Ana's Home - Afghanistan: Creation of a Warlord Democracy

Chapter 3 - The Afghan Cultural Model

This chapter will describe the traditional organization of communities in Afghanistan, which, despite ethnic differences, is largely homogeneous throughout the country. Militant commanders and present-day warlords emerged from within this system, as a hyper-amplified function of a previously balanced social function of defence and dispute-settlement.

The traditional system historically integrated and managed internal and external violence through developed institutions of peaceful conflict-resolution processes. In absence of state instruments of protection and coercion, it is the traditional system that has provided leadership, order, security and justice in the past centuries of Afghanistan. The Afghan customary laws are based on representation, government by discussion and vote, peace missions, special councils, national assembly, and differentiated instruments of legitimate use of force, which guarantee security and observance of contracts within and in-between communities.

The customary system of violence- and conflict-management broke down during the Cold War, when foreign military and financial aid bestowed selected militant factions with unprecedented quantity and quality of military resources. The militant factions thus gained independence from their communities and disproportionate power to deliver violence. The leaders of these selected factions, consequently, were able to corrupt the traditional ruling councils with exorbitant payments. Their incomparable military power challenged the traditional authorities in delivering justice and managing violence in accordance to customary laws.

The leaders of these factions are the present-day warlords of Afghanistan. Thus, the super-powers helped in the establishment of warlordism and, as a by-product, in the breakdown of the social bonds of the Afghan communities. The next sections will present the Afghan model of values and norms, the emergence of warlords from the military societal function, the corruption of the traditional society and its present relation to warlords.

3.1. Qawm

A number of studies have been recently made to analyze the Afghan traditional model of self-organization, decision-making and conflict resolution (USAID 2005, Azoy 2003; Rubin 1995-2005; Dupree 2002; Khuram 2004) . They all recognize that the exquisitely complex network of Afghan societal bonds (qawm) is regulated by highly developed customary laws, the practiced culture-specific rule of law in the rural areas of the country.

The community bonds are organized in overlapping series of individual and communal affiliations. The key term describing the bond and the alliance is qawm, which can be translated to mean a “solidarity group.” Simonsen (2004:708) elaborates its connotations: “The content of this denomination, however, varies widely; it is situational and relative, and may thus (alternatively) describe tribe, region, ethnic group or profession.” Family and qawm relations are considered synonymous with solidarity. The community is so tightly knit on horizontal and on vertical level that any movement away from the traditional ways of interaction seems to tear the fabric of the community.

3.1.1. Types of Social Bonds

The human bonding primarily follows the bloodline and, secondarily, a group connected through a common activity. In centuries-long absence of strong or of any central government, the Afghan communities have been organized in tribal systems, based on the family as a primary unit of organization. Three levels of hierarchical ordering are apparent in the society: family, tribe, and ethnicity, with the family providing the tightest bonds, and ethnicity the least tight one. Religion does not form its bonds based on bloodlines, and compared to the filial bonds, it has not been emphasized as a reason for conflicts, until the Taliban period, which waged war against “bad Muslims.” The Afghan society is almost homogeneously Muslim, and the Shia and Sunni division corresponds at large to ethnic boundaries.

The three levels of societal bonds (family, ethnicity and religion) are tightly knit. Societal groups tend to maintain internal cohesion and unity, and loyalty to one’s qawm-bonds permeates all aspects of life. Geographical dispersion plays a role in the strength and the weakness of community bonds: tribal fractions and families grow more independent if settled in areas remote from the rest of the tribe.

The predominance of blood alliance is almost homogeneous in the rural areas. The decisions of the community determine the decisions of the individual. The urban population tends toward individuation (the individual as a basic unit of community and prime decision-maker); however, in majority of cases individualism is still outweighed by filial bonds.

3.1.2. Values

The affective-ethical dimension of these bonds that forms the social glue is responsibility. The more power an individual, a family or a tribe has, the more responsibility they have toward their related units. A man bears the responsibility for his family survival, honour, and relations with other social units. The woman is traditionally treated as a half of the man’s value. The rationale behind the restrictive norms around women is “protection” of the woman and her honour – the man is responsible for her honour, which if ruined, ruins his honour and the honour of the family as well. Different areas of Afghanistan have different levels of liberty and restrictions upon their male and female members.

