Perhaps I’m somewhat biased in saying this, but perceptions in Afghanistan are more important than the objective truth. I couldn’t agree more with Andrew Exum when he says:
“you can be darn sure that if we think that [Ahmed Wali Karzai] is the CIA’s guy, the Afghans most certainly believe that to be the case.”
Afghans luuuuurve their conspiracy theories. What else do you expect from a country with minimal mass media, astronomical illiteracy, and a collectivistic society where the credibility of opinion-forming elders goes unquestioned? With limited access to more objective information, Afghans form their world view with the exaggerated scraps of gossip overheard at the bazaar (I use ‘bazaar’ both literally and symbolically – many educated, westernised, Kabuli urbanites are as much conspiracy-lovers as their rural counterparts).
As in the world of mass media and the internet, if something is repeated often enough, it becomes truth and parroted further. So, did you know that ISAF is actually supporting the Taliban? And it’s not just the Italians – all of the international community is in Afghanistan to prolong the war for their own nefarious geostrategic gains. And the Brits are in Helmand just to maintain and increase opium supply to the UK. And of course the elections have been rigged by America all along. There is a plethora of these conspiracy theories. Some amusing and benign, others less so – like the most recent insurgent propaganda about Americans apparently burning copies of the Holy Quran. These rumours sparked demonstrations in Wardak, Nangarhar and Kabul in recent days.
And so, in a sense, it is irrelevant whether the CIA does indeed have Ahmed Wali Karzai on its payroll. If Afghans generally want to be conspiratorial about western presence, then no amount of truth in ISAF’s ‘Pravda’, the Voice of Freedom, will ever change that.
If we want to influence what Afghans believe – or what they choose to believe – the strongest, most compelling message is not in ‘the truth’ but in the act. The insurgents have figured this out. Why haven’t we?
{ 11 comments }
Your observations on the mindset of Afghans are quite interesting.It would be a considerable achievement if you could grasp the details and especially the nuances of the mentality of the Afghans .This will go a long way toward some sort of success.So action does speak louder for all no matter being an Afghan or an American.Truth has a tough time penetrating the many layers of falsehood shrouding the Afghans.How dreadful!!How pathetic!!A society founded on lies and based on lies,how evil!!You have a tough job there lady,i venture to say the toughest job in the world,and you could use all the prayers we could muster for you if you dare to remain a beacon in a dark land.
Why haven’t we?
Because fundamentally we don’t know how, since we westerners think the Afghans want things they don’t. Because producing a radio spot is easier for a deputy something-or-other to swallow than all-out nation building — which according to the official line since 2001, we don’t do. And because it’s expensive, hard, and too many individuals in power don’t actually care that much.
If Afghans believe that AWK is on the CIA payroll it’s because of the CIA history, not because of a conspiracy theory!
I have to agree with Mr. Shirzay, you really do think you understand it all about Afghan culture. This type of attitude is infuriating to Afghans (and most people, who likes to meet a foreigner who thinks s/he knows it all about a culture?). I don’t know if you are just burnt out from working in Afghanistan but you’re coming off as really, really condescending.
Julia, Honey Bunny.
This mindset belongs more to Americans than Afghans. Based on a pack of horse shit and egged on by jewish neocon pundits in the mass media over the last 9 years you guys have wreaked havoc on defenseless people on a scale not known before. You have the gall to say “What else do you expect from a country with minimal mass media, astronomical illiteracy, and a collectivistic society where the credibility of opinion-forming elders goes unquestioned? With limited access to more objective information, Afghans form their world view with the exaggerated scraps of gossip overheard at the bazaar”. Well you have mass media, astronomical literacy, and a non-collectivist society where every one questions opinion forming elders and look where it has gotten you.
America will get out of Afghanistan by the end of next year having achieved nothing other than bring death and destruction upon a society and people that live in mud shacks. I’d like to see you take on China or Russia so they can ream you a new one.
Another thing, who is this idiot Shirzay who more or less agrees with every piece of BS that is printed here and then adds his own little breathless boy scout crap. If he is Afghan then is name means ’son of a lion’. I’d say more like ‘Spizay’ or ‘Kharzay’ or better yet a ‘Kunee’.
