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Afghanistan/South Asia
AEI: a visit to Herat under Ismael Khan's control
2004-09-03
The other side of the story...
...For a warlord, Ismael Khan seems like a hard-working and shrewd administrator. I followed his schedule for some days, sitting in on meetings with local police chiefs, Kabul military commanders, and the odd Uzbek diplomat. A crowd of petitioners--cripples, favour-seekers, women asking for permission to divorce--crowded the anterooms. Like the Doge of Venice, Ismael Khan personally empties sealed suggestion boxes that have been set up at main points in the city: blue boxes for complaints against officials, white boxes for disputes between citizens. As a rule, officials are dismissed after two complaints are received against them. The street lights were connected in the poorest areas first.

But Ismael Khan's rule is more than just one man's quest to rebuild a city he clearly loves. It is perhaps the first experiment in Islamist-style modernisation, at least in Afghanistan. Against the backdrop of communist-forced secularisation and then the Wahabi-inspired fanaticism of the Taleban, moderate Islamists like Ismael Khan are the functional equivalent of conservatives. Reform and modernisation, they say, must come from within the philosophical roots of their own society and should gain religious sanction in order to be palatable and permanent. Even at the height of the war with the Soviets, I watched him argue with villagers: 'Why don't you set up a school? The Prophet, peace be upon him, taught that in search of knowledge we must go as far as China.' More recently, I heard him denounce men who drive their wives to suicide by keeping them locked up inside their houses. 'You must give education to your daughters, so they can be helpful to your children. And what kind of men are you to rely on marriages arranged for money!' If the provincial villagers who were listening are to accept radical changes at all, they are more likely to do so from a local Islamic leader than from some UN do-gooder.
Posted by:Super Hose

#1  One step at a time. The article makes it sound like he has the right idea.

Some say we 'bombed Afghanistan out of the stone age'. I think we get a bit impatient and want them to skip the bronze and iron and all the rest of the ages. Sometimes that isn't possible.

But I still question the possibility of a 'moderate Islamist'. Especially if said moderate is also a warlord.
Posted by: Kathy K   2004-09-03 8:31:04 PM  

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