Religion has always been important in Afghans' life. Most of ordinary Afghans observe Islamic obligations and all Afghans consider themselves faithful to Islam. In Afghans' common belief, religion is the source of ethics and promoter of piousness, equality and honor. But in Afghanistan's recent history, inflexible and hard-line version of religion has played complex and conflicting role in Afghan politics, as the harsh Islamic fundamentalism emerged as a dominant player in Afghanistan's conflict. Since then, the country has been battlefield of extremism and terrorism and the extremist groups have changed Afghanistan into stage of terror war.
The harsh interpretation of religion by extremist groups such as Taliban and Al-Qaida has been a main source of violence, conflict and wars. Extremism and lack of religious tolerance has affected all aspects of social life including governance and constitutional order, human rights and social behavior.
As Afghanistan is dragging towards peace and stability to leave the war and violence behind, it needs to overcome extremism, build civil society, support human and women's rights and promote religious tolerance. In fact, these are the main elements of nation-building which Afghanistan has just begun the long journey towards. Failing in these ideals will mean failure in establishing a free and prosperous society, in which multi-voices can be heard and pluralism is respected. In the course of nation-building, Afghanistan needs to overcome challenges.
The key strategy for the future of Afghanistan is to change the equation so that the political and moderate religious leaders see the benefits of supporting religious tolerance and human rights for the future of the country and as the vital source of governance legitimacy. As the legitimate authority against conservatism and ignorance, the government must fully recognize the democratic rights of the people and provide the framework for peaceful discourse on politics, religion and nation-building.
As the much-revered constitution has articulated the human rights, democracy and freedom, the government should play the role of leading force for change and transformation of the society. To promote moderation and religious tolerance, the government must remain committed to the elements required for building civil society and provide the ground for social and cultural discourse including religion, rights and freedom.
And the international community, in its part, should persuade and help the Afghan government to foster and build an indigenous movement of religious leaders and public figures who can shape the environment in a positive way through interpretations of Islamic law and its practice. Developing civic space through promotion of religious tolerance and freedom should be considered as a priority and be acted upon. Though, in the past decade, there has been considerable progress on women rights, but they still face discrimination, deprivation and injustice.
In past eleven years after the US-led coalition toppled the Taliban regime, Afghanistan has considerably progressed towards building a civil society and promoting rights and religious tolerance. Alongside the Afghan-international efforts for state-building and counterinsurgency, there have been admirable gains in building civil society and promoting the rights of people, particularly the vulnerable such as minorities and women. Now, there are hundreds of civil organizations, human rights and women activists working on improvement of rights and life conditions of the vulnerable parts of the society.
Only a decade after the Taliban era, millions of girls go to school and dozens of newspapers, TV channels and radios are broadcasting and airing sense of freedom, change and hope among the people. Equally important is that the impact of these gains itself has profoundly affected the society leading it towards rapid transformation. In this process, the extremism has increasingly been marginalized as military efforts have been underway to overcome terrorism and defeat the insurgent groups.
But the unpleasant fact is that all these gains remain fragile and reversible. As the war and insurgency continue to take tolls, all democratic gains can be seriously harmed if not reversed. In past decade of war on terrorism and counterinsurgency, the US-led coalition has focused much on military efforts and less on promoting civic space and religious tolerance. In the context of war and violence, the US and NATO policymakers and military leaders still have not well recognized the importance of civil campaign against extremism and the fundamentalists.
This ignorance has cost a lot for the US-led international coalition in its efforts to help building a stable country, where violent extremism has no place to nourish. In order to avoid further setbacks, Afghanistan and its international supporters need to learn from past experiences related to extremism and extremist movements. Only unwavering commitment on the side of both the Afghan government and the international community can lead the country to a extremism-free society. Such commitment will cement the military campaign against the Taliban and economic and construction efforts with non-military endeavors towards nation-building, promoting rights and religious tolerance, strengthening democracy and human rights and marginalizing extremism.
As the war is waging, the conservatives still enjoy power and influence and have a louder say about social issues, most critically democracy, human rights and women. Any opposition or resistance by conservative circles against strengthening democracy, freedom and rights can be considered as a setback with sometimes great impacts hindering the efforts for building a civil society.
Because of war and violence in the past decade, the conservatives and circles with extreme views remained unchallenged, hindering promotion of religious tolerance and institutionalizing culture of moderation and discourse. This is absolutely challenging. In the past decade of state-building in Afghanistan, religion has preserved its legitimizing role in government's efforts for gaining public support and stabilizing the country. The government has assiduously sought help and support of the Ulemas and religious scholars to move the peace efforts forward and bring the insurgents back to negotiation table.
What is critically important in still-conservative Afghan society is that any such comprehensive efforts towards promoting religious tolerance and freedom and building a civil society should be implemented in a way that do not meet social backlash. Efforts towards promotion of freedom, human rights and religious tolerance do not necessarily need to violently confront the accepted standards of the conservative society, but it is something to be avoided.