Armanshahr Foundation in collaboration with the French Cultural Center in Kabul (CCF) is pleased to invite you to its 64th (year V) public event GOFTEGU.
Speakers:
Davood Moradian, director of Strategic Studies, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Abdol Kabir Ranjbar, Member of Parliament
Abdol Latif Pedram, Leader of National Congress of Afghanistan
Moderator: Mr. Roohulamin Amini
(Programme in Dari)
Date & Time: Thursday, 21 October 2010, at 14:00 hours
Venue: Foundation for Culture and Civil Society, Salang Wat across from Kabul Vilayat (Provincial) Building
Contact Tel: 0779217755 & 0775321697
E-mail: armanshahrfoundation.openasia@gmail.com
ATTENTION! KINDLY CARRY INVITATION.
NO cars are allowed inside the center for security reasons
This programme is organised by Armanshahr Foundation with the financial assistance of the European Union. However it can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.
Armanshahr Foundation/OPEN ASIA is a member of the
International Federation for Human Rights
A decade of international presence in Afghanistan
Results and prospect
The 64th Goftegu public debate of Armanhshar Foundation was entitled “A decade of international presence in Afghanistan: Results and prospect” marking the start of 10th year of international presence. The meeting, in the fifth year of the public debates, took place on the premises of the Culture and Civil Society Foundation in Kabul on 21 October 2010. More than 400 people attended and Armanshahr Foundation offered its books for free as before. Three speakers addressed the meeting: Mr. Davood Moradian, head of the Strategic Studies Centre of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Abdolkabir Ranjbar, outgoing MP, and Mr. Latif Pedarm, president of the National Congress of Afghanistan and a newly elected MP.
The first speaker Mr. Moradian began by assessing the record sheet of the international community and prospect of its relationship with Afghanistan. He argued that an in-depth assessment required examination of three issues: 1) The direct and organic relationship of the current decade with the events prior to 11 September; 2) Dependence of Afghanistan’s issues on the conditions and developments of the past nine years in the region and the world; 3) The different approaches of Europeans and Americans to Afghanistan.
He asked: What is the fundamental problem of Afghanistan? And his answer was: Failure to create and maintain a powerful and legitimate modern state despite 250 years background of governance. “Thirty years of war and violence brought no other achievement prior to 2001 except the bankruptcy of the mafia state. We had a bankrupt state the failures of which could be characterised by illiteracy, concentration of population in the rural areas and day-wage economy. We failed to create a nation state. Our society has not entered the modern era. Interference of our neighbours, mafia society and terrorism are all signs of failure, which may be described by describing despotism and colonialism – an interconnected triangle: ethic-centred political despotism, foreign interference or colonialism and religious despotism.”
He divided the record of the international community into two periods: from end of 2001 to the beginning of 2006 and from 2006 to the present. “In the first period, the international community failed because it centred on combating terrorism and didn’t have state building on its agenda. The London Conference of 2006 recognised the focus of the international community as state building and economic growth.” Nevertheless, five golden years had been lost and the triangle of despotism, growing influence of Pakistan and Taliban and the increasing ethnic-favoured and language reactionary measures have come to the fore and shadow governments have taken shape.
In his opinion, Afghanistan joined the international community during the second period. A new chapter has started that should be devoid of past mistakes: “A census on goals and aims should be established, democratic foundations be strengthened and the government should gain its legitimacy. A joint accountability should be established between the government of Afghanistan, NGOs, citizens and the international community.”
According to Mr. Moradian, one of the characteristics of the second period is evasion of responsibility and expecting others to assume responsibility. He advised ethic-centrism and moral reconstruction of the social, political and economic institutions that the war has destroyed and concluded: “Councils of elders are pre-modern forms for resolving crisis that cannot work.”
The second speaker, Mr. Kabir Ranjbar, MP in the outgoing first parliament, said some people say Afghanistan is occupied and there is one question that everybody, the government, the people and the neighbours, asks: Will the international forces stay forever or will they leave?
