Afghanistan before the Soviets/Taliban

[Thanas]

This is a remarkable series of Photos that show life before the Soviet invasion and Taliban emergence. It makes one weep over that much process lost.

[madd0ct0r]

suggest thread title be changed to 'urban Kabul before the soviets'

[Thanas]

suggest thread title be changed to 'urban Kabul before the soviets'

Since some photos are not set in Kabul (especially if you follow the further links in the article), no.

[spaceviking]

Question? Is the professionalism of Afghan military overstated in those picture?

[madd0ct0r]

suggest thread title be changed to 'urban Kabul before the soviets'

Since some photos are not set in Kabul (especially if you follow the further links in the article), no.

conceeded. I've only seen a small subset of those pictures before.

[Sidewinder]

Question? Is the professionalism of Afghan military overstated in those picture?

Considering what happened later- a 1973 coup, a 1978 coup, the Soviet invasion in 1979, and civil war- I must say, "Yes."

[K. A. Pital]

Photos are not really astonishing - a thin fleur of secularism in the capital over a rural country where radical islamism spread like wildfire. Like Iran except worse of course.

[Elheru Aran]

Photos are not really astonishing - a thin fleur of secularism in the capital over a rural country where radical islamism spread like wildfire. Like Iran except worse of course.

I think you'd be able to find photos like this from almost all the post-colonial Third World countries. Very typically immediately after independence, flush with the 'success' of their secession from the colonial superpower and recently fattened by a quick influx of either American anti-Communist or Soviet anti-American foreign aid... and then bang, the bubble pops in a few years once enough people get tired of the money being in the hands of a small exclusive category of upper-class citizens. I remember seeing very similar pictures from Nigeria when I lived there of new American cars on the streets of the cities, 'flourishing' universities with state-of-the-art equipment (for the 60s or 70s), and quietly glossing over the fact that the head of state has 'General' in front of his name.

[Thanas]

Photos are not really astonishing - a thin fleur of secularism in the capital over a rural country where radical islamism spread like wildfire. Like Iran except worse of course.

I think you'd be able to find photos like this from almost all the post-colonial Third World countries. Very typically immediately after independence, flush with the 'success' of their secession from the colonial superpower and recently fattened by a quick influx of either American anti-Communist or Soviet anti-American foreign aid... and then bang, the bubble pops in a few years once enough people get tired of the money being in the hands of a small exclusive category of upper-class citizens. I remember seeing very similar pictures from Nigeria when I lived there of new American cars on the streets of the cities, 'flourishing' universities with state-of-the-art equipment (for the 60s or 70s), and quietly glossing over the fact that the head of state has 'General' in front of his name.

Thing is though that Afghanistan in the sixties had several decades of "westernization", for lack of a better word.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah, it's something of an outlier. However that's only because the wealthier classes (who do you think was sending women to university? Wasn't Ahmed the sheepherder from that village 80 miles west of Kabul, that's for sure) and the government managed to keep a reasonably even keel on things for a while. It also helped that the Head of State for a long time wasn't popularly elected-- Zahir Shah was king from the 1930s till early 70s, and it looks like he was largely responsible for a lot of the modernization post-WWII. An argument for monarchism, perhaps?

[K. A. Pital]

Most of the country was still deeply rural; there was no real industrialization that'd touch most of Afghanistan's villagers or, for a lack of a better word, peasants.

Of course, now after several invasions by greater powers and several decades of radical islamists ravaging the country it is in a worse shape precisely because of squandered opportunities: now it's main industry is opium and the government is part Taliban or Taliban sympathizers and part drug lords.

[Zilkar]

Interesting pictures (particularly the before and after of the park), but I have to take issue with the captioning that Afghanistan was embracing a national identity rather than a tribal one.

It very well may be that in the major cities such as Kabul and Kandahar that the wealthier elements of Afghan society was beginning to see a national identity, but in the villages, mountains, and rural areas family and tribal identity was (and is) very much paramount. Toss in the religious divisions, ethnic divisions, lack of national institutions, and there was (and is) no way that "Afghan nationhood" would ever be the primary means of self-identification.

