President Karzai had a speech on June 21. He had both the houses of the Parliament and his entire cabinet present. The event was widely covered by the media. His speech had a live telecast. The attempt at gaining attention was successful. The attendance proved it, so did the coverage that it received and the national debates that it stirred.
This is a reflection on his speech as well as the debates that followed.
I found a number of valuable elements in his speech. The value came from them being “new” and unprecedented to my understanding. Afghanistan is a victim of meddling, but Karzai did not, unlike before, blame foreigners for all our problems. I felt that for the first time, he took ownership of the challenges that Afghanistan faces and placed the work of addressing these challenges on the shoulders of the Afghan government, the Civil Society, both houses of the Parliament, the Army, Police and the Intelligence forces and the people of Afghanistan. I felt that for the first time, he initiated being with our challenges. This I think is a new first baby step in the right direction. This to my understanding marks progress.
He acknowledged the pain that the people of Afghanistan go through because of the failures of the current administration. This acknowledgement was clear and honest, I thought. The fact that Afghanistan has now become home to its entire people, from all walks of life and political loyalties is an achievement, he said. Later he added a very valuable elaboration to this point. He said and I paraphrase: the people of Afghanistan allowed us to come back and live and work here despite all the crimes that we committed. He further added: The people of Afghanistan are bearing with us, they are tolerating us because they hope that tomorrow, the future will be better than today. They are paying a price today, hoping to reap its fruits tomorrow. This acknowledgement, I felt was new and unique.
The aura of the event was very frank. The attendants were listening to him. They were responding to his comments, with feedback, positive and negative both. When an attempt was made at keeping silence, Karzai made an immediate effort at maintaining that frank environment and asked not to silence the spontaneous feedback of the members of Parliament. To me, Karzai’s attempt at maintaining this frankness was valuable because he preferred feedback and what seemed to be active listening, to maintaining decorum of the meeting.
He took responsibility for what he proposed must be done, but kept emphasizing on the role of the Parliament in supporting him. This I think was an act of placing the work where part of it belongs. He named problems very clearly, and by doing so, admitted that they exist. This I think is a new beginning, the beginning of the process of facing the bitter realities of our life. (Though at a personal level, I wish this beginning had been made by anyone but the highest figure of authority in the country.)
There was also a “nothing new” part, which included an analysis of the past 10 years, failures as well as government’s achievements, with an emphasis on the recent strategic pacts signed with different countries, including the US. In this part, he also talked about how Afghanistan has been a victim of interference by “foreigners” and neighboring countries and how this meddling continues even today.
Above all, the most “nothing new” part was our social and cultural trait of dependence on authority, which he was a reflection of as he spoke. As the figure of authority, he claimed more responsibility than he can actually shoulder. He made too many promises, which I doubt he’d be able to fulfill. His inability to meet those promises will further reduce his credibility and will negatively affect his administration’s capacity to deliver, I fear. He was seduced by the participants of the event, and gave into giving good news: I will do this and do that. And you will support me. The audience responded with “yes we will.” All of this seemed momentary, a little fake and not at all sustainable.
He ended with a good note, I thought. He said something along the lines of: no one is going to leave this country. I’d like to interpret this as: We are going to be here and be held accountable for our good as well as bad deeds, and that the limit is not the sky in this case; the limit is the borders of this country. I am not sure why I think this is a good thing at this point, but it made me feel good. So let it be so.
Now coming to what it achieved: Most importantly, it stirred a debate at national level, both pre-and post the speech. Not that this debate is of some extra-ordinary quality, but the fact that we are talking about issues named more clearly than before, by the head of the state, is important. The value of this debate is its exposing character. This debate is exposing the characteristics of our nation, our capacity to listen, to understand, to analyze and to diagnose and above all, to respond to uncertainties. And here is what I think it is exposing:
This debate is exposing our dependence on authority. From TV talk shows to print editorials, all are blaming Karzai and his administration for the failure, instead of sharing the responsibility for this failure. They hold Karzai’s approach and attitude responsible for the increased corruption. They believe that changes, good changes must start from the top and trickle down to bottom and in doing so, relive themselves of any responsibility as agents of change. Consequently, all are expecting Karzai and his administration to do it all: to fix everything, something that will never be possible. We face complex problems that cannot be fixed. Addressing them will take long, will require patience and will require us to go through difficult learning and unlearning processes. The fact that our newborn and relatively modern media is equally complacent in perpetuating this sense of dependence on authority is painful.
