Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2967955
Author: Javeed Ahwar Email: [email protected]
The Afghan State: Internal Colonization, Ethnic Hegemony and Resistance
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Concerning state-building in Third World Countries, the state as a universal reality is often taken
for granted. In particular, the instability in Afghanistan is wrongly attributed to the absence of a
strong central government. The aim of this paper is to contest the Afghan State as the legitimate
representative of the nation (the population living in Afghanistan). Relying on the dominant
theories of the state and the existing scholarship on Afghanistan, I have divided my position into
five key arguments: (1) the Afghan State represents the ruling ethnic group, (2) an ideological
project is put in place to legitimize the hegemony of the ruling ethnicity, (3) the state practices
and media discourses attempt to reify the idea of Afghan State as an independent entity, (4) the
Afghan State plays a great role in reinforcing the culture of the ruling group as the national
culture, and (5) I may argue that Afghan State is a historical construct.
1. The Afghan (Pashtun) State
To demystify the Afghan State through unveiling the hegemony of Pashtuns, I have drawn
substantially on the key theories of the state. To begin with, in the Marxist tradition, the “state
apparatus” is perceived as a repressive entity functioning through the use of force and the
purpose of class-struggles is seizing “the state power” (Althusser 2006, 91). In Marxism, the
proletariat—the ruled class is expected to seize the state power, overthrow the domination of
bourgeoise and impose its interests as the national interest (Althusser 2006, 91; Abrams 2006,
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2967955
consciousness,” finds itself incapable of challenging the ruling class (Heywood 2004, 128)
implying the importance of the class-consciousness as a condition for resistance. Concerning
Afghanistan, ethnicity—“an imperative identity that one can rarely rid oneself of it” (Eriksen
2009, 161) has the function that class has in Marxism. Pashtuns, an ethnic group composing an
estimated thirty-four percent of the population, have maintained its domination over other ethnic
groups including Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara for the last two centuries (seeCramer and Goodhand
2002, 892-894). Owing to the strong effects of ethnic domination, I believe that non-Pashtuns,
despite composing the majority, have not yet achieved the level of class-consciousness to
challenge the ethnic hierarchy effectively.
2. The Legitimation of Ethnic Domination
In supporting and contesting the hegemony, ideology—“the system of the ideas and
representations which dominate the mind of a man or a social group” (Althusser 2006, 98) plays
a critical role. Louis Althusser’s theory of “the Ideological State Apparatuses-ISAs” provides an
inspiring account on this matter. The ISAs exemplified best by institutions like churches,
schools, political parties, media, and literature, according to him, legitimize and ensure
subordination to the ruling class (Althusser 2006, 89, 92). Doing so, they misrepresent the ruling
ideology as the national ideology, indoctrinate citizens through feeding them with the daily doses
of nationalism and hinder them to recognize the hegemony (Althusser 2006, 93, 97-98). With
regard to Afghanistan, German Anthropologist Conrad Schetter argues, “The history of
Afghanistan is written by Pashtuns” (Schetter 2003, 3) and the development studies specialists
Christopher Cramer and Jonathan Goodhand add, “Afghan nationalism means Pashtun
presenting the history of Afghanistan and nationalism as neutral ideologies to mask the
hegemony of Pashtuns. Like Althusser argues, the longevity of a hegemony depends directly on
how effectively it is rationalized through ISAs (2006, 94). He mentions, for instance, the
separation of church from the state after the French Revolution 1978 as a preventive measure to
weaken and isolate the previous ruling ideology (2006, 96). In the case of Afghanistan, like
Benjamin Hopkins says, “Islam enabled [Pashtun] rulers to build larger coalitions to support
their narrow interests” (Hopkins 2008, 153). Here, I argue that the alliance of the
vernacular-Islam with the Pashtun nationalism has been successful in alienating and antagonizing
non-Pashtuns’ values in Afghanistan.
