Make Sense of Afghanistan With Thomas Barfield: Part 1 | FO° Talks

#afghanistan #ThomasBarfiel #ashrafghani
Afghanistan is in turmoil. The democratic government installed by the US collapsed after 20 years. This government was a result of a US-led attempt to modernize and reform Afghanistan. However, this Kabul regime lost popular support because of pervasive corruption and fell even before the last US troops left in 2021.
In the first part of this discussion, we dive into the history of Afghanistan. According to Barfield, the real problem for the democratic regime was simple: Afghans had never reached a consensus on what direction their country should take.
From its founding in 1823, Afghanistan’s monarchy was primarily concerned with centralizing power. Its goals were political, not ideological. The monarchs waged war across Afghanistan to subject the different tribes to their rule. They managed to retain power and independence despite the British Empire ruling British India to their east and dominating Iran to their west.
This does not mean that Afghanistan avoided British influence altogether. In 1928, King Amanullah Khan toured several Western capitals, including London, and returned to introduce reforms that would modernize his nation. His attempt to impose modernity resulted in a civil war. A period of unrest followed. Amanullah fled into exile and two of his successors were killed.
When the dust settled, young Mohammed Zahir Shah became king. Real power resided in his uncles’ hands though. The new regime bid adieu to modernity and let Afghans carry on as before. This settlement ended up keeping the peace in Afghanistan for 50 years. Some modernization of Afghanistan inevitably occurred, but the bigwigs in Kabul did not rock the boat with a reformist ideology. Their concerns, like those of the early Amirs, were more pragmatic.
In 1973 Daoud Khan, the prime minister, conducted a bloodless coup and ended the monarchy. Although he declared himself as president, he was a close relative of the monarch and was perceived more or less as another king. Khan consolidated power by suppressing right-wing Islamist forces but underestimated the strength of the Afghan left.
In 1978, Khan tried and failed a mass arrest of communists. This precipitated a coup by communist elements in the military, bringing an end to his rule.
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[@omerdogrukol6362]

I LOVE Prof. Barfield's insight and his style.🤓

[@KamBam-ni3pt]

Hes full of bs watch his videos from 10 years ago he said taliban would never take over all of Afghanistan because of different ethnic tribes and tajiks will never let taliban rule everything he said turned out to be false

[@bigmofarah9084]

Who knows, the way Afghanistan is he could still end up right

[@KamBam-ni3pt]

@@bigmofarah9084 lmao 🤣 😂 😆 keep hoping 🙏 mate

[@wobby6395]

@@KamBam-ni3ptHow is that hoping? Do you really see the terrorist Taliban in power for the next five yeti ? If so, you must be delusional!

[@AbdulKhader-786]

Taliban zindabad

[@sethnotes]

Not at all. The Taliban control Kabul (at least last time I checked). It is nominally in charge of the whole state. But Taliban rule (like any rule in Afghanistan) has never gone very deep. In fact, that is the basic insight that Barfield makes over and over. Different foreign powers (the U.S., the U.K., the U.S.S.R., Persia, the Greeks under Alexander the Great) have maintained varying degrees of the control of the state as a whole. But the extent of that control was wider than deep. Real political power is at the tribal level (those tribes being, in some cases, as big as major cities).
So, the Taliban have some control over the state as a whole. They are who foreign powers need to deal with (at least in the first instance, they doubtless have relationships to the various tribes). But they don't rule in the sense that we in the West (or the countries of East Asia) think of as "ruling".