(updated below)

Iraq has dominated the headlines in the past six years, but the legacy of a less-discussed ongoing conflict may be more relevant to future security and state-building efforts.  Say what you will about the moral relevance of America’s role in Iraq, but it is Afghanistan that stands most prominent and most challenging in the effort to improve global security.

Photo: REUTERS/Goran Tomasevic

It’s been over eight years since American troops hit the ground in Afghanistan, and the results have been underwhelming.  Osama bin Laden is still at large, the Taliban is still entrenched in wide swaths of the country, and democracy is tenuous at best.  President Obama has announced a troop increase to establish a wider security perimeter around Kabul and hopefully turn the tide against pockets of insurgent resistance throughout the countryside.  However, this decision has been met with a large amount of skepticism, as it represents an escalation rather than a significant shift in strategy.

Perhaps it is time to go back to the drawing board and completely rethink our Afghanistan strategy.

An appropriate starting point is objectives.  To date, our Afghanistan policy has had three goals: to eliminate elements of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, to achieve lasting security through the elimination of armed resistance associated with the Taliban, and to establish and promote a working democracy.  After eight years, these objectives remain wishful thinking.  Recent news reports from Afghanistan – of an increase in violence and a deeply flawed election – cast doubt on the efficacy of the mission.

By reconceptualizing how we view a post-conflict Afghan society, we may be able to temper some of the discontent and division that has made security and the practice of democracy impossible.

A recent Transparency International report, the 2009 Corruption Perceptions Index, measured the level of corruption in the public spheres of 189 countries and decried Afghanistan as the second-most corrupt state in the world after Somalia.  Like in Somalia, many regions of Afghanistan remain outside effective government control.  This limits the ability of the state to enforce the rule of law or establish legitimacy as a source of arbitration or regulation.

As Jeffrey Herbst writes, states that fail to establish influence in the periphery of territories become hollow shells, with the inviolability of borders defended by international institutions like the UN and legitimate state institutions clustered solely at the center.   The state lacks the capacity to project power from the center across the geographic territory enclosed by the internationally recognized borders.  The result is effectively a state that exists only in the capital; outside Kabul, chaos reigns.  In William Reno’s seminal work on warlordism in Africa, he writes that a hollow state creates the opportunity for entrepreneurs to challenge state sovereignty and ownership of resources in the periphery.  Pockets of alternate resource provision rise, as these entrepreneurs establish links with localized populations and compete for local hegemony with both rivals and the state.

We’ve seen this happen in Afghanistan, where the absence of the state in places like Kandahar and Jalalabad has given berth to factionalized groups seeking to assert dominance.  As Gilles Dorronsoro of the Carnegie Endowment writes:

The Taliban are mostly LOCAL. It is not possible to “protect the population” against the Taliban; they are part of the population and the more we fight the more they are popular.

Kandahar: Outside State Control. Photo: PHILIP POUPIN.

The factor most limiting to the ability of the state to assert control over the periphery is legitimacy.  Most Afghans view the alternate sources of power of warlords and the Taliban as stronger and more real than the state.  But many also view them as more legitimate voices of the people, representing local interests in the community rather than the international norms hoisted upon the national government in Kabul.  The embedded nature of insurgent groups makes it difficult to severe the ties of political trust placed in localized groups, however violent they may be.  As Austin Long of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs writes:

The Taliban [in Kandahar] are local, but the motives of local Taliban are not automatically the same as the motives of the Quetta Shura. They are about specific local grievances that can be addressed. This may be hard given that many of the grievances are against the Afghan government or parts of it, but it is not impossible.

Democratization is in part about establishing legitimacy of a national representative government, and this is an area in which the nation-building project in Afghanistan has failed.

