Suchergebnisse

Past examples of reconciliation in Afghanistan -- The post-2001 conflict -- An assessment of post-2001 reconciliation efforts -- The politics of reconciliation -- Recent reconciliation initiatives -- Reflections on reconciliation -- International support for reconciliation -- The Musa Qala accord -- Key findings and recommendations

Reacting to corruption and oppression in the Kandahar of 1994, the Taliban is seen as working with Sunni clerics to foster a shariat movement for advancing economic justice and (corporal) punishment. Before long, the organization began substantially rewarding joiners, arming for jihad, and resisting international forces in Afghanistan. Now, with less foreign resources to fight the Taliban, the Kabul central government has unfinished business with its still-robust challengers. In the face of recent modernization in sectors such as education and media, the author details three plausible scenarios for the Taliban to maintain its core shariat mission. One scenario is for the Taliban to re-secure (through continued force) its initial goal, viz., overall state power to promote and enforce shariat across urban as well as rural areas. Another possibility projects Afghanistan as operating a dualist system of separate zones, one for the Taliban's 'liberated territory,' the other for the rest of Afghanistan as governed by Kabul. Achieving scenario three would be formidable: it posits that Taliban leaders may be persuaded that their armed jihad has run its course and can profitably be disconnected from the Middle East's broader Islamic conflict. Conceivably, then, through accommodations with a shariat-accepting Kabul government, Taliban might be able to win buy-in for peace from its own military and its own fighting priests with their strong ties to Afghan communities in Pakistan.

"The paper explains how a movement, which in 2001 was dismissed as defeated and irrelevant to the future of Afghanistan, re-established its influence across the country during the decade of international intervention in order to position itself as a serious contender for power by 2011. The paper shows that the Taliban effectively harnessed multiple Afghan cultural resources, including religious institutions, the Pashtun tribal system, elements of the Afghan national narrative as well as also embracing modern communications. However, the Taliban movement still suffers from constraints to its social power, in the form of limited ethnic appeal, lack of inroads in urban areas and slowness to embrace the instruments of pluralism. The implication is that the Taliban are still ill-equipped to exercise state power." (author's abstract)

In Afghanistan, neither side can win - a reality that creates a simple and compelling logic for peace talks. (Survival / SWP)