[Thanas]

I disagree with that simply because building a national identity takes a lot of time and Afghanistan did not get that time.

[Elheru Aran]

Interesting pictures (particularly the before and after of the park), but I have to take issue with the captioning that Afghanistan was embracing a national identity rather than a tribal one.

It very well may be that in the major cities such as Kabul and Kandahar that the wealthier elements of Afghan society was beginning to see a national identity, but in the villages, mountains, and rural areas family and tribal identity was (and is) very much paramount. Toss in the religious divisions, ethnic divisions, lack of national institutions, and there was (and is) no way that "Afghan nationhood" would ever be the primary means of self-identification.

This is something that every long-standing nation goes through that starts at a low industrial base. In the early middle ages England had a lot of people who self-identified by their shire rather than as Englishmen. The American Civil War was somewhat an extension of the same tribal/regional loyalty taking precedence to loyalty to the nation. The factor that unifies a nation, more than anything, is time, culture, and money. The longer a nation survives and builds up its economy and identity, gradually people start to identify themselves with it as tribal divisions start breaking down by people intermingling with each other.

Afghanistan only had about a decade or so of constitutional rule under Zahir Shah (early 60s to early 70s) before he was overthrown in a socialist coup. Not coincidentally, that's where most of these pictures are coming from...

[Zilkar]

I disagree with that simply because building a national identity takes a lot of time and Afghanistan did not get that time.

I agree that they did not get enough time, but I think that it goes beyond that. Elheru Aran is correct that breakdown of tribal identity requires intermingling, but the simple isolation of Afghanistan (only one ring road connecting the major cities in the entire country, and that built in 1961), coupled with the insularity of the mountainous regions in the East, plus the influence of Iran from the West, plus the ethnic identification as Tajiks, Turkomen, Uzbeks, Pashtun etc leads me to believe that this particular pot would never melt.

I just cannot see how a national government would be able to positively influence a sufficient amount of Afghanistan to get beyond the family, tribe, village, clan outlook.

[Thanas]

I disagree with that simply because building a national identity takes a lot of time and Afghanistan did not get that time.

I agree that they did not get enough time, but I think that it goes beyond that. Elheru Aran is correct that breakdown of tribal identity requires intermingling, but the simple isolation of Afghanistan (only one ring road connecting the major cities in the entire country, and that built in 1961), coupled with the insularity of the mountainous regions in the East, plus the influence of Iran from the West, plus the ethnic identification as Tajiks, Turkomen, Uzbeks, Pashtun etc leads me to believe that this particular pot would never melt.

I just cannot see how a national government would be able to positively influence a sufficient amount of Afghanistan to get beyond the family, tribe, village, clan outlook.

Well, it is not like we will never now, but I just cannot agree with such a project being decided a failure before it launched.

[Elheru Aran]

Yeah. Without the benefit of hindsight, had we looked at the US in the late 1700s, we might have said much the same things about it. The only thing the 13 Colonies really had in common were that they were largely white and formerly British citizens; realistically, they had several religious divisions (Quaker, Protestant, Catholic, etc), regional divisions (North/South/between states even), economic divisions (plantation aristocracy in the South, mercantile and financial market upper class in the North)... It was, frankly, a mess.

Even 200-some years later, we (the USA) haven't quite gotten very cohesive in so many areas. It's overly idealistic to expect a unity typical of countries that have been around for centuries, from a country that's only existed for a decade or two in its modern state.

[Zilkar]

Yeah. Without the benefit of hindsight, had we looked at the US in the late 1700s, we might have said much the same things about it. The only thing the 13 Colonies really had in common were that they were largely white and formerly British citizens; realistically, they had several religious divisions (Quaker, Protestant, Catholic, etc), regional divisions (North/South/between states even), economic divisions (plantation aristocracy in the South, mercantile and financial market upper class in the North)... It was, frankly, a mess.