President Hamid Karzai has offered little reassurance in the legitimacy of the state.  After four years as President that were marked most notably by the lack of real anti-corruption reform, the recent 2009 presidential elections were marred by allegations of voter intimidation and ballot-stuffing.  Corruption and electoral fraud serve to further distance the state from the peripheral population, whose criticisms of the non-representative nature of the national government have been partially confirmed.

We’ve reached something of an impasse in Afghanistan, where the entrenched militant groups become more popular with the continued failings of the national government, and efforts to eliminate pockets of the Taliban through ISAF-led military operations have only created additional grievances among local populations.  A new strategy is clearly needed.

In attempting to explain continued inequality in the face of professed universal liberty in the United States, Judith Shklar laid the foundation for a modern theory of citizenship that aptly captures a disconnect between Afghan society and policy implementation there.  Shklar described two forms of citizenship – republican citizenship tied closely to locality and kinship, common in the ancient Greek polis; and liberal citizenship signifying a universal membership in a larger body politick, such as that forged by the Roman Empire.

Contemporary notions of citizenship tend to be liberal.  The nation-state has become the predominant political actor in world politics today, and as such, nation-building is a paramount developmental activity of the modern state.

In Afghanistan, the commitment to liberal citizenship is an assumption made by Western states and institutions seeking to shape a modern Afghan state.  It is not necessarily an indigenous value.  In fact, evidence that Afghans feel a close bond with factions tied to individual communities suggests that the widespread conception of citizenship in Afghanistan is republican in nature.  If this is the case, it is no wonder that there is little widespread appeal of a national state based on universalistic values rather than local issues and identities.

A man rides a bike across the ruined landscape of Kabul. Photo: AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

A reconceptualization of the ideal Afghan state is thus in order.  Rather than focusing on a centralized political apparatus that emanates power from Kabul, strategies that decentralize state power and embed institutions in local communities is necessary.  Given the low density and large territory of Afghanistan, this is a monumental task.  However, there is already evidence that it is more effective than current strategy.  As Austin Long describes:

Spin Boldak district, which, being on the border with Pakistan should be easy prey, is not secure, but neither is it Taliban dominated. This is despite the low presence of ISAF (coalition) troops. Why? The local strongman, General Razziq of the Border Police, is effective at both managing local tribal grievances and fighting the Taliban.

A clear strategy emerges from this anecdote. Rather than seeking to replace existing power structures in Afghanistan, the international community (and the Afghan central state) should actively seek out local institutions and individuals that can be entrusted to utilize state resources in this way.  Conflict mitigation is an important step in increasing state legitimacy.  As embedded institutions and individuals make headway in replacing elements of the Taliban as legitimate purveyors of the rule of law and community reconciliation, faith in government institutions as legitimate will only increase.  In fact, this is not entirely different from the strategy for Iraq proposed and articulated by Vice President Joe Biden when he served as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

This is a long project, and not an easy one.  But if we refocus our efforts in Afghanistan to include legitimacy-building as well as democracy promotion, we may still achieve the outcomes we desire: human security, the elimination of the Taliban and al Qaeda as popular alternatives to the state, and democratic capacity.

Update: It seems that the new strategy in Afghanistan that President Obama will unveil next Tuesday is expected to represent this “bottom-up” type approach of emphasizing locality over centralized reform.  According to The Economist:

[O]ne change is that American troops are increasingly teaming up with Afghan tribal militias, in hopes of replicating the Anbar Awakening that took place in Iraq. The strategy involves a bottom-up approach to national unity. Mr Kaplan explains: “An explicit and essential part of [Army Major Jim] Gant’s strategy is to draw the individual tribal teams into a network of tribes—first across the province, then the region, then the nation—tied in to the Kabul government through a web of mutual defenses and the supply of basic services.” After eight years of relying on Hamid Karzai and the government in Kabul, this sounds like a promising new approach.

Now we’ll just have to see whether this works.

