“Don’t be foolish. America is still the lion of the jungle!”
This is what an Afghan commentator said dismissively about an article on the worldwide decline in US power. Better to be with the lion than tickle its tail, risking to agitate the mighty beast. Given the Afghans’ own history of violence, the idea that might naturally means right resonates with many. It explains why in 2001, Kabul’s Taliban famously shaved off their beards while the rest looked up at “Uncle Bush” as their personal savior. Much has changed since then.
The stories that Afghans tell each other about America in this final year of the war reveal the US as bewildering and unfathomable. In the plot of current Afghan history, Uncle Sam variously turns up as the embodiment of evil and its polar opposite, a potential savior. The latest “deal” between the two countries will only add to that.
Like the rest of the world, Afghans interpret their experience with the US within the context of their own dominant narratives. The story of Afghan nationalism - a small Muslim nation under threat by foreign superpowers - still resonates with nationalist opinion leaders. They regard the US as the latest empire intent on destroying the Afghans’ way of life. Often writing from the distance of exile, the authors of such tales face a serious question: how come the Afghan people defeated the Soviet Empire only to end up being occupied by America?
To make sense of this departure from the “natural course” of Afghan history, the writers resort to conspiracy theories. The Afghans’ own civil war fighters, the mujahedin of past decades and the Taliban of today, are depicted as mercenaries in the pay of Washington. In such stories, militant Islamism is seen as a US creation, 9/11 as the US government’s own plot, and the war on terror as the US’s agenda to stir up trouble among Muslims and weaken their resolve, making them recognize the state of Israel as legitimate.
When Israel is absent from the narrative, some Afghans turn to another conspiracy theory: the US is in Afghanistan because it wants to exploit natural resources. An Afghan student I met in California summed up this view through a summation of a recent phone call to his grandmother in Kabul. She told him that she had seen with her own eyes “American troops digging into the Afghan soil in search of precious minerals”.
In such theories, we find echoes of the leftist critique of US imperialism that became popular among the Afghan intelligentsia and political activists of the 1960s and 70s. After all, what united the Afghan communists and their mujahedin nemesis was their ideological hostility towards the US. Even though both sides lost their legitimacy in the eyes of a majority of Afghans, their intellectual legacy of anti-Americanism in the guise of anti-imperialism has survived the turmoil.
If such paranoia distorts the perception of many ordinary Afghans, the political establishment itself seems equally susceptible to perceived threats. A key Afghan official, for example, told a TV station recently that “a group of patriots among the Taliban” had sent Kabul a word of warning. Obama’s awkward attempts at peacemaking by letting the Taliban open an office in Doha was thus perceived as an act of betrayal against its ally in Kabul as part of this broader scheme.
Not all Afghans subscribe to this view of the US as the enemy. Some opinion leaders see the US as a frenemy - fickle, but owing to its sheer power, a vital partner for Afghans’ survival. There might be drones and civilian casualties, but Washington does not sponsor terrorism on Afghan soil. Neither does it stir up Shia sectarianism, an accusation directed at Tehran.
In a sharp departure from such traditional views of the US, vocal members of ethnic minorities regard America as a potential savior. “Obama, I hate you!” was the line ending a poem by a young Hazara who felt let down by the US president for ignoring the plight of his people. The hatred echoes the disappointment of a man who once believed in the US’s own ideal of universal justice.
In all this, America is seen as an outsider and catalyst: the proverbial cowboy that enters the town, dividing the locals into haters, admirers, and the undecided who keep their options open. It’s a plot-changer alright, but in the long story of Afghan history, perhaps only briefly so.–Guardian