Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Why Afghans Are United in Disunity?

Although we have witnessed widespread changes since 2001 in Afghanistan, we have failed to strengthen national unity. Neither the government nor other national actors such as Uleema, political parties and media have been successful in uniting people on the axis of the common demands. Even, in the current sensitive political chapter which the system is under threats, the national unity is not considered as redline in Afghanistan. Instead of concentration on major national agendas such as national interests, national threats and national commonalities, we focus on ethnical issues highlighting the dividing elements regardless of what implications it may pose to the interests and even survival of the country. If we look at the public media and social media networks, they are abounded with vilifications and hatred literature. As a result, the social and political beds are completely ready for the enemies to use people against one and other.
Undoubtedly, there is no effect without any cause. There are numerous causes behind the disunited condition of the country, but let’s outline the most important factors such as attaching no importance to national unity, lack of injustice, interferences of foreign elements, lack of security monitoring on social media networks, lack of a charismatic and authoritative political leader and more importantly lack of national political culture in the country.
Out of the outlined factors, the root factor is attaching no importance to national unity as if there is no will for it in the country. Although sometimes some mottos and words are symbolically heard about national unity, it has not been considered as practical principle or the red line in policy making level of the country. On one hand, the relevant institutions such as ministry of education and ministry of information and culture have not played their expected roles in area of national unity. On the other hand, the perception of the high level politicians from national unity is based on maintaining a highly centralized political system in the country. They think that with the distribution of political and administrative power to local levels everyone would think about their own interests, not national interests.
Unfortunately, our top policy makers are unaware of modern approaches that unity is not a physical phenomenon to fix it with hard power and micro-management system; unity is a mental and psychological phenomenon that is strengthened with social peace, social justice and equality under a pluralistic system. If we look at other decentralized systems such as the US and India, they have not been divided.  Actually, they are more united and became more stable if we compare them with those centralized countries that attempt to unite people through physical force and power.
The next factor of disunity is lack of social justice in the country. As pointed out, unity is a mental and psychological phenomenon and it is not achievable without social peace, social justice, equality, and equal wealth distribution in the country. In fact, unity will not be achieved unless we truly believe in it and realize the common law that one should love his neighbor as himself. In Afghanistan, people belong to different castes, religions and ethnic origins. This diversity of castes, colors, religions, languages and cultures must not deprive anyone from equal rights in the country. We must deeply accept that different castes are like different flowers in a garden. The beauty of the garden lies in the varieties of its flowers and fragrance. Whatever caste, creed, culture and customs we follow, we are all equally Afghan and equally human and so this diversity must not be a reason to overtly deprive a group and then have the expectation of national oneness in the country.
The other reason of disunity is interferences of foreign and regional countries. As they support a group of ignorant people to kill civilians and destroy the public properties, they can also use another group to inject divisions through social media networks by raising the controversies of ethnicity, identity and religious issues in the country. This issue is more serious when it is combined with other factors such as injustice and lack of a national attention for unity. Unhappily, there is no serious monitoring system to detect such dividing factor in the country.  Seemingly, our security institutions has a narrow understanding from national security. They only attempt to control those terrorist who enter with gun and explosive materials in the country while the terrorist of national unity is far more dangerous than other ones.
The last important factor behind disunity is lack of a moderate interpretation from Islam. This has not only paved the bed for misuses but also cause controversies between the traditionalist and modernists groups in the country. The religious groups of society blame technocrats as westernized people who have no deep understanding about culture and spiritual life. On the other hand, the modernist people call traditionalists as resilient and ignorant factors that play a hindering role versus modernization and development of the country.
On the whole, the national unity is one of the most important topics while it receives the least attention in Afghanistan. Therefore, the national unity must be the main principle in our daily social and political interactions, especially when we are on the eve of the new political chapter after with withdrawal of international allies. We need to keep in mind that no group is able to lonely rescue the country and the system. We would act as strong as we are united and as weak as we are divided. Not to forget that it is also the responsibility of social actors such as political parties, media and religious scholars to play their constructive roles in this sensitive chapter of the country. Our religious society also needs to have an independent and credible fatwa center to guide the people when they are confused by this and that.