This morning three birthday cards caught my attention in a store: “I bow to your oldness,” “Annually Challenged,” and “Dangerously close to being Old.”   I thought of sending one of them to my elderly mother, but thought the humor might pass her by and my birthday might provoke a similar card.   In looking at the cards, I was reminded of how much youth and newness are valued in American society.  Babies are generally regarded as being cuter than ninety year-0lds.  Wrinkes are not sought for their asthetic qualities.  In the European States of Greece and Italy, it is not unusual in the culture for older men to fancy younger women.  In many of the American States, people like to tear down old buildings in order to build new ones.  I myself much prefer new to old buildings.  What if we could pause our lives for, say, two hundred years, and thus be able to continue on in a world in which everything would seem new to us?  What if the problem of aging, and mortality itself, could be solved?

Last night, David Letterman was making some pretty funny cryogenic jokes, such as in visualizing grandpa’s frozen head being used to cool the punch in a bowl.  Letterman’s own head could roll, given his recent revelation that he has been sleeping with members of his staff.  According to NOW (the national organization of women), the controversy has “raised serious issues about the abuse of power leading to an inappropriate, if not hostile, workplace environment for women and employees” (CNN, 10/7/09).  Men such as Letterman make decisions on hiring and firing, who gets raises, who advances and who does entry-level tasks, NOW said. Maybe sleeping with the presumably younger women made Letterman feel younger and more alive?   Although Freud theorized a death instinct, most of us want to live more than we want to die.  Presumably Letterman does not want to die on the air, or deliver a dead-pan joke.  So the prospect of being frozen until such a time that science has determined how to solve the little problem known as physiological mortality is…well…interesting. 

What would it be like to be frozen and then “revived” in two hundred years.?   Looking back…everyone alive now being then gone…and their world being “distant”.  We could look back to what had been written about Barak Obama.  We could meet our great, great, great grandchildren.  Those of us who have penned books could see how they panned out–whether what one has written has transcended the author’s own age.  This important criterion is one that must remain unanswered for any writer. 

Philosphically (in the sense of French existentialism), I contrast the sense of being “instantly” revived (as though waking up the next morning without any recognition of 8 hours having past) with the alternative.  I wonder also what things will be like in 200 years.  Will technology continue to be the dominant element of change, as in the last century?  Or will political, economic or social changes dwarf it?  An age can perhaps be characterized by the element doing the most changing.  Contrast the amount of technological change with that of your field during the 20th century.  Or put another way, what would counseling look like were it to have changed as much as technology has changed?  I think a trigger is necessary (as in an earthquake) for an element to engage in such qualitative change that can define an era, so it is perhaps impossible to predict which element will be decisive next.  We tend to assume that the element dominant in change in our time will simply continue to be the salient element of change.  What if the element is language, such that a global tongue emerges (not from technology)?  The world would be much different even if technology remained oriented to the computer rather than “leaping” forward. 

Returning now to our own day, perhaps the salience of technology as the dominant domain of change blinds us to the alternative domains that could experience expodential rates of change.  What would such political change be like?  Or psychological?  Or even social?  If these domains were to change as much as technology has changed in the twentieth century alone, what could we look for?   In presuming as a default the technological nature of development, we don’t even raise these questions, let alone work on possible answers.  Perhaps this new century will be different.  Sadly, those of us alive now are not likely to know.  However, we do have Letterman’s jokes to keep us entertained…if his head doesn’t drop off the air into the punch-bowl at a victory party at NOW headquarters.

