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By Dmitry Shlapentokh Asia Times Online May 28, 2009 The war raging now in Afghanistan is quite different from the wars in the Cold and post-Cold War era. Most of these were proxy wars, when what seemed to be much smaller and weaker forces collided with a much bigger adversary. A good example is Vietnam, where the Soviet Union, and to some extent China, supported North Vietnam against the United States. In this century, the 2006 Lebanon war between Israel and Hezbollah was actually a proxy war between Iran - replacing here the Soviets of the past - and the US. Both powers had their proxies; Iran chose Hezbollah, the US stood behind Israel. However, the Afghanistan war seems to be entirely different from these conflicts, as there is no force that stands behind the Taliban - and in a way, the movement is self-supported. To understand this, one must compare this conflict with similar uprisings in the past. The comparison not only helps explain the nature of the movement, but also gives clues as to why the Taliban will survive. Pretty much independent from external support and placed in absolute isolation, the Taliban could be well compared with two phenomena from the beginning of the last century - the Boxer Rebellion and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917. The Boxer Rebellion, or Boxer Uprising or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in Chinese, was a violent anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony” or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China (known as "Boxers" in English), between 1898 and 1901.
The Bolshevik Revolution was in some ways similar with the movement of the Taliban. The Bolsheviks proclaimed that formal capitalist democracies and "human rights" were merely a sham to hide the rule of the rich. The ideal Muslim society for the Taliban resembles the Bolshevik's "Utopia". The Taliban, similar to the Bolsheviks, have discarded all ethnic and national differences. "True" Muslims are similar to "true" communist party members, and should not care about the ethnic or national characteristics of their members. Nationalism to both was either bourgeois, or jahiliia (an Islamic concept of ignorance to guidance from God) - an ideological poison. Both the Bolsheviks and Taliban have a messianic eschatologist appeal to all the downtrodden and believe that the "law of history" - Allah in the Taliban case - predestines their success. And both the Bolsheviks and the Taliban had or have in their ranks dedicated stalwarts who are ready to die for their cause. It looks like these characteristics could explain the Bolsheviks' survival and make it possible to assert that the Taliban could survive. Generations of Western, including American, historians have proclaimed that it was the dedication of the Bolshevik elite and its grassroots support of the masses that led the Bolsheviks to victory. Still, the strength of the Bolsheviks should not be overestimated. The Bolsheviks were not able to improve the conditions of the urban proletariat and the peasants became outraged by their requisitions, with quite a few either joined the Whites - those who were the Bolsheviks' enemies and they included practically all parties - or gave the Bolsheviks no support. The major threat came from outside. Similar to the Taliban, around the world the Bolsheviks were proclaimed to be absolute evil and everybody was against them. The West and even the East - at least Japan - seemed to be ready to join hands and crush them. Their plan seemed to have been quite plausible if one remembers the fate of the Boxer uprising, when Chinese mobs lynched "Western devils" and laid siege to their embassies in the capital. At that time, the Western world was sharply divided into military blocs, but the sense of solidarity and trust was strong, mostly due to the basically peaceful nature of the 19th century for Europe. The belief in international law, at least in dealing with each other, seemed to be unshakable, and all of this helped the Europeans unite and quickly crush the Boxers. The same fate seemed to await the Bolsheviks, whose fledgling military forces could hardly stand against a European army of a couple of million or so. Even Germany, on the brink of defeat in World War 1, was a formidable force for the Red Army, which was ready to sign what Vladimir Lenin called the "obscene" Brest-Litovsk Treaty, just to avoid its collapse. Still, a strong expeditionary force was not created to topple the Bolsheviks. The reasons were, as in many historical events, manifold. Still, the experience of World War 1 was most likely one of the most important. The brutality of the war, the blunt violation of international treaties and the starving and mistreatment of civilians, shook not just the defeated Germans but even the victorious Allies, possibly on the level of collective subconsciousness. After the horrors of World War 1, the Europeans could never trust themselves as before and while all of them hated the Bolsheviks, they had no desire to fully commit themselves to an anti-Bolshevik victory. As a result, they sent to Russia just small isolated detachments that could hardly make a difference. The same could be said about the Taliban. Those who have elaborated on the Taliban strength point to the defeat of the British and Soviets in Afghanistan. But there is nothing extra special about the Afghanistan resistance and the million-strong armies of the West and East - if they stay for a long time and are not afraid of losses - could end the Taliban's rule. Such a force would require not just the resolve of world powers, but trust in each other and a willingness to cooperate in earnest, as was done in the Boxer Rebellion. But this is clearly absent today. The Europeans will never forgive the US for the way it created a financial pyramid, the grand Ponzi scheme of not just one villain, but the entire government, which has fallen now on European heads. The Iranians will never forget, even if the Iran-US relationship improves, that the US had contemplated nuclear attacks that would reduce Iran to dust. The Russians also will never forget the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's advancement to its East, the bombing of Serbia, and the color revolutions, which they believe were inspired by the US to undermine Russian's position in the post-Soviet era. In turn, the former Soviet republics will never forget Russia's attempt to engage in regime change in Georgia. Consequently, all of these countries, despite their clear dislike of the Taliban, would rather follow the model of dealing with the Taliban more similarly to that of the Western powers dealing with the Bolsheviks, rather than with how they handled the Boxers. And this provides the Taliban with many chances for survival. Dmitry Shlapentokh, PhD, is associate professor of history, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Indiana University South Bend. He is author of East Against West: The First Encounter - The Life of Themistocles, 2005
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GetaRealPerspectiveMrShlapentokh
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... You have failed to take account of the fact that a coalition of 40 strong countries have participated to crush the Taliban resistance and have thus far failed. The more troops that are sent in the greater the pickings! Not just a single country, but a huge coalition of the most powerful have already stayed a long time and have sustained heavy losses, but to no avail (See paragraph 6 from bottom). Your key conclusions and hypothesis are deeply flawed. |