It is important to note that Afghans, like many traditional tribal societies, hold the human bond as a cardinal value, and evaluate interrelations in terms of honour, solidarity and loyalty. On a deeper level, the traditional model describes different degrees of quality of these bonds in terms of responsibility and power, unlike the classic Western qualifiers of individualistic liberalism - liberty and rights. Although these four values can be taken as indivisible, Western appeals fall short if promoted as “freedom and rights” due to their low resonance in the Afghan cultural model. Culturally insensitive communication can have a self-sabotaging effect: freedom and rights may be perceived as “absence of responsibility,” and individual liberty may be taken as destructive for the family bonds. Unfortunately, the perception of the West too in traditional societies is largely negative. Images passed by satellite TV, personal experiences of Afghans abroad, and often the behaviour of Westerners in Afghanistan, depict, in Afghan view, an immoral, fragmented and spiritually lost society, ridden by materialism, greed, lust, addictive substances and violence.

3.1.3. Shifting Alliances

An expressive feature of the Afghan world is shifting and often multiple alliances: loyalty, power and people can shift sides quickly as the tide of reputation and incentives shifts. This is the mechanism of keeping maintenance costs of military alliances permanently high: the costs rise as the power of a person rises. In order to minimize effort and costs, a military leader typically would not interfere with the traditional local councils which rule the villages – so long as the village pledges loyalty, sends combatants under his command, and so long as the military leader provides incentives for the council and the combatants.

Although a fiercely independent society, to accept incentives for loyalty is a part of the Afghan cultural model. There is no linguistic differentiation between salary and bribe – everything is translated as payment or gift. The size of offered and required incentives skyrocketed during the Cold War, where foreign states competed for the loyalty of various factions.

3.2. Customary Laws

The tradition of self-governance by discussion, as well as of delegative representative councils, have been traditionally practiced and respected in the Afghan society, although patriarchal and male-dominated. Most customary forms of rule are not aimed to govern the whole state in terms of day-to-day decisions; however, the institution of the Loya Jirga (a form of National Assembly) serves to decide on issues important for the country and legitimize a ruler.

Khuram (2004:4) observes that “the formal legal system is simply not the norm governing the lives of the majority of the population.” The customary laws predominant in Afghanistan, in combination with the Hanafi branch of the Islamic jurisprudence (the Sharia), have been practiced through generations, and is still the predominant form of dispute settlement. The Afghan community is organized in a largely homogeneous way, with merely technical variations (different fees for a particular crime) throughout the state territory. The customary laws and recommended by international experts to be fully recognized by the new government and further steps in the formal democratization of Afghanistan to be built on.

3.2.1. Shura

An Afghan family may number from 2 to 100 members, as it includes the sons, the grandsons and their wives and children. Each family is headed by the oldest man or the oldest son in the extended family. Family heads represent their families in the village council, a shura, which makes the community decisions, mediates in internal and external disputes and defines the village relations to other villages and tribes. Some regions have female shuras consisting of women only and dealing with women’s issues, but these have mostly nominal existence in the rural areas.

The local shura also decides who and for what incentives the village allies, fights with or fights against. Disputes over property, honour, contracts and harm are resolved by either customary laws or by Islamic laws, depending on the choice of the disputing parties (Khuram 2004:7) – this choice is not imposed by the council. The council is responsible for assigning mediators to specific disputes, their number depending on the size of the dispute, and the selection of members depending on the laws chosen by the disputing parties. For example, if the disputing parties chose the Sharia way of resolution, clerics will be appointed in the mediation body; if the customary way is chosen, then men will be appointed who have gained reputation of being wise, just and experienced.

“Shura” is a word of Arabic origin, used in the Afghan society to denote a “council”; it can refer to village or tribal council. Its literal translation is “consultation," which, same like its English counterpart, defines the function of the organ. Shuras, as I will call them further in this text, also regulate the relationship between the individuals, communities and the state. Any community issue under the jurisprudence of the shura summons its members, who discuss the issue at length. Shura members have equal rights and treatment in the discussion, regardless to the social standing (wealth, military power) of the member. When several opinions are present, the final decision is made by individual vote amongst shura members, all votes counted as equal. If the votes draw a tie, a coin is tossed.