Article cited: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/TV/10/07/letterman.now/index.html

For the epilogue to my year that was in China I have decided to use numbers to keep track.  Kind of like the ubiquitous No. 3 Good Chinese Restaurants that can be found in small towns across America. When I came back to the States, I told my friends and other fellows that it was going to take me several weeks to process all that happened and everything that I saw in China.  I was also preoccupied with re-establishing my life back here, searching for a new job, and reconnecting with family and old friends.  It’s hard to simultaneously wrap your mind around building a life at home and making sense of a year spent in the thick of China. People ask me all of the time, "how was China?" and I’m hard-pressed to come up with something that encompasses everything single emotion the country engenders in me.  Usually I rely on a series of banal adjectives like "chaotic", "fascinating", "absurd", "interesting", and "awesome".  None of these words do the country, its people, or my experience justice.  It’s probably more telling to be standing with me when I read a news story about China such as a recent one announcing that the central government has decided to stop petitioners with grievances from coming all the way to Beijing as a way to maintain "social harmony and stability" ahead of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the country.  My reaction of a slight knowing nod and a grimace that the goal of harmony is enough to stifle one legitimate form of airing grievances is more natural and real than any adjectives I could string together.  Or when I get an email from one of my former students and I break out into a smile because of their sweet words and unique insights on what is going on around them.  These reactions tell an observer a lot more about how I feel about this country that defies easy explanation. Not a day goes by since I have been back that I do not think about my days in China, but it is harder to think about what my time there meant and what it means to me going forward.  One thing that certainly changed during my time there was my thought on the chances for genuine political reform in China. Before I left, I was true to my liberal-internationalist leanings and believed economic development, as well as greater integration in international institutions would lead the Chinese people to eventually demand some meaningful political reform.  However, my thoughts on China’s future political development differed from many of the people I met there and taught in my classroom.  Most Chinese people find politics boring, which is only natural if your entire educational experience equated politics with Marxism and that was what you grew up thinking was politics.  If a majority of population finds politics boring, how can you begin to talk about political reform without people tuning out?  The challenge to is to make political reform about something the majority of the people care about.  One theme that has been a constant in my blog posts is the preeminence of economic growth and the ability to consume.  This preeminence is what had the government scared at the outset of the global economic crisis and what caused the government to pump hundreds of billions of dollars of stimulus into the Chinese economy.  For the government knew that if it broke this social contract of providing continuing economic growth to the people, there would be demands that something change politically and the central government was not about to let that happen.  Speaking in terms of just political reform will fail to gain traction with the general population, but make it about their ability to buy new BMWs, Louis Vuitton handbags, and Rolex watches and you may have a chance of making some headway with the general population on the issue of political reform. But if you could get through to the people this way, even with the advances in technology, it’s hard to disseminate such messages to the people without invoking the massive security and intelligence apparatus of the central government. You can also forget about large groups of people banding together in the face of a common mission.  While protests are common across the country over environmental degradation or lost wages, not since Tiananmen has there been any sort of overtly political protest.  My students who harbor political ideas different from the mainstream have intimated the futility of discussing such ideas with the classmates either out of fear of being ratted out as some sort of traitor or just being thought of as strange and uncool for discussing politics.  I was also told repeatedly in my classes that politics was boring and no one cared about politics the way that Americans do.  These are some pretty big obstacles to overcome if meaningful political reform is to ever take root in China and are partly responsible for the shift in my own thinking about the prospects for such political reform. Another thing I have been thinking a lot about since coming home is the different way of thinking about things in China versus America.  I wrestle with writing about this idea because I do not want to resort to gross generalizations, so I am going begin by treading lightly and try to rely on concrete examples from my experiences there.  However, even using concrete examples is problematic because such thinking could be the exception rather than the norm.   But I will caveat that most of these examples were met with approval and agreement from others within earshot. For my final projects in my U.S. Culture class, my students had to give a speech for or against one of three hot-button American cultural issues – the death penalty, gay marriage, and embryonic stem cell research.  One student gave her speech in favor of the death penalty (as a side note, most of my students chose the death penalty and most of those that did argued in favor of it)  and in the middle of the speech she said according to Jiang Zemin’s famous "Three Theory", it was okay to erroneously kill one or two innocent people for the sake of economic development.  As a lawyer and more importantly, as a justice and fairness-minded individual, I thought this rationale for the death penalty was logically problematic.  When I emailed this student her final grade, I diplomatically wrote: "Though I am not sure how the death penalty supports Jiang Zemin’s desire for economic development.   The connection between these two concepts was not so clear to me." She wrote back with the following explanation: "Jiang Zemin had a very famous theory in China, called ‘Three Theory’.  He emphasized that we should always concern the fundermental [sic]  interests of the largest number of Chinese people, so we can not sacrifice most people’s interests just because of one or two wrong cases. Hopefully that make sense.” Even after reading this explanation, I am not any closer to really understanding how his theory applies to erroneously killing innocent people with the death penalty in the name of economic development.  However, there is something larger and more important embedded in this idea.  One general fundamental difference in thinking between the Chinese and Americans is this emphasis on the greater good or society versus the individual.  I had another student who I have blogged previously about come to me and complain about this blind emphasis on society at the expense of the individual, which confirms one of these fundamental differences in thinking that was echoed consistently throughout my year in China and has been confirmed by other friends of mine who spent significant time on the mainland.  There is definitely a greater emphasis on doing what’s best for society, even if it means the central government kills a few innocent people along the way to maintain stability and harmony. The differences in thinking is probably the number one thing that makes U.S.-China relations so difficult.   However, as more and more people have experiences like mine on the mainland and open themselves up to these differences, it becomes easier to think of ways to bridge those differences and make progress on creating meaningful dialogue between the two sides.

