Abstract
In a conversation with Sadr sometime back, he had remarked that one’s perspective on Afghanistan is framed by the location from where they are writing about it. In that context, his Negotiating Cultural Diversity in Afghanistan (NCDA) is thoroughly an insider account of how the Afghan state has negotiated Afghanistan’s cultural diversity. Describing cultural diversity as ‘plurality of identities, customs, practices, values, modes of political discourse and ideals in a state’ (p. 5), Sadr posits that the many ascriptive layers that compose Afghanistan have been sacrificed at the altar of national integration. However, rather than aspiring for universalism, these nationalising tendencies have been assimilative in nature (p. 5). This, in turn, has created avenues for institutional and informal cultural discrimination, amounting to ‘unequal treatment in the public sphere against the minorities’ (p. 5).
The book covers a period of 22 critical years in the history of modern-day Afghanistan, beginning at 1992 when the centralised state, which was essentially a product of the imperial Great Game, crumbled in the wake of the ‘Civil War’. Replacing the hitherto unitary political power with regional fiefdoms, the fight between them was, nevertheless, for monopolising the centre through conscious ethnic mobilisation (pp. 209–215). This was also the time of extreme ethnic tension, which showed the inherently paradoxical nature of cultural diversity as a ‘site of cohabitation and contestation’ (p. 2). The ethnically mobilised rivalries and the desire for a unitary polity did not end with the rise of the Taliban or at its dethroning even as the ills of state-driven cultural assimilation and centralisation were laid bare (p. 108). Instead, they made their way into the twenty-first century when the state-building process was, supposedly, resumed in Afghanistan under the international aegis. The manipulations by external (Chapter 7) and internal actors alike came to play a significant role in repressing multiculturalism, ostensibly in the name of peace and stability (p. 170). However, far from ensuring the emergence of a cohesive civil society, the homogenisation of the national culture of Afghanistan only ended up aggravating the existing disputes, limiting the scope for inter and intra-cultural dialogue (Chapter 6). This, according to Sadr, happened as the national identity of Afghanistan came to be solidified around the ‘characteristics of one ethnic group, Pashtuns’ (p. 70), creating what Arlene Tickner describes elsewhere as ‘ethnocracy’ (quoted in Chapter 8)
As the statuses of minority and majority remain muddled in Afghanistan, owing to the lack of census enumeration amongst other things (p. 14), it is interesting to explore Sadr’s premises and evidence that establish the Afghan state as the fountainhead of ‘cultural bias and discrimination (so much so) that Afghanistan is upheld as a homogenous nation-state’ (p. 2). In so doing, he traces the rise of what may be described as notional majoritarianism as opposed to numerical majoritarianism in Afghanistan, firstly to the imperially-imposed Westphalian order; secondly, to the legacy of centralisation pioneered by Amir Abd-ur-Rahman; and thirdly, to state-led policies and practices that peddled assimilation instead of accommodation (Chapter 1). As such, the author’s objectives in analysing ‘how the cultural diversity in Afghanistan was mediated by the state’ (p. 4) are also manifold. To begin with, he attempts to fill the gap in the literature on state formation in International Relations (IR) by focusing on the role of culture and cultural diversity in forging a nation-state (Chapter 2). Further, he seeks to show that the present proclivity for ethno-official-nationalism in Afghanistan (Chapter 4) is rooted in the historiography of Afghanistan that is essentially Pashtun-centric (Chapter 3). A combination of mechanically-enforced Westphalian centralisation and historical cherry-picking is, then, shown as the rationale for people-led multiculturalism (Chapter 5).
An empirically rich account of the evolution of ethno-official-nationalism in Afghanistan, NCDA makes effective use of ‘Afghan’ literature that remains under-tapped, particularly on matters concerning state-building and cultural diversity. However, Sadr proceeds with his arguments on the state’s (mis)management of Afghanistan’s cultural diversity by treating the latter as a given. Although he cautions us against defining cultural diversity ‘based on the given segregated cultures as (they) are not natural and a given of social life’ (p. 50), he does not provide an uninitiated reader with information on the culturally variegated nature of Afghanistan. Potentially, this was because of both the lack of ‘authentic’ data as well as the positionality of the author as an Afghan writing on Afghanistan. That said, the apparentness of cultural diversity in Afghanistan is unmistakable and a mere web search can address this concern.
Similarly, the politically-mobilised ethnic identities, which Sadr criticises for having become rigid and fixed, come across as ill-fated reactions to the state’s homogenisation process. While this sounds plausible, this line of argument glosses over the conscious acts of boundary-maintenance that are followed by the (minority) ethnic groups themselves. Also, while Sadr is careful to highlight the tension between group and sub-group/individual rights, which he covers meticulously in Chapter 6, he does not peel the layers of the Pashtun identity enough. In fact, in the same chapter, while he is careful to show how the group laws such as Shia Hazara Personal Law are unjust to sub-groups/individuals (in this case, Shia women), he interestingly shows the Pashtun culture as violative of nothing less than the fundamental human rights (p. 200).
Theoretically, Sadr provides comprehensive coverage to the existing Western theories on state formation and the different perspectives on the management of cultural diversity. But even as he critiques the lack of non-western IR perspectives on the said issues, NCDA falls back on the Western models and evaluates the Afghan case, most often, against the Western yardsticks. The intention may have been to show, and rightly so, that the Western models are insufficient to evaluate the state mediation of cultural diversity in Afghanistan. However, a fuller case could have been developed by giving more space to non-western perspectives. The Indian experience of political agonism/federalism, for instance, remains under-mobilised (pp. 51–52; 171) while the references to the African cases of ethnocracies are used for immediate recall value on state-led ethnic violence (Chapter 8). Similarly, while Sadr makes use of archival and contemporary material to detail the ethnic biases within Afghanistan’s national culture, his exposition of people-led multiculturalism could have benefited from more people-centric, everyday examples of resistance such as Sayyid Baha’al-Din Majruh’s Persian novel, Azhdaha-ye Khodi (The Ego Monster; Green & Arbabzadah, 2013).
Notwithstanding the additions that could have been made, Sadr’s NCDA makes a very significant contribution to the existing literature on Afghanistan, which remains dominated by Western-influenced hegemonic tropes. As the author notes, NCDA can and must be taken forward in different directions to understand cultural diversity and state formation in Afghanistan further.