Journal of International Peace Operations
Volume 7, Number 4 – January-February 2012
A critical stakeholder in building the foundations of civil society in Afghanistan
The role of Afghan women supporting the build-up of civil society capacity
As international security forces prepare to draw down and civilian contractors brace for reduced contract solicitations and option year renewals, the international community should seriously examine its support for the role that civil society is playing in the growth and long-term viability of the Afghan state. Specifically, the international community should reinforce positive investments into efforts that explicitly incorporate women’s voices and participation across Afghanistan.
Despite hard-won combat successes by international troops, the future of the country will be won or lost by the Afghans. In a war where front lines go beyond geography and the battle for hearts and minds reaches past the male population who can walk down the street freely, it is Afghan women who must be included in building the community organizations and social infrastructure necessary to enable the country’s future success. The opportunity to combat violence and extremism democratically already exists in Afghanistan through participation in civil society initiatives that empower all citizens to play a greater role in building a common future for the Afghan state.
Structural Weaknesses in Civil Society
Although the definition of civil society varies depending upon whom (and where) you ask, it’s widely agreed that the term ‘civil society’ refers to initiatives undertaken beyond the family, state, and/or market wherein people voluntarily associate in order to advance common interests. While civil societies are not always perfectly united or homogenous entities, consisting of their own unique internal politics and power struggles, for the purposes of this piece I refer to civil society as an auxiliary forum outside of traditional government and religious structures where the Afghan people can seek representation.
Those attempting to establish and maintain a strong civil society framework across Afghanistan have long faced many obstacles in addition to the Taliban. Socioeconomic conditions that allow for the emergence and perpetuation of groups like the Taliban are the real problem. Indeed, the most profound problems are deep rooted inequalities in the social constructs of the Afghan state, not a dwindling group of misled recruits who retreat into caves when snow falls. These circumstances were born from decades of war and centuries of social tradition that are proving to be at odds with the style of modernization that international forces would like to see.
Challenges to establishing a strong civil society include pervasive issues such as the proliferation of criminal patronage networks, weakened representative structures, lack of educational opportunities, poor access to healthcare, and, perhaps most importantly, absence of strong common national goals and identity. Each of these challenges is augmented by systematic gender segregation and imbalanced levels of academic achievement spread across both geographic and socioeconomic divides.
Yet another destabilizing factor threatening Afghanistan is the lack of ‘institutional’ social knowledge of how to act in what the West wants to be a free society. The last two generations of Afghan mothers surviving childbirth has birthed, on average, a half dozen children. Most of these mothers do not have the requisite knowledge to teach their children basic skills such as literacy, numeracy, and socialization outside of family networks. It is likely that these mothers cannot teach their children about a common Afghan identity because they themselves do not understand such a thing. This is a missing link in the process of modernizing Afghanistan. The formation of a common Afghan identity in place of the current delineations of Shia/Sunni or Pashtun/Tajik/Hazara is still distant, but it is the civil society groups working to provide skills and education to the population, regardless of religion or ethnicity, that are likely to be the first environments in which these distinctions are bridged.
Back to Basics
What is absent in a society is sometimes more telling than what is present. Such was the case with respect to support systems for women outside of clandestine familial and neighborly networks that were fostered during the secluded years of Taliban rule. Beyond the material assistance and knowledge transfers women provided for each other through resourcefulness or help from rare sympathetic male counterparts, there was no government support system in place to address the needs of the female population. It was under these circumstances, in the shadow of the Taliban, that women took it upon themselves to acquire skills that would provide income to households where men were unavailable or unable to economically support their families.
One of the foremost challenges to civil society across Afghanistan is that when the Taliban left town, the unsavory non-government collaborators did not follow suit. They stayed, played their hand to their best advantage, and gained legitimacy. Although the government was de- and re-constructed, the makeup of voluntary social and civic relationships throughout Afghanistan were not. While the exclusion of women from participatory representative bodies may no longer be the official line, that does not mean that women have emerged from seclusion into a hospitable civil environment.
