Afghanistan: The Democratic Crisis
- Category: Articles
- Written by Aaron Peterson
- Published: Thursday, 01 May 2014
The question remains, what exactly is democracy? In the abstract liberal democratic sense what is occurring, what has been occurring in Afghanistan has been foremost non-existent. Parliamentarians specifically, Malalai Joya have been silenced by the government in Afghanistan (The Northern Alliance) and have received death threats by the Karzai clique. In Afghanistan, the majority of parliament has been made up of former human rights abusers and warlords who have been guilty of various crimes, their rise to power is distinct through their not-so-kosher economic interests which includes the opium trade in Afghanistan. What has been given to Afghanistan in the past 13 years, is not democracy even in the abstract sense. It is an illusion of such rife with corruption and anti-democratic suppression.
In the case of Afghanistan, what has not been offered has not been democracy. It has been a riggery of elections, the Karzai clique turning Afghanistan into a narco-state protected by US force, warlordism sponsored by NATO and with the inverse Islamic fundamentalists. There is something to note about the Northern Alliance: The Northern Alliance were notoriously corrupt which is the reason that during the inner conflict between the Mujahideen, the Northern Alliance lost territory to the Taliban due to the fact of pedophilia involving young boys, rapes and extortion. When the Taliban took control of the majority of Afghanistan these things disappeared, yet, the brutality of the Taliban much like their Mujahideen counterparts in Afghanistan was still present. Twelve years on from the occupation, the conditions still remain the same with the same forces of the Northern Alliance, ever so corrupt exploiting the Afghan people in line with their NATO backers.
What is the other offering for the Afghan people? The Taliban and the other fundamentalists of the Wahhabi sect? What needs to be done is to refute both, both lack legitimacy and are products of US imperialism in Afghanistan from 1979 to the present. In Kabul, young men and women have been progressively organizing and working for a brighter future for their homeland through the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan and through RAWA (The Revolutionary Organization of Afghan Women). I myself have been involved in several campaigns in support of RAWA through the Afghan Women’s Mission in the United States. What the people of Afghanistan need is education, only through education and struggle will they realize that what is offered to them by the foreign backed Karzai Northern Alliance clique and the Taliban are two sides of the same coin that seek to oppress them. Afghanistan, is a country that has been demonized as of recent, it is a country that people point to on the map and call backwards. When Afghanistan, was once a flourishing society, secular and progressive. Can Afghanistan be reclaimed? Through struggle it can be reclaimed, through the struggle of the progressive masses against the forces of reaction. In time, the people of Afghanistan will reclaim their nation’s glory and progressively serve the people and deny those who seek to exploit it the ability to do so. May we see a brighter future for the Afghan people, for Afghanistan and a thousand blossoming flowers.