We do pretty much the same thing, though, don’t we? I doubt that there are more than 15% of those in the U.S. who have seen this story on television or heard it on the radio or red about it somewhere who haven’t concluded that this is fact even though the only evidence in the story is hearsay from unnamed sources. Most people, I would think, have already formed an opinion about the truthfulness of the story and have constructed an entire narrative around the story. The major difference between Afghans and Westerners is how we get and record out stories.
My own narative, by the way, goes something like this: I don’t know whether or not Karzai is on the CIA payroll but, given his apparent connections, I would be more than a little upset of the CIA hadn’t tried to recruit him. That’s what the CIA is supposed to do.
Oops, that was supposed to be “read,” not “red.”
As some one who knows Afghanistan inside out, I must say Julia is mostly right about the Afghan mindset ,she hasn’t been condescending at all,if anything she has been too polite to describe a society where lies are accepted as truth without question ,and Afghanistan is indeed a land where the truth has been stabbed and murdered over and over for many centuries.The Afghans hide their dark side which is quite deep and put on a deceptive face for outsiders and most Afghans lie as a matter of habit.The Afghans abuse their women and children routinely and molest their young boys commonly and their custom is to keep quiet about all this abuse,it is part of their culture and if you ask them about these issues,they will deny outright and lie even more claiming everything is ok there.It is estimated that in Afghanistan 80-90% of all Afghans were abused sometime during their upbringing and it is no exaggeration to say that Afghanistan is indeed the most abusive country on earth.
By the way,who is this ignorant foolish Idi?From his writings.it is obvious that he has no real knowledge of Afghan society and Idi is also a Kunee of the first oder and a kusmader haramzada since he comes across as a first rate arab-afghan-islamist apologist.The West and the UN are trying hard to bring some measure of decency in Afghanistan but the islamic fascists and apologists are making this difficult job next to impossible and ignorant stupid people like kunee Idi ruins the chances of ordinary Afghans at having peaceful abuse-free country.
Brother Toryalay Shirzay, you do personify a lion, much like many of the lions serving in the ANA. Your thoughts reflect the thinking of many Afghans. But dear brother, “haramzada”? I was taught never to use this word, and I know that billions of others have been taught the same thing. This is the word of the uncultured, and to use it is beneath the dignity of your family. {PS. this word in Persian, Turkish, South Asian languages and Malaysian, is the worst of all insults.}
Even if Idi were a gullible Takfiri Pathan brainwashed into following Haqqani, even then he, like all human beings, is worthy of our compassion and respect. Didn’t Isha teach us that our calling is to love our enemy? If Idi is our enemy, we should treat him with love and respect.
Idi, one way or the other, the ANA will defeat Haqqani, Hekmatyur and the Quetta Shura Taliban. President Obama will almost certainly agree to a major increase in ANSF funding, training and equipping. And do not forget that a victory by the Taliban is unacceptable to many non NATO countries, including Iran, Russia, the Stans and India. Mullah Omar’s Quetta Shura is going down.
In the Afghan public opinion poll released earlier this week, 91% of Afghans viewed the ANA favorably, 84% viewed the ANP unfavorably. If you really are an Afghan, you must realize in your heart that the ANA will win this war. The ANA are the sons of Afghanistan. They are heroes worthy of your respect and support.
I would remind you that GIRoA revenue = $600 million/year. By contrast Afghanistan receives a lot more than $6,000 million/year in international grants. Virtually the entire Afghan education, health, transportation, infrastructure and security system is paid for by foreigners. Afghanistan had 1,000 to 2,000 male college freshman in 2001, compared to 45,000 female and male college freshman today. Afghanistan had just over 1,000,000 boys in school in 2001, compared to over 2.5 million girls and over 4.5 million boys in school today. About 6% of Afghans had access to some type of minimal medical care in 2001, compared to about 80% today. Do you really want Afghanistan to sink back to the bad old days of the Taliban? Do you really want the world to cut off all funding for the ANA, ANP, and GIRoA social spending?
Americans and other westerners, by virtue of being human, are equally as prone to conspiracy theories as other nationalities and ethnicities. The difference is that westerners are more likely to believe what they read on the internet than what their neighbour says. Afghans, on the other hand, have a lot more trust in the veracity of the spoken/interpersonal and little trust in institutionalized information (media).