Here is the final timetable for Marxism 2009 with full details of speakers and meetings.

If you are looking to attend some of these workshops and meetings here is some useful information.

Location

Marxism takes place in Bloomsbury, a quiet and leafy part of central London. Tube stations are close by, and all the venues are within walking distance of each other. Here is a map with details.

Tickets and Box Office

Royal National Hotel, Alexandra A, South Wing
A ticket office will be open during Marxism where tickets can be bought for the whole event and for individual days and sessions. You can also collect pre-paid tickets.

Ticket upgrades and Cultures of Resistance
You can upgrade your day or session ticket to a full ticket simply by paying the difference at the box office. You can also get tickets for the Cultures of Resistance gig on Monday night.

Box office opening times
Thurs: 12 noon – 10pm
Fri, Sat and Sun: 9:15am – 9pm

Extra Box Office

Friends Meeting House
Opening night: 6pm – 9.30pm
Mon: 9:15am – 3:30pm

There will be an extra box office open at Friends Meeting House outside the main hall on the opening night and final day of Marxism.

Accommodation Office

Royal National Hotel, Alexandra A, South Wing
If you need to find out where you are staying or have any queries relating to your accommodation visit us during the following times:

Thurs: 12 noon – 10pm
Fri: 9:15am – 9pm
Sat and Sun: 9:15am – 10:30am and 5 – 7pm
Mon: 1 – 2pm (At Friends Meeting House)

Outside opening hours:
If you have any accommodation queries outside office hours call or text James on 07766 516 166.

Crèche

Thurs and Mon:
We will be running a crèche for under fives only.

From Thursday to Sunday the crèche will be in the Institute of Education.
Children up to 18 months: Committee Room 4, IE
Children 18 months to 5 years: Elvin Hall, IE
Children 5 to 11 years: Drama Studio, IE (Not Thursday)

On Monday the crèche will be in Friends Meeting House
Children up to 18 months: Room 2, Friends
Children 18 months to 5 years: Room 3, Friends

Crèche opening times:
Fri, Sat and Sun (all children, in Institute of Education):
Morning 9.45am – 1pm
Afternoon 1.45 – 5pm
Evening 6.45 – 8.45pm

Mon (under 5s, in Friends Meeting House):
9:45 am – 1:15pm and 1:45 – 3:30pm

Kids’ Activities

Michael Rosen presents “Socialists Have Kids Too!” for adults and kids at 5:30pm on Saturday in the Jeffery Hall. There will be other activities for children in the crèche.

