish stand against Russia and establishment of new bases to “confront Russia”. its beweldering to me why you would argue for and against the primacy of military emphasise at the same time.  

The argument is based on wrong lesson from Afghanistan, its not that doing little or nothing is western interest in Afghanistan or across the world but the west needs to fundamentally rethink its relationship with the rest of the world. the most important lesson that needs to be learned from the failed mission in Afghanistan is how difficult it is to stabilise and establish minimal institutions after a period of instability which is caused by factionalism and proxy wars. air strikes is not going to solve security problems or bring prosperity.  The west needs to develop and practice a doctrine of military restraint to stop it from unleashing its might against fragile state and learn to trade and partner with fragile states. I laugh as i say this, its not going to happen because it goes against human nature but its a valid point for debunking your argument. 

I also disagree with scenarios proposed in TED talk. it foresees events in a linear dimension "Taliban are not going to return … Alqaida is not going to return … Islamism is not a threat to the west…  Afghans are like X or Y …. if Taliban return we will do X or Y and that will sort it”. This is not how complex event pans out. complexity is created out of numerous causes and millions of potential causes, the outcome of it can neither be predicted nor managed because there are so many things that can happen. our brain is programmed to identify X and Y as important events and provide a range of reasons. this is intellectual fraud, there are a millions of substitutes for X and Y and all are as valid. when is the next big forest fire going to be? where is it going to be? is the fire in the Southdown National Park going to be a bone fire or a large fire? We have limited ability to predict the course of events or manage them. What is the next big political event going to be? is it going to be Taliban or Insurgency in India? bang no its ISIL. bang! its Ukraine. nobody foresaw this. yet all politician would find reasons to explain it. this is what i call intellectual fraud. how many ISIL or humiliation in Afghanistan or financial crisis need to happen before politician learn this simple premises. It is misleading to create scenarios based on observed facts. Contrary to conventional wisdom, our ability to foresee events does not increase from a series of confirmatory observation or past scenarios. 

I did not like your series about Afghanistan on BBC2, you erroneously bundled all foreign interventions together for condemnation. I also found the documentary condescending and offensive in a typically British way. the program did not attempt to achieve a balanced understanding of Afghan psyche, it was skewed toward interviewing people who would confirm the programme premises. The programme bundled together various points of history without understanding the dynamics of the situations. it ignored the fact that, with the exception of few, Afghans support western presence in Afghanistan. I know personally hundreds of Afghans like myself who would oppose Soviet and British interventions of 20th and 19th centuries but would support current NATO mission in their country. 

It comes as a surprise to me to hear there is a Tory MP in Scotland, you must feel out of place. 

Grand irony

Perhaps it's surprising that association of economic progress with disillusion is western peculiarity. As a major political and social stream the left and the youth have always been conspicuously ungrateful for the benefits conferred by capitalism not the least of which has been functioning educational system and state institutions that has been instrumental to a conducive environment where they roam, think and live free. I wonder if they notice the irony.

narrative fallacy

did you see John Kerry's article on Afghan unity government? link below and my thought is:

Politicians have us convinced that their measure is useful by pointing out instances where it proved helpful, not those where it was a waste of time, or, worse, those numerous objectives that were not met inflicted a severe cost on society owing to the highly unempirical nature of their approach. we naturally tend to look for instances that confirm our story and our vision of the world (narrative fallacy). one of those visions deal with the duality of nature - evil and good. this makes it possible for the government to construct stories that would fit our vision of the world and have us get behind it. You take past instances that corroborate your theories and you treat them as evidence. they will brush aside the numbers instances they failed. any fool with the tool can prove what they are looking for, a series of corroborative facts is not necessarily evidence. The government has massive resources to hire researcher to prove whatever they needed to be proven.  the exploitation of our confirmatory bias is then mixed with attempts like this; they will deliberately confuse audience when it suits them, they will be happy to show us their "accomplishment” and frame it as social accomplishment while there is no societal benefit from them having their job done. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-kerry-afghanistans-triumph-of-statesmanship-and-compromise/2014/09/26/8393f858-45b2-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html