In his opinion: “Afghanistan was chained by regressive forces, women had been omitted and half the society was paralysed. The 11th September event forged an international unanimity to intervene in Afghanistan and rescue us from a mediaeval system. They easily expelled the forces of international terrorism. The greatest mistake of the international forces was that they lacked a clear strategy. They gave a new life lease to certain forces in Afghanistan that had failed their test before. The Bonn Conference revived the perpetrators of massacres, war crimes and destruction of Kabul.”
Speaking of his memories when he presided over the Academy of Sciences and the division of Kabul into several regions each under the command of one of the warring factions, he said: “It was under those circumstances when the Taliban arrived as saviours, but they inflicted new grievances on the people. Women were executed in the Kabul stadium and Afghanistan became a large prison. That was the reason why the people accepted the foreigners as a whole and did not offer any intellectual or physical resistance. “
Mr. Ranjbar argued that foreign forces had revived the Taliban: “War and unrest under the present government that has assigned the governorship of the cities to the former oppressive apparatchiks who abused the property and honour of the people, has prepared the ground for the people’s discontent. The country’s wealth is plundered and the government is so weak that its orders are not obeyed even in Kabul. The depth of atrocities of the past nine years is hidden to us. In the absence of a just government, law and justice, the people go to the Taliban for justice. If we had an honest administration and could win the people over to the government, we would not need the jirgas and reconciliation.
“Less than two or three percent of the Taliban have ideology; the rest are fighters. Even if the Supreme Peace Council brings Mulla Omar and Hekmatyar to the negotiations table, it will not end the war, because all our problems are rooted in the failure to enforce the law. The people have been marginalised. Next year will be worse than the current year and two years later even worse.
What is the solution? His answer: “Building a system through creation of a strong central government, rule of law, provision of justice, eradication of administrative corruption on all levels, generation of expertise, undertaking deep administrative reforms and dedication to national interests.”
The last speaker was Mr. Latif Pedram, president of the National Congress of Afghanistan and a newly elected MP. He first asked: Why did the good thinkers of our society have false expectations from the presence of international community and in particular the US in Afghanistan? His answer was: Absence of awareness and knowledge of the capitalist system and the neoliberal economy among the left including the Islamic and modern left in this country prompted them to have wrong expectations.
In other words, the forces of protest that must have protested as in other historical eras – under the Soviet, under the mujahedin and when we hosted the Americans – were only excited and failed to refer to their historical memory. Fukuyama says: Democracy is either a system of government or a method, not a value. Theoreticians like Fukuyama and Hayek say they will resort to democracy to respond if the interests of liberalism or interests of capitalism so required; hence, they would not resort to democracy and human rights if their interests did not require it. This is what we experience with our flesh and skin. That is not the case only in Afghanistan. When the Sandinistas came to power in Nicaragua and held free and transparent elections, the Americans attacked them; around 50,000 were killed and 600,000 lost their homes. Chomsky says the best intellectuals move to the position of defending the power or the government at times of crisis.
“Why did we expect the foreign forces led by the US to build a democratic society? Bombing, killings, despotism, violation of human rights are what you witness in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. The international community is not here to build a democratic society, to eradicate poverty or the class differences. Capitalism does not have any other present but class differences.”
According to the speaker, to answer the question about the record of international forces, we should ask what we have done. How far have the intellectuals protested the politics of this period? Why do our best left groups praise capitalism? Why do our best Islamic groups praise capitalism, colonialism and occupation? The Western intellectuals are also concerned. Chomsky asks: Does my government combat terrorism?! My country spearheads terrorism.
Mr. Pedram asked: Are you equal before the law in our cities? There is a rampant political and class inequality. Kabul has been divided between the rich and poor; the latter are not allowed to cross the neighbourhoods of the former. We expect the elite in Afghanistan to have a clear understanding of globalisation; we cannot set aside colonialism, occupation and globalisation when we consider Afghanistan. “We cannot build a country by a few imported vulgar TV programmes. We cannot evaluate the past 10 years if we do not know what we are facing at the heart of Afghanistan. A national government cannot be created against that backdrop. A patriotic government requires patriotic people.”
In conclusion, speakers fielded questions from the audience.
Invitation for 64th Goftegu Public Debate: A Decade of International Presence in Afghanistan Results and Prospects