3.2.2. Arbakai

The decisions of the shura are considered final, and are implemented by the arbakai. Arbakai are institution kindred to local police, consisting of respected community members who wear arms and protect the village. The shura does not implement its decisions, but it delegates its authority to the arbakai, a positive sign of formal differentiation in the power institutions of the Afghan traditional model.

Dispute settlement is done by a mandatory meeting of the conflicting parties under auspices of a common authority (a special council formed by shura members from all concerned villages), by discussion, mediation and delegated power of implementation. If a disputing party does not agree with the shura decision, he can ask another shura to be formed. This can be repeated up to three times; the unsatisfied party must either comply with the third decision, or move out of the tribal territory. The observance of the settlement is enforced by the arbakai. Arbakai also were the guarantors of security for peaceful conduction of elections in their areas, where they were given the role of deputized policemen.

3.2.3. Jirga

The term shura is related to the term jirga, another key term essential to understanding the Afghan society. Jirga, a word of Pashto and Baluchi origin, is translated literally as a “peace mission.” It is a grand assembly on national level, a top-level meeting of all local representatives, originally with the responsibility to appoint, but in practice to merely legitimize, national leaders (e.g. kings and presidents), decide on national strategies for response to foreign interventions, national politics and government, constitutions, etc. The act of convening a Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) ensures the legitimacy and the implementation of the decisions made at the assembly. Jirgas are highly representative, ensuring each district to send several representatives, including women.

The institutionalization of Islam in Afghanistan includes mullahs (those who have been educated in madrassas to know the Kuran by heart, or to read it), and maliks (powerbrokers on level of village. These are highly respected members of the local communities, and are often members of the local shuras. Unlike the Christian religious organization, the mullahs are not bound within a centralized clerical hierarchy and have no formal relationship between them.

In practice, the secular juridical system is restricted to the regional capitals, while in the provinces dominant figures (shuras and mullahs, but now commanders and warlords) judge cases. Many districts have no access to legal representatives and no awareness of existence of secular and state-regulated law. Due to the widely spread and largely unified customary law, its long tradition and embeddedness in the smallest segments of society, and due to lessons from history, an option examined by the government is to integrate the customary law and shura system within the juridical system. Also, the District and Provincial Councils, represented each in the Parliament, under the democratization process were designed to model the shura system, a culturally sensitive move on the part of the authorities.

3.2.4. Equality and Honour

In Afghanistan there is no caste system, and no belief in inborn inequality except in gender issues. There is high competition over land, water resources, and lately over trade routes and military technology. Traditionally, the right and the power to rule belong to the one with prestige, or with honour . There are families with traditionally more prestige than others. Prestige in Afghanistan is obtained by individual quality, that is, by name and game. However, both name and game are resources that can be gained and lost rather quickly by individual action. Game measures how much gain one can provide for others. Power and wealth usually follow prestige. Education usually follows a long-term wealth.

A person of a “good name” would be treated with more respect in the community and their opinion would bear more weight on societal decisions. They would be also entitled to larger share in common gain. Prestige is often based on personal merit: persons who gain fame by wise mediation of conflicts are highly influential in the tribal shuras. Military power is also a means to obtain prestige; however, a military leader is bound to bestow gifts, to provide and share the spoils of war with his combatants and lieges. Material remuneration is a part of every value system: instead of vendetta, a person’s life can be traded for goods if honour is not essentially at stake; military loyalty goes to the highest bidder, the one who is most likely to provide the richest gain. There are, however, exceptions: men of faith and wisdom may weigh Islamic or customary ethics against gain.

Ever-hovering poverty and possibility of violent death plays a significant role in Afghan society: it is often the case that if a person does not ally his family to a power figure or refuses his incentives to do what the authority requires, he puts his and his family’s lives at stake. As personal power and wealth grow, the more heads and families the person is responsible to, the higher the number of challengers to subdue the person and appropriate his wealth. The necessity of violent means in everyday life is perceived as normal and essential, to protect one’s honour, qawm, life, property and contracts.

3.2.5. Regulation of Violence

The traditional balance between legitimacy and military power has been based on simple formulae: the wiser the shura, the better off its families, the better equipped its arbakai, the more power the community has to maintain peace, settle disputes in a satisfactory way, ally with the winners, defend its community and obtain spoils for them; hence, the wiser the shura.