Interestingly, the night that i wrote this post i went out to dinner with a group of Afghan-American friends. The topic of conspiracy theories arose spontaneously and i was fascinated to see these elite, highly educated, young professionals hesitate over dismissing some conspiracy theories outright. After all, they do have some internal logic. When you see international forces, with all their money, technology and military might unable to bring instantaneous peace to Afghanistan (as has been implicitly promised), and when you also don’t have a Kilcullen-esque understanding of the nuances of counter-insurgency, why wouldn’t you assume there are hidden agendas at play?
Julia,
If I might add my two cents. Your “American” type seems to be suburban, white, and middle-class and folks (East Asians, Southern Europeans, etc) who have been integrated into that society. I believe you ignore the US South, Mormons, and Hispanic-Americans, specifically working class Mexican Americans in the Southwest. All three are collectivist, authoritarian societies. Based on my experience growing up in the South, in a non-Sunbelt community, and having worked in other parts of the US, I can tell you Southerners are midway between “Westerners” in Europe and the US and the MidEast writ large. They do believe what their local authority figures tell them provided the local authority figures have charisma and know how to effectively exploit local cultural norms. Outsiders can be accepted, provided they know how to work the system and have local enablers. A quick look at two recent ellections illustrates this: Bush, a straight-up New England WASP, vs. Al Gore, with roots in the South, or today in Virginia, 2009, Bill McDonnell, an Irish-Catholic with roots in Philadelphia, vs. Craig Deeds, a native Virginian. There are other examples of culturally savy carpet baggers: Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, etc, etc. In 2004,poor Kerry’s people sort of realized this, thus they had him go on those stupid deer-hunts. What they didn’t realize is that the local ulemma had already decided for Dubya.
Why do Americans, when talking about elsewhere, ignore “Uncle Sam’s other province”? I dunno. Maybe because so much emphasis is placed on the lone cowboy stereotype and Daniel Boone as lone frontiersman we ignore the historical realities. Our national myth of ourselves as individuals demands it. Cowboys were lowly paid hands working for cattle lords and did what they were told. Far from blazing it alone, Daniel Boone basically went everywhere with extended family in tow. My elder sister worked in the MidEast for sometime and she found things that reminded her of home over there in terms of gender, attitudes towards local authority vs. central authority, fatalism, face-saving, etc, etc. She says back home we run on “deep fried wasta.” Dealing with folks from the former USSR, I’d say the same holds true. That said, all these societies are different and I’m not trying to minimize the differences.
I wouldn’t use the term “Western” vs. Afghan here. Instead, I’d argue that modern vs. pre-modern might be more apropo. The society I was raised in was until about WW2: collectivist, cyclical-time based, fatalistic, and basically oral. And is ever so slowly becoming “American” due in large part to millions of outsiders moving in from the 1960s on. But we are “Western”, I’m as much an heir to “Western” civilization as any Vermonter or Cambridge professor. Like most Southerners, my community is basically Anglo-Celtic with some Central European, African and N. American influences, although these influences weren’t the primary reasons for the above mentioned features. My quibble aside, on this article and others you seem to be pretty credible.
Yes, Afghanistan doesn’t have the highest literacy in the world and so they don’t get all their news from internet or news papers but from what his neighbor tells him. And you are right, it has to do with the literacy and the lack of access to media to make up their own minds.
But when you have seen foreign troops for over 30 years (USSR, Pakistani, Arab and now Western) in your homeland, you become very conspiracy-theory-centric.
And it doesn’t go for the past 30 years, it goes back to the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1838 when the British removed the Amir Dost Mohammad and replaced him with a despised Shah Shuja because the British wanted to protect their profiting in India. And trend of intervention continued for many more decades.
Afghans never forget that they were used and manipulated by outsiders. And are always cautious and skeptical when an outsider wants to do anything in their homeland.
The common theme is “beygana, beygana-ast” (“the stranger is a stranger)– and a title of poem by the late Afghan poet Qahar Asi, that inspired Siddiq Barmak award winning 1987 short film “Beygana” (The Stranger). You should watch it.
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