This debate is exposing our inability to see beyond the person. We personalize everything. At this moment, we are concentrating all our attention at the person of Karzai, at his family, at his tribe, at his province, and the list continues. The problems that we face are so huge and so complicated that they can never be about persons. It never is about a person. It never is about you, or me, or he or she. We have failed at zooming out and looking at the bigger picture, at the system of which we are a part of, and in which we have a responsibility to share.
And this brings us to the third character exposed as a result of this debate.
This debate is exposing our inability to see perspectives on the problems that we face and shows our extreme obsession with intentions. Just about everyone doubt Karzai’s intentions. All they talk about are his intentions, his tribal intentions, his political intentions, his financial intentions, his social intentions, and his cultural intentions… This I find dangerous and disappointing, yet noteworthy, only to address it, to find a way out of it. The problem with this approach is that it takes us nowhere. No progress on a process is possible if we remain obsessed with the phenomenon of intentions and fail to see beyond that.
So what was there to see beyond intentions: Not that I know it all, but this is what I wished we had seen and engaged with: Karzai named some of our major challenges. He spoke about them with clarity and with a sense of determination to address them. He asked for support and for cooperation from the Parliament. We, as the people of Afghanistan, could have engaged with this proposal in an active way, and could have debated the role of youth, civil society organizations, media, political parties, parliament, and government. We could have talked about a division of labor as we attempt at addressing these problems. We could have appreciated the acknowledgement of our pain: from the pain of corruption, to the pain of being stuck in traffic jams for hours. Above all, we could have seen the role that we have played, as a nation that has failed in taking responsibility for her problems. We could have offered a mutual acknowledgement of this failure. We could have come up with proposals for the government, proposals that can be made possible not just by the decision of the government, but also by the role that we can play, in whatever capacity that we can. We could have explored the avenues for cooperation between the government and the people. And cooperation does not mean agreement. Cooperation means working together, by keeping disagreements alive, to make progress. Cooperation in this case in particular, would mean to continue to disagree, but with the purpose of finding a way out. We could have expanded those avenues, by offering to give up a little more, with the hope that tomorrow will be better than today. After all, we cannot be hopeless, can we? And last but not the least, we could have acted as “we” and not as you and me or them… We could have written a story of us, a collective story.
We could, but we didn’t do any of these. Yet, it is never too late and I still think this event, and the debates that it stirred marks progress. We are at a critical juncture. We are in a state of crisis. We are living in a very uncertain political, social and economic environment. We may not be able to have a desirable tomorrow, but one day we will. But we have to have more than empty hopes for a better future. Future comes at a cost. It takes sacrifice. It asks us to give up some, in order to gain some other.
So what can we give up? Can we, at this stage, start talking about what is it that a better future must include and what is it that we have to give away in order to get there? I don’t know what this “what” may include. But what I know is that we cannot carry everything that we have today and still make it to the future. We will have to unload some and upload some new.
In my humble opinion, I think we need to give away our obsession with intentions. We need to revisit our extreme dependence on authority. We need to think about our weakness in the face of rumors. We need to remain doubtful, of everything, but only with the purpose of making progress in addressing the challenges that we face. Above all, we need to think about parts of our culture, social relations and lifestyle that make us so vulnerable to corruption?
And we need to think about how we as a nation affect what the government does. Government is not made of creatures from another planet. They are made of Afghans, our own people, and they are very much like us. What is the guarantee that, we, if given power, would not be equally or more corrupt than the current government? There is no guarantee. Power is a powerful thing. It corrupts. But that is not just it. We, as a nation are vulnerable to corruption. I don’t know why. Lets talk about it. Let us begin by talking about this.