Violence is an integral part of the Afghan culture, restrained and regulated by a specific code of honour. Carrying a gun is both a part of the tradition and a means of daily survival in Afghanistan, in protection of land, water-sources or fending off criminal and militant groups. Fighting in minor disputes is traditionally done by mostly symbolic shots, because to kill one enemy, again by the code of honour, dictates vengeance for the victim’s family. This would open up a cycle of violence, where both parties would be further harmed. The jirga system is conceptualized in such a way as to minimize violence, as its name suggests. Mostly, peace missions arrange for blood money, and if life must be paid with life, it is done in a ritualized way, so as to mark the end of the violence pattern.

3.3. Traditional Origins of Warlords

Present day warlords stem from the warrior culture of Afghanistan. A warlord is typically a person who has distinguished himself as a military leader, has a record of a number of victories, and has shared satisfactory spoils of war with the network of followers, which support the families of the combatants and in some cases, whole villages. The community of followers is typically from the same ethnic group, and it is commonly more or less intolerant of other ethnic groups.

An Afghan warlord is typically a person coming from a powerful, well-known family. The family supports him by unremitting loyalty, network of cooperatives and combatants, the family name giving him legitimacy, authority and community respect, as well as the loyalty of other, minor families from the same tribe or ethnic community. As Whitney Azoy (2003) illustrates, the dynamics of interaction between a warlord and his followers is as follows: a “good” warlord provides spoils, gains victories and obtains a “good name”. The “good name” attracts more supporters, acquires more combatants and a larger potential for military and economic activities.

Azoy finely explains the informal institutional pattern of Afghan authority: “The Afghan form of authority resides neither in permanent corporations nor in formal statuses, but in individual men who relate to each other in transient patterns of cooperation and competition… Unregulated, however, by any system of universally recognized authority, this cooperation readily gives way to competition,” (Azoy 2003:24). The highest power, followed by the highest title of Khan, is ascribed to an individual for his deeds; it is not hereditary, although it can be, and it essentially designates power over people. Traditionally, not the economic resources, but the number (quantity) and the “names” (quality) of supporters measure the power and the authority of the person in the Afghan cultural model.

3.4. De-regulation of Violence

The institutions of shura, jirga and arbakai, as well as the code of honour within the warrior culture, are of primary importance in the organization of the Afghan community, although the same system can be used again as a “mud curtain” to ignore and over-ride governmental decisions. However, in the last two decades, the international factor caused corruption of the shura system and emergence of military figures as autonomous and predominant decision-makers on their respective territories.

This process can be traced down to the period of the Russian and American proxy-wars in Afghanistan, and is parallel (if not identical) to the rise of warlordism described in chapter 1. Ever since the Cold War, foreign powers have been supporting different tribes and militant factions, by providing them with arms, funds and military training. The uncontrolled influx of advanced military technology, tipped the historical balance of power in favour of those who have more effective arms against those who have traditionally born the legitimacy and authority in community governance. The asymmetry in cash and arms enabled militant figures to buy off or coerce shuras in their favour. By complying with militant figures, some shuras have lost their reputation in their respective communities. At present, local commanders often resolve disputes previously delegated to shuras.

Once local protectors of their communities, today warlords vary in their relation to their original qawm-s. Warlords still have positive incentives to maintain the loyalty of the traditional local authorities. This is usually done by positive coercion: local councils face the choice of accepting incentives from a warlord (property, territory, gifts, arms, etc) or renouncing his protection.

Warlords provide income to their supporters in form of payment and gifts, and thus sustain, directly or indirectly, a part of the population. Furthermore, they may provide a sense of ethnic pride and unity to their respective communities. Although most contemporary warlords distribute high incentives to a small group of supporters, some may widen their scope of redistribution to the general population of their territories.

The more intense the exchange between a warlord and his ethnic community, the stronger the popular legitimacy of the warlord. However, to have legitimacy within one community does not mean legitimacy within another community. Due to the history of inter-ethnic violence in the civil war, the more legitimacy a warlord has within his own community, the less legitimacy he is likely to have in other communities.