Among all the theories of the state, I found Antonio Gramsci’s concepts of “hegemony”
and “cultural-state” very fundamental to understand the Afghan State. He argued, “Every State is
ethical in as much as one of its most important functions is to raise the great mass of the
population to a particular cultural and moral level…which corresponds to…the interests of the
ruling classes” (Gramsci 2006, 78). Gramsci was basically interested in how the cultural
hegemony works in practice (Abrams 2006, 46) and realized that educational institutions through
creating consent and courts and military through repression reinforce the hegemony of the ruling
classes (Gramsci 2006, 78-78). With regard to Afghanistan, in the absence of the official census
of the population based on ethnicity, the state has been successful in convincing people that
Pashtun-ethnic represents the absolute majority and the Pashtun-culture rightly deserves to be
adopted as the national culture. Secondly, through state sponsored educations and Pashtun-led
judiciary and military practices, the Pashtun culture and Islam has been blended in a such a way
position” exemplified best by Gandhi’s non-violence and non-cooperation movement (Gramsci
2006, 72). However, in the case of Afghanistan, any type of resistance by non-Pashtuns has been
historically neutralized with brutality as threat to national security, secessionist attempt and
foreign plot. For instance, Afghan-American anthropologist Nazif Shahrani mentions that the
first attempt to overthrow the hegemony of Pashtuns occurred in 1929. According to him, the
Tajik leader - Habibullah Kalakani who ruled for nine months was brutally murdered together
with his government members by his Pashtun successor. He pinpoints 1929 crisis as the starting
point of the internal colonization of non-Pashtuns and the beginning of Pashtun nationalism
(Shahrani 2000, 5). Similarly, American political scientist Barnett Rubin argues that the election
of a Tajik President in 1992 was challenged by the Pashtun Islamic Party and later by the Pashtun
Taliban leading to the reestablishment of the Pashtun hegemony in 1996 (Rubin 2000, 1795).
On the other hand, Philip Abrams might argue that even the use of Afghanistan or Afghan
State reifies its material existence. He does not take the state as his point of departure. For him,
state functions as “a mask for class-power” (Abrams 2006, 118) by representing itself as a
neutral entity (2006, 120). Thus, the demystification of the state is central to his theory and for
that he advocates for distinguishing the state-system from the state-idea (2006, 124) and
abandoning the former to study the latter, “an ideological project that legitimates…a class
domination” (Abrams 2006, 46, 117, 122). Here, Abrams seems to reaffirm that “legitimation…
[occurs] outside the state system” through ISAs (2006, 119). In the example of Afghanistan, it is
notable that the arbitrary use of words like Afghan music, Afghan singer, Afghanistan voice,
Afghan culture, Afghani clothes, Afghani food, Afghan news, Afghan immigrants, Afghani
Pashtuns. With that regard, Abrams would argue that anything with the prefix of “Afghan”
presents “the unified symbol of an actual disunity” (2006, 124) and “prevents us seeing political
practices” (2006, 125) which is the hegemonic rule of Pashtuns. Furthermore, I argue that Michel
Foucault and Nickolas Rose’s theories of “welfare-state” and “liberal governmentality” (Rose
2006, 149, 151) can be read as attempts to mystify the state and making the ruled group easily
governable by taking the class-power for granted. Similarly, concepts like national unity, national
reconciliation and national security stop us to recognize the class-state.
3. Practices and Discourses
Here, I argue that daily practices of representation of Afghan government and discourses in the
popular culture reinforce a particular image of Afghan State diverting attentions from the ethnic
domination. With that regard, Timothy Mitchell’s theory of “structural effects” allows us “to
examine it [state] not as an actual structure, but as the powerful, apparently metaphysical effect
of [everyday] practices that make such structures appear to exist” (2006, 173, 180, 185n4).
Furthermore, Mitchell argues that the “relative” independence of modern-states from the ruling
class (Mitchel 2006, 174) enables them to act against the temporary interests of the class and
misrepresent itself as a distinct entity (2006, 181). With regard to Afghanistan, the mere
symbolic alignment of the Pashtun-led government of Kabul with non-Pashtun groups against
the Pashtun Taliban and the daily practices of war by Pashtun-led national army against the
Taliban reinforce the view that the state is independent of the Pashtun domination.
In contrast to Mitchell, Akhil Gupta investigates not just everyday practices of
representation of the state through local bureaucracies but also the role of discourses in the
2006, 214, 230). With regard to corruption in India, Gupta demonstrates that the individual
encounters with the corrupt bureaucracies at the local level as well as debates surrounding
corruption in the media transform and reify (2006, 221) a culturally constructed image of the
Indian State as a set of hopeless, disunited and incoherent entities with no clear hierarchy lacking
any sense of accountability toward its citizens and employees (2006, 224-225). Therefore, he
concludes that these practices and discourses take the idea of state for granted and reproduce the
distinction between state and non-state institutions (2006, 226). Similarly, in the case of
Afghanistan, the daily encounters of people with corrupt bureaucracies and insecurity as well as
media discourses on corruption, the Taliban and foreign invasions divert the attention from the
hegemonic nature of the Afghan State and create a fragile and victim image of it to be protected
by each citizen.