Outdoor cinema

A new addition to this year’s Marxism! Weather permitting, films will be shown on the balcony of the Institute students’ union. Look out for posters and leaflets around Marxism for more information.
Fri, Sat & Sun evenings, Institute students’ union balcony

Refreshments

SOAS
Bar: 5pm until late, Thursday – Sunday
Hot food: 5 – 7pm, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Delicious Ugandan food provided by SOAS Detainee Support Group.

Institute of Education
Hot food and snacks: Institute Students’ Union Cafe
8am – 7:30pm every day.
Bar: Thurs, Fri, Sat 11am – 12 midnight; Sun 12 noon – 10.30pm.

Marxism Team

If you have any problems during Marxism 2009, please approach a member of the Marxism team – they can be identified by their distinctive T-shirts.

Meeting Places

There are regional meeting places so you can arrange to meet friends and comrades from particular areas, and where picnics will be held. Look out for posters advertising the meet-ups for your area or ask a member of the Marxism Team for help finding people.

Prayer Room

SOAS Islamic Society will kindly be hosting the prayer room at Marxism 2009. The women’s prayer room is located on the Brunei Gallery first floor. The men’s is in the main SOAS building basement.

Cloakroom

A cloakroom will be available in the North wing of the Royal National Hotel.

Wheelchair Access

All venues are wheelchair accessible.

For more information see http://www.marxismfestival.org.uk/

Chimp That Mauled Woman Had Xanax In System
A chimpanzee that mauled a Connecticut woman had the anti-anxiety drug Xanax in its system, toxicology test results show, but it is unclear whether the chimp took the substance voluntarily or not. The attack points to similar tactics as those purportedly used by the “Old Man of the Mountain” as he sent the first assassins (hashish’ayns) to violently implement his political will. At Alamut, these foot soldiers were famously loyal to their leader, willingly jumping from the ramparts if commanded. If the nature of this attack signifies similar loyalty to the global gibbon government among NHPs it is further evidence that the monkey-menace to homo-erectus (and other life forms) will be more potent than currently imagined.

In another case of  missing the point, authorities are still weighing whether to file criminal charges against the chimpanzee’s owner, Sandra Herold, said Stamford State’s Attorney David Cohen.

The 200-pound chimp, named Travis, attacked Stamford resident Charla Nash on Feb. 16. She lost her hands, nose, lips and eyelids in the attack. Doctors at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic say she is blind and faces two years of surgical procedures.

Nash’s family has sued Herold for $50 million. The suit alleges, among other things, that she had given Travis medication that further upset the animal.

Police say the drug was not prescribed for the animal.

Full story here.

Our subconscious minds are built to attend to risk, and since the earliest of modern times, this steerer of decisions has associated fear and threats with a strategy of dehuminisation utilising comparison with apes. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his ‘Notes on the State of Virginia’ of sexual attraction between male orangutans and Negroe women; Hitler congratulated ‘Germanic’ Americans on their refusal to inter-marry with ‘half ape’ humans; and the New York times seemed to panic in its publication of the ‘Is it. is it not Obama?” cartoon (below) in the face of what the ‘unknown quantity’ that was a possible shift in real terms of the American polity. The classical interpretation of this pyscological – and very human tendency – is that fear of economic, social, or political upheaval requires the creation of an ‘other’ to maintain a status quo, whilst liberal rhetoric demands that the designated other is stripped of its status, and therefore rights, as of equal moral worth. But all established theories, like every sportsman, are only as good as their last performance, and this one needs to be put to back to the field.

Do we give sufficient credit to our highly evolved faculties for estimating risk? The culmination of debate within gibbon circles in the global context is no small achievement and will have taken generations to generate the current organogram which begins to show it’s inhuman face. A latent knowledge of the hidden political processes playing out in the forests, mountains, plains, and parks may equally explain the human facination with the ape as significant ‘other’.  Convenient metaphor: Subconscious political economy.