knowledge is overrated

In the last decade and half that I was part of the Afghan media circle I have come to notice that journalists tended to focus not necessarily around the same opinions but frequently around the same framework of analyses. They assign the same importance to the same sets of circumstances and cut reality into the same categories, creating an environment where opinions and analysis are based on each other. The character of the Afghan state was reclaimed a democracy after three decades of roller coaster that took it from democracy to Islamic republic to Islamic emirate. While Afghanistan had traditionally been part of Central Asia with centuries of cultural and linguistic ties it was moved to south Asia overnight, the things the mind can do - heave off an entire country. but the natives did not become conditioned to any of this; as the years passed by this become a game of the elites and far removed from the people. this should already be surprising, people carry on with their lives no matter what others make of them or think of them.  A friend who happened to be a journalist too once asked me what is the news on the street and I gave him the usual run down he readily replied “no, no. not that, the word on the street, the small talks”. he travelled around in taxis and relished a chat with the cabdriver. I later realised that he was up to something. I noticed that very intelligent and informed persons were at no advantage over cabdrivers in their predictions, but there was a crucial difference. Cabdrivers did not believe that they understood as much as learned people—really, they were not the experts and they knew it. Nobody knew anything, but elite thinkers thought that they knew more than the rest because they were elite thinkers, and if you’re a member of the elite, you automatically know more than the non elite. you might think that I am being harsh of the educated but there is a whole lot of literature out there that reveals the relation between power and access on one hand and the monopoly over knowledge; I have first hand experience of western graduates and hillbillies running top organisations or setting agenda from an advisory position. The reason Afghans took the back seat role was because the westerners had access to information or at least sources that packaged information. It is not just knowledge but information that can be of dubious value. It came to my notice that almost everybody was acquainted with current events in their smallest details. hundreds of radio and television stations had been set up with assistance from westerners and sponsored by warlords. The overlap between news was so large that you would get less and less information the more you knew. Yet everyone was so eager to become familiar with every fact that they read every freshly printed document and listened to every radio station as if the great answer was going to be revealed to them in the next bulletin. as a member of the elites and one who worked parallel with the westerners I can confirm that the problem was even worst among the westerners. they spent most of their working day gathering news from mass media and most of the afternoon in networking, euphemism for an event dedicated to information exchange.

Another variation of the same event you can see in the banking and investment industry. after the financial crush of 2008 it should be obvious to us that nobody really knew what was going on but the bankers found away to wrap their information in mathematics. don’t get me wrong the maths were accurate so is much of the information in the media but then why are we fooled.  it is a problem of knowledge and science. My idea is that not only are some scientific results useless in real life, because they underestimate the impact of the highly improbable (or lead us to ignore it), but that many of them may be actually creating false expectations and distorted probabilities. worst of all the scientific method can convincingly explain unforeseen events after its occurrence, boosting our conviction to deal with the world as we did and by using science and information. 