Most warlords do not engage in projects of public interest; they limit their activities to distributing cash, gifts, property and arms to the community of supporters. Moreover, almost all warlords, ever since the Russian involvement in Afghanistan, have been accused for war crimes against each other’s ethnic communities. Popularly, many Afghans consider that the warlords have lost their “honour” because what they did to civilians during the civil war. However, it is not clear how much popular anger goes against all warlords, and how much against other communities’ warlords.

This chapter identified the sociological enabling condition of warlordism. The origins of Afghan combatants lie in a complex network of societal organization and peaceful regulation of violence. The end of traditional militants, in service of their communities and tamed by them, began with the Cold War and has still not ended. Contemporary militant entrepreneurs retain some links with their communities and maintain a large degree of informal contractual exchanges with the shuras. Some warlords move toward minimizing this exchange and establishing their dominance, while others move toward re-establishing reciprocative relations with societal groups. The military and economic predominance of warlords and the poverty of the population render unequal exchange relations between them.

USAID: “Afghanistan Rule of the Law Project: Field study of informal and customary justice in Afghanistan” (2005); Whitney G. Azoy: “Buzkashi: Game & power in Afghanistan” (Waveland Press, 2003); Nancy H. Dupree: “Cultural Heritage and National Identity in Afghanistan” (Third World Quarterly, vol. 23, No. 5, 2002): 977–989; Karim Khuram: “The Customary Laws of Afghanistan”. A Report by the International Legal Foundation (September 2004).

One question posed by Afghan rural representatives before the Presidential Elections 2004 was whether a woman’s vote would be counted as a half of a man’s vote.

USIP (2001) recommends: “In most of Afghanistan, customary systems have long regulated the vast majority of disputes and served the needs of most aspects of both civil and criminal justice. These systems… have continued to function reasonably well and maintain some legal order even as the formal system of justice effectively was stalled during the last twenty-five years of war. The formal, Kabul-based legal system has historically been difficult to implement in these areas. Indeed, even when in effect in the 1970s, the laws and jurisdiction of the formal system of justice did not command nearly the same level of respect or adherence in the rural areas as did the traditional systems such as the ‘Qadi courts’ and arbitration by respected local members of the community. As a consequence, no attempt should be made to impose any other legal system or structure on the rural areas of the country. It is not evident that it is needed, and it would not work.”

According to Atmar and Goodand (2002:126), shuras “play a role in local governance, conflict resolution, resource management, and management of state-society relationships in local spheres. Such institutions manage diverse local conflict between individuals, families and communities, and between communities and the state. Conflict resolution takes place through negotiation, arbitration, and adjudication by applying Sharia, local laws and norms. The state has historically respected the role of these institutions and this practice continued under the Taliban and United Front.”

Dupree (2002:978) gives a favourable assessment of the Afghan society (note her assessment of the position of women): “Honour is the rock upon which social status rests and the family is the single most important institution in Afghan society. Individual honour, a positive pride in independence that comes from self-reliance, fulfilment of family obligations, respect for the elderly, respect for women, loyalty to colleagues and friends, tolerance for others, forthrightness, an abhorrence of fanaticism, and a dislike for ostentation, is a cultural quality most Afghans share. The position of women is central to these values. In this patriarchal society women are the standards by which morality is judged, and they carry the responsibility of passing on the values of the society to younger generations. Many of these values are implicit in the rules of etiquette which emphasise respect for elders and guests, such as always standing in welcome, exchanges of prescribed greetings, appropriate dress, and, above all, decorum and deportment, which are as crucial for males as for females. The criteria for appropriate behaviour may vary from group to group and often within each group, or even within extended families, but central to the rules of etiquette are those designed to uphold honour.”

Atmar/Goodhand, (Afghanistan 2002:125-126): “To an extent, such institutions [jirgas and shuras] have enabled Afghan communities to construct a so-called mud-curtain to keep an interfering and often repressive state at bay. The fact that such institutions have survived over centuries and are remarkably resilient and adaptable is attributed to their stable legitimacy with Afghan communities in meeting essential societal needs, including local governance.”

An example of how a warlord can maintain his relations with the community is Ismail Khan, former governor of the Western Herat Region and present Minister of Mines and Energy. He was known for building roads, providing water sources in his region, having the city of Heart regularly cleaned and partially rebuilt. He was as well known for keeping income from taxes to himself instead of sending it to the central government in Kabul.