President Obama is in Oslo, and I have two distant connections to the evens that I thought I’d share. First, my Norwegian knitting fairy godmother Annemor Sundbø emailed me yesterday - she saw an interview on television with a woman who had met a younger Obama, when she lost her airline ticket. He bought her a replacement. She has knit five pair of Selbu mittens for the entire family, as a belated thank you. She even mentioned my book in the interview. Second, the beautiful Oslo Radhus where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded, was designed by the uncle of my other favorite Norwegian knitter, Annichen Sibbern Bohn. Annichen worked as a designer for her uncle’s firm, so her art and aesthetic live on in one of the most celebrated buildings in Europe. And I get to republish her most important book. Like I said, the connections are distant, but they’re real. I feel honored.
In the spirit of the day, and in a rare break with the history of this blog, I’m going to take an opportunity to talk a little politics. The state of world peace demands the best ideas of all of the world’s citizens. If I can contribute in any way, even remotely, then it’s worth it.
It is unrealistic, always was unrealistic, to think that any modern country could bring troops into Afghanistan and receive anything other than resistance. And fierce resistance. Afghanistan has not been successfully taken over by a foreign power since Alexander the Great. That’s two thousand years these people have protected their land from whom they consider invaders. They don’t want us there, they don’t want anyone there. In modern history, they defeated Great Britain, Russia, and now the U.S. We were naive to think we could walk in and take control. We have set up and maintain a puppet government that is largely ignored outside the capital city. The Taliban have reestablished leadership in much of the country, running shadow governments along side the “official” one.
These are not opinions. These are facts.
The war in Afghanistan is a nightmare. The United States may have had the best of intentions in invading the country, but it was done poorly, it was then ignored, and the country is in worse condition now than it was before we went there. We promised roads and hospitals and schools and peace, and instead we have given them bombs at midnight. President Obama inherited a mess, and sadly, he’s going to have to clean it up.
The questions to answer are:
- How do we clean up the mess we made?
- How do we support a stable society in a country that hasn’t known one in generations?
- How do we encourage the peoples of Afghanistan and their neighbors to view modernity with anything other than cynicism?
It’s simple yet difficult. We clean up the mess by supporting a stable form of organization, a form of the Afghan people’s choosing, and when we keep the promises we made, we will demonstrate our honor and begin to earn their trust.
We cannot impose a twenty-first century western style democracy on Afghanistan. Just like Russia could not impose a twentieth century socialist system, and Great Britain could not impose colonialism. Any peaceful solution has to come from within. I think it’s going to look a lot like feudalism. There are leaders of small communities who command respect, if only through fear, and we have to work with them instead of fighting them, because we will lose.
The first step in helping Afghanistan build a stable society must be the recognition that there is not a monolithic Afghan culture. We give lip service to this reality when we refer to “tribal leaders” but we haven’t fully accepted what that term implies: Afghanistan is a conglomerate of cultures, and we cannot expect them all to think the same way. We cannot expect that a solution in one region will work in another, any more than we can expect Italy and Iceland to be the same. Too different? How about Iceland and Ireland? Israel and Palestine? New York and Philadelphia? The same problem in different cultures may require different solutions.
We must also recognize that cultural borders and political borders are not in the same place in this region of the world. And by We I mean everybody. All governments. Afghanistan’s internal chaos infects its neighbors, and they must adjust their ways of thinking about Afghanistan for their own security.
What if, instead of dropping soldiers, we dropped doctors and engineers into the valleys? What if, instead of threatening to drag their wives and daughters away to indoctrinate them into Western ways, we offered free local education to enable them to be better wives and mothers? (Can you blame them for not wanting to grow up to be a Carrie Prejean?) What if, instead of threatening their cultures, we introduced anthropologists to help protect it from the very real, very terrifying changes that come crashing in the dark of night?
What if, instead of thinking we know what’s best, we ask them how we can help? Because I’m quite sure that, like mothers and fathers everywhere, the people who live in the countryside of Afghanistan would very much prefer to raise their families in peace. I don’t imagine they like bullet holes in their walls any more than I would. I bet they’d like to tend their gardens without a gun slung over the shoulder. I’m pretty sure they’d like their daughters to live happy, healthy, socially normal lives. Normal for them. Then grow up to marry nice young men and build their own happy families.
So how do we get from here to there?
The U.S. military will always ask for more troops. Their business is war, and they do it well. President Obama must remember that the military, however, is only a tool to be used for political purposes. So while the military is shooting back at people shooting at them, the State department has GOT to be building relationships in the “tribal” areas. Use the military as a shield to put the diplomatic and humanitarian pieces into place. If there’s an area where we already have decent working relationships, then get the engineers and doctors and agricultural experts to work right away. Today. Build the houses and roads and hospitals and power grids and water processing facilities and communications structures. Find crops other than opium poppies. One success can be used as a marketing tool to convince other tribal leaders that the U.S. isn’t all bombs. We really do want to help.
Might I also suggest, that since this is going to take a long time, maybe the federal government can offer scholarships or some financial help to today’s college students who would like to study the culture, language, and history of Afghanistan? We’re going to need people to work there, and they need to know who they’re working with.
And when, in a few decades, the distinct cultures of Afghanistan have had time to rebuild, they realize that the bombs aren’t going to come any more, the “tribal leaders” decide that maybe it’s not so bad for girls to learn to read and do math, because then they can learn to grow better gardens and raise healthier children, won’t that be a success? And maybe the new generation of “tribal leaders” will discover that the government in Kabul has something to offer, that will make their lives just a little easier. And they’ll want to cooperate, because it will be in their own best interest.
( the pattern that goes with the article above. )
is as done as she’s going to get this year. 1.0 release, ok? Even poor Prudence is so overwrought that she’s gotten into the dandelion wine again. There, there, dear. It will be all right.