The women of Afghanistan have worked to build their own social and economic security by facilitating and participating in civil society projects that promote the peer-to-peer exchange of tradecraft skills, informal expansion of educational opportunities, improved literacy and numeracy, basic hygiene and healthcare instruction, and the development of social networks amongst women. These social networks both foster self-reliance and encourage community participation. These activities demonstrate how resilient women, unused to government or civil society help, invariably became. Recent publications like The Dressmaker of Khair Khana, The Sewing Circles of Herat, and The Beauty School of Kabul chronicle the positive social and financial outcomes that women’s programs had during and soon after the rule of the Taliban, and the ways in which those programs positioned their participants for success following the fall of the regime.
Beyond the systematic discrimination suffered by females across the country, Afghan women also suffer extremely high widow rates. The health consequences of violent conflict have affected healthcare access, sanitation, and basic hygiene education, and this has collectively claimed more lives than the conflict itself. Indeed, after three decades of war and a collapsed healthcare system, it is estimated that upwards of 2 million women out of a population of only 30 million bear the social exclusion of being widows. In a patriarchal society such as Afghanistan’s, the death of a husband not only lessens a woman’s financial security, but it also puts her at the lowest level of society, removing her social protections. In addition to coping with the death of a husband, women are then saddled with the immediate needs of securing household income and some measure of social support.
Looking Ahead
If nascent social and political infrastructures are allowed to collapse, then space is created for groups like the Taliban to reestablish a foothold. By encouraging women to participate in the provision and proliferation of support mechanisms amongst themselves, the ability of the Taliban, criminal networks, and exploitive individuals to act as providers or brokers of such benefits is eliminated. If communities and small groups of women are able to gain self-sufficiency then they can be resistant to outside pressures to fall under the control of patronage networks. This resistance to external influence will serve to insulate stability in Afghanistan by encouraging autonomy.
Much recent economic analysis has focused on the imminent danger of a ‘drawdown recession.’ This recession will be a direct result of the elimination of support sought for International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) and the eradication of demand for more advanced logistical, infrastructural, and technical skills. As economic growth derived from international force support slows in the coming years, there will likely be a return to markets based on more traditional skills and crafts, thereby shifting the sources of labor that generate typical household incomes.
A relatively depressed economy will result in increased financial hardship for the general population, and that hardship will highlight the need for a social safety net of civil society groups to step in where the state does not or cannot. This need will likely be particularly pronounced in female-headed households where women are largely unskilled, thus further necessitating the establishment of support networks maintained and implemented by women.
Whether one believes that a robust civil society comes from a stable government or vice versa, one cannot survive without the other. If you can bring stability you can bring development, and if you can bring development you have a better shot at building a strong government.
In the Long Run
In Afghanistan the international community has its eye on the clock and knows that it can no longer strive for perfection, but rather needs to aim for sustainability. The events of recent years have proven that we cannot, “kill the Taliban into wanting a political compromise,” as some military leaders have opined. However, the past has also indicated that it may be possible to incentivize the general population into wanting a political compromise. And these incentives can be the outcomes of civil society initiatives that empower and educate the general population with no motive other than providing opportunity for advancement and encouraging voluntary relationships.
Beyond the outcomes provided by civil society programs, the recognition of civil society itself is vital to an enduring peace in Afghanistan. Without the incorporation of civil society into long term planning and lacking laws to protect initiatives undertaken by this unique private sector, Afghanistan will continue to be dominated by powerbrokers that do not always represent the greater interest of the Afghan people.
Poverty, illiteracy, insecurity, poor healthcare, and violent conflict systematically reinforce each other. When women gain the ability to break one link in that circle of circumstances, they have the opportunity to take one step away from that grip. Explicitly including, enabling, and empowering women across the spectrum of development and reconstruction activities will help to create conditions for a more politically and economically sound Afghan society.
The Economist recently gave voice to the sentiment that, “When the Taliban first took power, people didn’t really know what they were like. They do now and the women of Afghanistan will never forgive them.” Although many would take issue with Afghans who stick to the mantra that their country has never truly been conquered, it is indisputable that the hearts and hopes of its women have never been defeated.