Generalisation is necessary for humans, but it becomes pathological when the category is seen as definitive, preventing people from considering the fuzziness of boundaries, let alone revising their categories. intellectual contagion was the culprit. If you selected one hundred independent-minded journalists capable of seeing factors in isolation from one another, you would get one hundred different opinions. But the process of having these people report in lockstep caused the dimensionality of the opinion set to shrink considerably—they converged on opinions and used the same items as causes. For instance, to depart from Afghanistan for a moment, reporters now refer to “2013 UK chart” assuming that there was something particularly distinct about music, bankers agreed on crazy indicators as explanatory factors of the quality of worthiness of individuals. If you want to see what I mean by the arbitrariness of categories, check the situation of polarized politics. The next time a Martian visits earth, try to explain to him why strong Scottish independence fever is in response to the rise of Euro Scepticism in England, Scotland would rather exit the Union with Celtic and anglo-saxon neighbours and enter one with a few dozen countries which are thousands of miles away;  or while Scottish politician are in favour of more political freedoms they oppose economic freedoms. try explaining that while Obama administration seeks to address factionalism in Iraq by supporting a central government its trying to achieve the same aim at the same time in Syria by fighting against the government. or try riddling the reason Obama administration is planning to remove Syrian president is because he is seen as evil while the administration is allied with Saudi King or Qatari government or Iraqi government which is as evil and corrupt. I noticed the absurdity of categorisation when I was quite young. The best way to prove the arbitrary character of these categories, and the contagion effect they produce, is to remember how frequently these generalisations reverse in history. Libertarians used to be left-wing. Saddam Hussain was american ally. Christian Intellectuals until mid 20 century were anti-Semite while Muslims were Jewish allies. Ukraine was Russian slav brothers. Poland has a two century experience of partition and occupation and now is at the forefront and payroll of American quasi imperial expeditionary wars. Afghan political elites were staunched anti foreign who fought the Soviets and Pakistan for  two decades and now under American thumbs. any student of history can not stop once they start the counts of these ironies. What is interesting to me is that some random event makes one group that initially supports an issue ally itself with another group that supports another issue, thus causing the two items to fuse and unify … until the surprise of separation. Categorising always produces reduction in true complexity. Any reduction of the world around us can have explosive consequences since it rules out some sources of uncertainty; it drives us to a misunderstanding of the fabric of the world. For instance, killing teachers, destroying schools, killing health professionals and destroying hospitals were legitimate targets and pursued  by American Administration in Afghanistan through Islamic radicals for a decade until the same people destroyed a few of your buildings.  

Since I have moved to the UK I have been astonished and bewlidered at how efficiently this country functions. there is no doubt that British people and those in charge of the country are knowedgable but according to my narrative knowledge is useless so what was the secret of the success. until it finally hit me, it was freedom. intelligent people and decision makers do not create prosperity; its efficient systems that create prosperity by nurturing an environment where contradictory opinions shape and struggle against each other and individual and group sets on various courses, some would fail while others would succeed. its this fertile ground for trial and error that is the reason for success. the opposite of intelligent society is not unintelligent society but efficient society. you need the opposite of intelligent society to achieve property. my idea of efficient society was reinforced when I took up for awhile trading futures, forex and other financial commodities. I realised that there is no way to derive profits from traded securities since these instruments have automatically incorporated all the available information. Public information can therefore be useless, particularly to a businessman, since prices can already “include” all such information, and news shared with millions gives you no real advantage. Odds are that one or more of the hundreds of millions of other readers of such information will already have bought the security, thus pushing up the price. I then give up watching Bloomberg and reading Financial Times. I also thought myself mathematics and run technical analysis on the market. this too was useless as i realised the strain of technical trading would wear me down and panic would easily set in when we face losses.markets are efficient not because of scientific tools or perfect information but because of the participant interaction. 

I would like to use this arguement to drive a couple of lessons that we can apply to the current events. I think the election in Afghanistan is a farce, it has no impact on prosperity as a matter of fact it has negative impact on property by causing ethnic agitation and factional confrontation. the salvation of Afghanistan is to stop elections and create an efficient system of governance. the same argument applies to Scottish independence. the question scots should ask is whether the system is working or not and whether they feel nationalistic or not. having a Scottish government led by Scottish politician will have no impact on prosperity. 

What should the EU learn from the situation in Ukraine

Ukraine is another example of EU failure resulting from expansionist policies. As the situation in Kiev increasingly resembles a civil war the EU has failed to take an effective stance. Not only does Russia have a greater stake in Ukraine, it also has more potential for wielding influence. That's not just the 15 billion dollars that Putin has now promised. With its - failed - association agreement, the EU seems to have overlooked this. Russia's partnership with Ukraine is of decisive importance for its geopolitical position in Europe. Russia has legitimate interests in Ukraine that can't be ignored. So it's high time to bury the completely anachronistic conflict between Brussels and Moscow about whose zone of influence Ukraine lies in. The EU must come to an understanding with Russia. By working together, they can perhaps bring their influence to bear in Kiev.

