i DEEPSHIKHA SHAHI Understanding Post-9/11 Afghanistan A Critical Insight into Huntington’s Civilizational Approach This e-book is provided without charge via free download by E-International Relations (www.E-IR.info). It is not permitted to be sold in electronic format under any circumstances. If you enjoy our free e-books, please consider leaving a small donation to allow us to continue investing in open access publications: http://www.e-ir.info/about/donate/ i Understanding Post-9/11 Afghanistan A Critical Insight into Huntington’s Civilizational Approach DEEPSHIKHA SHAHI ii E-International Relations www.E-IR.info Bristol, England 2017 ISBN 978-1-910814-25-3 (paperback) ISBN 978-1-910814-26-0 (e-book) This book is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license. 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Production: Michael Tang Copy Editing: Scot Purvis Cover Image: Veneratio via Depositphotos A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library iii E-IR Open Access Series Editor: Stephen McGlinchey Editorial Assistance: Johannes Grow & Brett Netto E-IR Open Access is a series of scholarly books presented in a format that preferences brevity and accessibility while retaining academic conventions. Each book is available in print and e-book, and is published under a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0 license. As E-International Relations is committed to open access in the fullest sense, free electronic versions of all of our books, including this one, are available on the E-International Relations website. Find out more at: http://www.e-ir.info/publications Recent titles International Relations Time, Temporality and Global Politics Environment, Climate Change and International Relations Ukraine’s Euromaidan System, Society and the World: Exploring the English School of International Relations (Second Edition) About E-International Relations E-International Relations is the world’s leading open access website for students and scholars of international politics, reaching over three million readers per year. E-IR’s daily publications feature expert articles, blogs, reviews and interviews – as well as student learning resources. The website is run by a non-profit organisation based in Bristol, England and staffed by an all-volunteer team of students and scholars. http://www.e-ir.info iv Abstract 9/11 and the subsequent war on terror have misleadingly reinforced the idea of a world politics based on a ‘civilizational’ clash. While post-9/11 Afghan society appears to be troubled with a conflict between so-called Islamic- terrorist and secular-democratic forces, the need for an alternative understanding to pave the way for peace has become paramount. This book uses a critical theoretical perspective to highlight the hidden political and economic factors underlying the so-called civilizational conflict in post-9/11 Afghanistan. It further demonstrates how a post-Islamic humanist discourse has the potential to not only carve the way for peace amidst dangerous entanglement between politics and religion in post-9/11 Afghanistan, but also vindicate Islam of its unjustified denigration in the contemporary world. --- Deepshikha Shahi is Assistant Professor of Political Science at University of Delhi, India. She is set to pursue post-doctoral research at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research (Käte Hamburger-Kolleg), University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She is also affiliated with International Democracy Watch in Italy and Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. Her recent publications include ‘Engaging with the post-secular moment in post-9/11 Afghanistan: the search for a “humanist” political discourse’, Cambridge Review of International Affairs and ‘Rethinking the absence of post-Western International Relations theory in India: “Advaitic monism” as an alternative epistemological resource’, European Journal of International Relations. v Acknowledgements My first and most earnest acknowledgement goes to Professor Achin Vanaik. Nearly six years ago, his magic in the classroom made Theory of International Relations fascinating for me and set me on the path I travelled at Delhi University. Professor Vanaik has been instrumental in ensuring my academic, professional and moral wellbeing ever since. In every sense, none of this work would have been possible without him. He has my sincere gratitude. I also owe a huge debt of thankfulness to my friend Matilde Adduci, a Post- Doctoral Research Fellow at University of Turin and the Coordinator of the Summer School TOIndia at the Torino World Affairs Institute. She introduced me to Selay Gaffar, the Director of Humanitarian Assistance for the Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA), a Kabul-based NGO. I am highly grateful to Selay and her team in Kabul who were immensely helpful in arranging my visit to their country and in organising my numerous illuminating interviews with Kabul-based diplomats, politicians, UN officials, American and European volunteers associated with INGOs, activists, social-workers, journalists, academicians and laymen. I thank Andeisha Farid, the Director of Afghan Child Education and Care Organization (AFCECO), another Kabul- based NGO, for providing logistical support in Kabul. Najib deserves particular credit for rendering his services as an interpreter during the interviews. Besides Professor Vanaik’s personal library, the valuable resources for this study were drawn from the Central Reference Library (CRL), Ratan Tata Library (RTL), and library of the Department of Political Science in Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University Library, Teen Murti Library and the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) Library. I am grateful to the staff of these libraries for their cooperation. Any errors and unanswered questions remain mine. I stay especially appreciative of my friends Manashi and Vinay for patiently listening to my ideas and offering occasional intellectual inputs. My final and deepest acknowledgement goes to Dhiraj and my family for unconditionally trusting and encouraging me through all my ventures. For all that I am and for all that I am not, they have my everlasting love. vi Understanding Post-9/11 Afghanistan Contents 1. INTRODUCTION 1 2. THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS THESIS: A CRITICAL APPRAISAL 12 3. HUNTINGTON AMONGST THE AFGHANS: REVISITING THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS THESIS AFTER 9/11 31 4. CRITICAL INTERNATIONAL THEORY: A COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE FRAMEWORK 51 5. AN ALTERNATIVE UNDERSTANDING OF POST-9/11 AFGHANISTAN: THE CRITICAL-THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE 68 6. CONCLUSION 94 APPENDIX I 108 APPENDIX II 114 BIBLIOGRAPHY 116 NOTE ON INDEXING 136 vii For Achin 1 Understanding Post-9/11 Afghanistan 1 Introduction In the emerging world of ethnic conflict and civilizational clash, Western belief in the universality of Western culture suffers three problems: it is false; it is immoral; and it is dangerous. (Samuel P. Huntington, 1996, p. 310) Civilization as a significant unit of analysis and locus of debate in contemporary International Relations is largely an intellectual contribution of Samuel P. Huntington. His celebrated and controversial article and book about ‘civilizations’ (1993, 1996) have become some of the most widely quoted and translated analyses of the post-Cold War international order. Huntington had predicted a civilizational turn in post-Cold War world politics. In his bold rendering, civilizations were primeval entities that would replace ideology and geopolitics as the animating sources of cooperation and conflict in the post-Cold War world.1 Huntington warned: In the post-Cold War world flags count and so do other symbols of cultural identity, including crosses, crescents, and even head coverings, because culture counts, and cultural identity is what is most meaningful to most people. People are discovering new but often old identities and marching under new but often old flags which lead to wars with new but often old enemies… There can be no true friends without true enemies. Unless we hate what we are not, we cannot love what we are…The unfortunate truth in these old truths cannot be ignored by statesmen and scholars. For peoples seeking identity and reinventing ethnicity, enemies are essential, and 1 According to Huntington, civilization means ‘the highest cultural grouping of people and the broadest level of cultural identity people have short of that which distinguishes humans from other species.’ See Huntington, Samuel Summer 1993, “The Clash of Civilizations?,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3, p. 24.