Media Representation of Afghanistan

Terrorist country, red zone, politically unstable region, warlord tribalism, capital of drug trafficking, Taliban and Al-Qaida and sometimes land of the savages, these are today’s synonyms for Afghanistan. Travel journals, travel guides, and travel websites, stress on not visiting Afghanistan in the present situation. Afghanistan is playing a role of a hosting Osama bin Ladin and because of this it becomes the headquarters of Al-Qiada for which Afghanistan is highly criticized by the international media. There is no evidence to prove bin Ladin’s presence in Jalalabad, Kandahar, or in any other province of Afghanistan but still he is in this country and military campaigns have to be carried out to hunt him down. The Taliban regime has made all the Pashtuns very “radical” and “extremist” towards all other ethnicities present in the country or outside the country. Again pashtunwali is used to prove the argument that Pashtuns want a complete domination in Afghanistan and want to purify the Afghan society from other ethnic groups. Pashtuns have to respect their “code” of honour, pashtunwali, and in doing so it was not possible for the all the Pashtuns of Afghanistan to not provide refuge to Osama bin Ladin and his Arab companions. This is not the only the reason given by the international media for afghans giving refuge to bin Ladin; the other reason is that Pashtuns (Taliban) consider him a holy man because he was always there for the afghan people and their honour when they needed help. Bin Ladin fought the Soviets in Afghanistan during the freedom fighting, part of the mujahideen, and again he supported the Taliban movement to fight evil in the Pashtun or Afghan society inside and outside Afghanistan.

It still sounds very good for the international community to start a book or an article discussing the current political or social situation of Afghanistan by talking about the Jirga system. The Jirga is a council of elders of a particular village or a region; the Jirga settles family disputes, takes political decision for the village or region and acts as the judicial authority of the region also. The council’s word is the last and final word. It has an appeal system but criminal appeal and women’s appeals are very rare and these exist in only some tribal societies. After the fall of Taliban this Jirga system has started to fade out because of the new judicial system, which has introduced the system of courts; this system is more relaxed, gender is not an issue and criminal appeals are taken any time. The Jirga is not the judicial or political representative of a village or a province, but for the international community it still is.

Afghanistan is portrayed very unstable both politically and militarily and the main reason given is the ethnic differences in the country. In a report by Richard P. Cronin, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division, to the Congress of United States, it explains the ethnic problem in such words:

Major obstacles to establishing a stable and ideologically moderate Afghan state include: the competing power aspirations of Afghanistan’s several tribal and ethnic groups; a power shift towards the Tajiks and other minority groups and away from the once-dominant Pushtuns; the steady, long-term decline of Afghan state institutions that began with the Communist/Soviet occupation decade of 1979-89, and accelerated under the Taliban; the recent rapid increase in opium production and local power struggles for control over the lucrative drug trade; and, last but not least, the resiliency of politicized Islam, as promoted both by the Taliban and other radical Islamist parties who have been defeated militarily but retain influence in some areas.

The Pashtuns have always dominated and lead the country until the communist regime of Afghanistan. During the communist regime is when the other ethnic groups like Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbek came into the political scene. Their involvement in politics, historically in hands of Pashtuns, was first not appreciated by Pashtuns, but an ethnic group other than Pashtuns, leading the country was just not acceptable. That is why the civil war was fought and this is the reason that most of the Pashtun tribes supported the Taliban when their movement first started. This mentality or belief that only Pashtuns have the right to lead Afghanistan has changed during the civil war and during the Taliban regime. People fled to countries where ethnic problems existed but not fought over for decades like in Afghanistan; people adopted new political and social ideologies and became more stable, especially politically, than ever. The unstable Afghanistan did exist but not after the fall of Taliban, Afghanistan has two official languages (Pashtoo and Dari) and an amendment is on the way for the third official language, Uzbeki. The NATO forces and International Community have stayed in Afghanistan after defeating the Taliban in 2001, only to prevent another civil war. It is true that if the NATO forces would have left the country, another civil war would have started but not on the basis of ethnic differences but on the basis of difference in foreign political support. This is never mentioned or analyzed by the international media but instead the same old explanation is given which was given during the civil war two decades ago.