I have always felt that the task the EU has set itself to is too complex to be handled by an organisation. The integration of nation states into a common legal and economic block with citizen rights as the aim of governance is not something anyone has got anything reasonable against. It’s the politics and organisational processes that I object against. The EU has turned into an expansionist institution very similar to imperial powers, as they always do, the EU too has lost discretion and effectiveness. let me highlight what I mean by expansionism, after the fall of communism the EU expanded to the east and south. the accession process was the single most important engine for change in those countries. But once the member state has joined the European Union, The EU has no instrument to see whether the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary still command respect. In some cases it does not; less than three months after joining the EU Croatia created laws to protect alleged war criminals who committed atrocities during the Balkan wars from extradition. And new member states across Central Europe continue to draw fire for segregation and violent attacks against minorities. Amnesty International reported more than 120 beatings, shootings and stabbings over the past four years. When the Croatian soccer player Josip Simunic celebrated his team's victory over Iceland in 2013 with a nationalist slogan from the country's World War II pro-Nazi puppet regime, thousands of fans roared in approval. Hungary hasn't made sufficient progress towards a sustainable correction of its excessive deficit and worsened the situation by making changes to central bank, data protection and judiciary. the new central bank law puts the bank's independence at risk by allowing the president to install a new deputy governor. In none of these circumstances the EU was able to enact sanctions against the member state and it seems to an onlooker that the EU is only effective until members join the club and the club is unable or unwilling to take action against the members while very keen to add new members.  

The most common trap that developmental outreach campaigns run afoul

It is "Professionalism"! let me explain.

Development Organisations, such as INGOs and UN branches as well as government aid agencies, focus the efforts of public relation on producing what they have termed success stories. This misses the simple notion that you ought to build bridges of truthfulness and sincerity. That dreaded term, the public relation, is quite often a way to allocate resources for efforts that responds to expectations while the real object of outreach is to build trustful relation with target audience based on honesty. I am not arguing that we should set out to achieving objective honesty. far from it I believe that is not achievable in development work without the accountability that can only be assumed by democratic national government. I am arguing for intentional honesty, the aim of which is to bridge the divide between beneficiary expectation and development effort. There is overwhelming evidence that shows people are more likely to engage in efforts in the community when the effort speaks to them and when it faces similar obstacles and problems as they do.

We have all heard so many times that we have to approach this issue formally and in a professional manner. This disguise conceals lack of information and understanding but portrays someone who sounds knowledgeable. The most important element of “Public Relation” in my view is for media professionals to understand the issue first before setting out on a media campaign. The notion to summon a professional self is misguided and undermines the most efficient mechanism they have at their disposal which is relating the issue to their own experience and life. We understand the world through personal experience and no pseudoscientific media campaign comes close enough to a good substitute. I often wonder if professionals approach all issues in this manner. Can you imagine these people going home and talking with their children “children tonight for dinner and entertainment we are having a workshop, where we intend to reinforce our family values, create an environment where our sisters feel safe. The way we are going to do is by drawing. Lets draw pictures of how we see our family. What’s that Ivan, do you want some milk, that is great, go ahead and draw some milk. As a matter of fact lets all draw a supper for us. Then we sit and think about how we would eat it. Did you all like your supper?”

Much of the work about media outreach in the development context is generated by expatriates who work and live in far and wild places for a year or two where they live in a bubble inside which they enjoy amenities not available to locals. This means they don’t get to have the authentic experience of life but yet they are considered experts by fiat of just in the geographical location. expatriate professional does not understand the underpinnings and their experience is mostly literal. Much like my experience the other day in the pub. I ordered a beer and the waitress said “do you want anything else, love” and I said “oh! we're doing that, you look exquisite and nice but I am married” she looked stunned and had no idea what I was talking about, you can't even order a beer if you take people literally. I later found out that love in British doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. It’s a way of insulting people who are not doing as good as they think they are. I learned this after I picked tennis for awhile, if its 30 love then it’s not good.

Development agencies are like corporations from the  80s they have not benefited at all from the astonishing headways in the field of psychology that explains human behaviour and creativity. A more effective way of engaging the populous through media effort is by understanding how local staff relate to the organisation and how the beneficiaries value development issues. With the invent of digital media and recent advances in social media and telephony this is easier than ever before.