4.The Popular Culture and the Official Language
Here, I argue that the state does not naturally represent the nation and the state has a role in the
production of national culture and language. It is notable to mention James Scott arguing that the
practices of simplification through “creating fixed surnames” as well as “the imposition of a
single official language” (2006, 257) not only create a hierarchy of culture but also grant the state
with the power to sanction the competing cultural practices discriminately (2006, 257-258, 261).
With regard to Afghanistan, surname and mother-language identify one’s ethnic group and have
negative political implications if they do not look similar to the ruling family and ethnic group.
Additionally, the national terminology has been arbitrarily chosen out of Pashto isolating the
other official language of the state which is Persian. In other words, they have been ethnicized
Additionally, states often play a large role in the reproduction of culture to favor the
ruling class. Putting “the popular culture” at the center of his theory (2006, 360) Stuart Hill
suggested that the longevity of the hegemonic rule depends on “their success in molding national
culture and shaping representations of the state” (2006, 357). According to Hill, the role of
British government in reinforcing the British culture as the national culture of the United
Kingdom (2006, 372) through “assuming a greater role in broadcasting through the BBC…
exemplified the pedagogical function played by the state…to educate the popular classes and
shape their tastes and desires to consolidate the hegemonic bloc” (2006, 358, 375-376). Owing to
the dynamic nature of the “popular culture” (2006, 363) Hill emphasized on investigating “the
historical accounts of changes in popular culture,…[its] breaks, discontinuities and
transformations…” (2006, 361, 363). Talking of Afghanistan, the Afghan State has played a
decisive role in reinforcing the Pashtun culture as national culture through governmental
practices such as the allocation of national holidays, the appreciation of Pashtun scholars and the
glorification of Pashtun rulers through educations at the cost of discouraging and alienating
non-Pashtun cultures and values.
5. Afghan State: A Historical Construct
As Abrams argues, the only way to demystify a state is “to understand…how a particular
presentation of the state was constructed historically” (Abrams 2006, 124). Here, I argue that
Afghanistan does not represent a natural nation-state and that it is a problematic creation of the
colonial powers in the 19th-century. To support my claim, I refer to the historical account of the
American historian Benjamin Hopkins who in turn relies on the personal memoire of British
Afghanistan was a conceptual construct of the East India Company’s (EIC) colonial imagination”
(Hopkins 2008, 163). Furthermore, he adds, “The heterogeneity of its social ecology makes the
use of the term ‘Afghan’ as problematic as the term ‘Afghanistan’. In its proper sense, ‘Afghan’
refers only to the Pashtun” (Hopkins 2008, 5). He criticizes the British Colony’s image of this
area for being Pashtun-centric evident from “the disproportionate amount of attention [given to
Pashtuns] both in the colonial archives as well as in the subsequent historiography” (2008, 5, 23).
According to him, since all the three attempts of the British Empire to colonize this geography
failed, as a punishment, Afghanistan was isolated from the global order as unruly state deprived
of the new technology of governmentality and statehood (2008, 168, 170). He also adds that
owing to its ethnic-heterogeneity Afghanistan has been failing to create a strong central
government (2008, 169).
Schetter also confirms that historically Pashtuns have dominated all areas of the state
affairs at the cost of non-Pashtuns (Schetter 2003, 3). According to him, “Today’s Afghanistan is
far from establishing a strong central government” and choosing “ethno-federalism” remains an
interesting option (Schetter, 2003, 8, 9). Cramer and Good hand also contend that political
changes in Afghanistan have taken the shape of the transfer of power from one Pashtun family to
another one (Cramer and Good hand 2002, 892-894). According to them, “Historically, attempts
to enforce conformity to Pashtun culture were resisted by Persian speakers” (2002, 903). On the
other hand, Shahrani calls the forceful integration of non-Pashtuns into Pashtun culture as
“internal colonization” that has been neglected by researchers on Afghanistan (Shahrani 2000, 2).
government have been associated with brutality, suppression of non-Pashtuns and Pashtunization
of Afghanistan.
Conclusion
In this essay, I argued that Afghan State is not the legitimate representative of the people of
Afghanistan owing to the political exclusion of non-Pashtun ethnic groups and maintaining the
hegemonic rule of Pashtuns. I also contended that modernization of state have been historically
accompanied by suppression of cultural diversity. At last, I wanted to convey that the
decentralization of power gives voice to different ethnic groups and weakens the Pashtuns’
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