Comments on: Marie Antoinette in Karachi http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2009/11/07/marie-antoinette-in-karachi/ Walter Russell Mead's Blog Fri, 10 Feb 2012 15:12:07 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: the new contrarian - The Speech http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2009/11/07/marie-antoinette-in-karachi/#comment-155 the new contrarian - The Speech Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:51:31 +0000 http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/?p=896#comment-155 [...] by insisting that the Afghans adopt our modern, emancipated approach. Walter Russell Mead wrote a penetrating post on this conundrum as it pertains to Pakistan a few weeks back on his blog at The American Interest [...] [...] by insisting that the Afghans adopt our modern, emancipated approach. Walter Russell Mead wrote a penetrating post on this conundrum as it pertains to Pakistan a few weeks back on his blog at The American Interest [...]

]]> By: Damir Marusic http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2009/11/07/marie-antoinette-in-karachi/#comment-61 Damir Marusic Sat, 07 Nov 2009 20:33:48 +0000 http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/?p=896#comment-61 It's important to keep all this in mind as we try to evaluate what Matthew Hoh, the State Department official who resigned recently, said about Afghanistan. Throughout the 20th century, Afghanistan's history has been one of fitful modernizations and liberalizations spearheaded by Westernized elites which have met with varying degrees of pushback, often quite violent, from the rural conservative population. The CIA World Factbook lists Afghanistan's urban population to be 24% from a 2008 survey. What Hoh is saying is that while we think we're fighting an unholy alliance of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, what we're really fighting is the conservative Pashtun resistance to a modern, centralizing, Westernized minority. We may find the rural Afghan traditions to be harsh and incomprehensible, especially their attitudes towards women. But are we really helping the long-term situation by fighting on the side of the people who are considered alien to their own countrymen for the very values they espouse? It would seem that the only way for long-term stability to arise in Afghanistan is if the rural hinterland is very slowly, gradually, and gingerly brought into modernity by rural Pashtuns themselves. It’s important to keep all this in mind as we try to evaluate what Matthew Hoh, the State Department official who resigned recently, said about Afghanistan.

Throughout the 20th century, Afghanistan’s history has been one of fitful modernizations and liberalizations spearheaded by Westernized elites which have met with varying degrees of pushback, often quite violent, from the rural conservative population. The CIA World Factbook lists Afghanistan’s urban population to be 24% from a 2008 survey. What Hoh is saying is that while we think we’re fighting an unholy alliance of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, what we’re really fighting is the conservative Pashtun resistance to a modern, centralizing, Westernized minority.

We may find the rural Afghan traditions to be harsh and incomprehensible, especially their attitudes towards women. But are we really helping the long-term situation by fighting on the side of the people who are considered alien to their own countrymen for the very values they espouse? It would seem that the only way for long-term stability to arise in Afghanistan is if the rural hinterland is very slowly, gradually, and gingerly brought into modernity by rural Pashtuns themselves.

]]>