Even 200-some years later, we (the USA) haven't quite gotten very cohesive in so many areas. It's overly idealistic to expect a unity typical of countries that have been around for centuries, from a country that's only existed for a decade or two in its modern state.

The one thing that I would suggest that the former 13 colonies also had was the fact that they had successfully rebelled against England. This accomplishment gave them a starting point where they could make the assertion that they had chosen not to be a colony, and that they had chosen to be an independent country. I think the fact that the former 13 colonies did not have centuries of history in that particular location also helped them to make that break.

Contrarily, since the various clans, tribes, ethnicities in Afghanistan did have the centuries of history in their particular locations, it is more difficult to make the mental break with the past to adopt a new self-identification.

[Thanas]

The one thing that I would suggest that the former 13 colonies also had was the fact that they had successfully rebelled against England. This accomplishment gave them a starting point where they could make the assertion that they had chosen not to be a colony, and that they had chosen to be an independent country. I think the fact that the former 13 colonies did not have centuries of history in that particular location also helped them to make that break.

But Afghanistan did have a shared history - reaching back thousands of years in some cases. For example, the defeat of Britain. Those are all figures of Afghan identity.

[Zilkar]

The one thing that I would suggest that the former 13 colonies also had was the fact that they had successfully rebelled against England. This accomplishment gave them a starting point where they could make the assertion that they had chosen not to be a colony, and that they had chosen to be an independent country. I think the fact that the former 13 colonies did not have centuries of history in that particular location also helped them to make that break.

But Afghanistan did have a shared history - reaching back thousands of years in some cases. For example, the defeat of Britain. Those are all figures of Afghan identity.

Yes, they did have the shared history, and with some very significant accomplishments. However, the key element of that (in my opinion, of course), was did they identify as Afghans when they defeated the British, or did they identify as Pashtuns, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Popolzais, etc?

[Elheru Aran]

The one thing that I would suggest that the former 13 colonies also had was the fact that they had successfully rebelled against England. This accomplishment gave them a starting point where they could make the assertion that they had chosen not to be a colony, and that they had chosen to be an independent country. I think the fact that the former 13 colonies did not have centuries of history in that particular location also helped them to make that break.

But Afghanistan did have a shared history - reaching back thousands of years in some cases. For example, the defeat of Britain. Those are all figures of Afghan identity.

Yeah, the tribes actually had a brief moment of unity there when they got together to kick the British out of their country. Afghanistan has a long history and while there's certainly strong tribal allegiances, the concept of an unified country has existed for centuries. It's certainly not something they would be unfamiliar with. Look up the Durrani Empire and the Hotaki Dynasty if you need references.

[Zilkar]

Thanks, I will.

I admit that my knowledge of Afghan history is a mile wide and an inch deep. Little bit better versed on the recent history.

[madd0ct0r]

I recommend Adam Curtis's docu-film Bitter Lake. I though it'd be about the role of propaganda and confusion (and it is), but the heart of the film is the history of Afghanistan, from the immense american civil engineering works that inadvertently started the poppy crop onwards.

I'm trying to find where it has gone now it's off BBC iPlayer, but if you can get hold of it it's a fantastic hour of your life to spend.

[Zilkar]

Thanks madd0ct0r.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

The one thing that I would suggest that the former 13 colonies also had was the fact that they had successfully rebelled against England. This accomplishment gave them a starting point where they could make the assertion that they had chosen not to be a colony, and that they had chosen to be an independent country. I think the fact that the former 13 colonies did not have centuries of history in that particular location also helped them to make that break.

But Afghanistan did have a shared history - reaching back thousands of years in some cases. For example, the defeat of Britain. Those are all figures of Afghan identity.

The same could be said of the Caucasus, but shortly after the Russians were defeated, they fell into infighting, and then that allowed the Russians to return and achieve victory. Now, their notion of "identity" is pretty much forged by Russian brutality.

Tribalism still shapes a good chunk of the world, whether we like it or not. And more so in places where the conditions for survival are harsh.