A look inside the Asia Foundation survey

The Asia Foundation released it's third survey of the Afghan people today. Polling in Afghanistan should by no means be seen as dispositive, but this data can provide insights unavailable elsewhere (especially compared with prior baseline surveys by the Asia Foundation in 2004 and 2006). Here's a look inside...

Predictably, media reports framed the poll as a referendum on security (see AFP: “Security fears up sharply among Afghans: survey”) It’s true that pessimism about security rose among Afghans--with 32 percent citing security as their top concern (up from 22 percent last year.)

But the picture is more complicated, since security concerns vary significantly by region and two thirds of Afghans felt that security in their area was good. Moreover, among those who believe the country is headed in the right direction, good security is cited as the second most important reason (34%) after development.

So the Survey paints a nuanced picture and provides some fascinating data on everything from support for traditional institutions (such as Shuras and Jirga) to democracy and women’s rights. A few trends worth noting:

Right Direction / Wrong Direction:

• People are still optimistic, even if there was a slight decline in those who said the country was headed in the right direction (from 44 percent to 42 percent).
• Three-quarters of Afghans continue to assess government performance positively (i.e. either strongly (25%) or somewhat strongly (55%).)
• Afghans continue to espouse confidence in national security forces (both army and police) as well as in traditional institutions such as Shuras and Jirgas. However, “less than half of the respondents had confidence in the government's justice system, political parties and local militias.”
•  Corruption is an issue for many Afghans, but it is not clear that it has grown more acute. Some poll questions suggest an increase in perceptions of corruption while others suggest a decrease.
  

Security:

• Among people who felt the country was going in the wrong direction, security was cited as the top reason. This may seem unsurprising, until you realize that even in last year’s survey security was only rarely mentioned as a reason for a “wrong direction” response.
• On the other hand, among those who said the country was going in the right direction, good security was cited as the second biggest reason (34%).
• Perceptions of security varied greatly by region. Nationwide, “sixty-six percent of the respondents felt that security in their area was good or quite good, and 50 percent said they rarely or never feared for their own or their family's safety. Eighty-two percent said no one in their family had been a victim of any crime or violence during the last one year.” 

Reconstruction:

• Last year, respondents cited “rebuilding of the country” as only the fourth most important reason why the country was headed in the right direction; this year it became the most important reason for believing so (39%). It’s not clear whether people feel reconstruction is going better, or that the other trends they cited as reasons for optimism last year (security, peace, disarmament) are simply going worse. MORE
  

Have PhD in Anthropology, will travel...

I was surprised to find this piece had climbed to the second most emailed article in the New York Times today, but perhaps I shouldn't have been. Interesting, well-reported, and counterintuitive.

• Video

It's odd to find that a field so synonymous with The Academy has become a coveted commodity (much to the chagrin of certain professors, cited in the article, who seem philosophically averse to using their discipline for anything pragmatic...)

Can you imagine all the Anthropology majors emailing their parents to say "I told you so?" And can you imagine what better shape we'd be today if we entered Afghanistan with a modicum of understanding of its cultural context? The Army seems to now appreciate the importance of these skills, but it's a steep learning curve. (One could also question whether the Army is the right institution to be delivering governance and services...)

Anthropologists help U.S. Army in Afghanistan and Iraq, By David Rohde, Oct 4 (NYT):  SHABAK VALLEY, Afghanistan: In this isolated Taliban stronghold in eastern Afghanistan, American paratroopers are fielding what they consider a crucial new weapon in counterinsurgency operations here: a demure civilian anthropologist named Tracy.

Tracy, who asked that her surname not be used for security reasons, is a member of the first-ever Human Terrain Team, an experimental Pentagon program that assigns anthropologists and other social scientists to American combat units in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they act as cultural advisers and suggest ways to win local support without using military force.

Colonel Martin Schweitzer, commander of the 82nd Airborne Division unit working with anthropologists here, said the unit's combat operations had been reduced by 60 percent since the anthropologists arrived this spring. He said the focus had shifted from combat to improving security, health care and education for the population.

"We're looking at this from a human perspective, from a social scientist's perspective," he said. "We're not focused on the enemy. We're focused on bringing governance down to the people."

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates authorized a $40 million expansion of the program, which will assign teams of anthropologists and social scientists to each of the 26 American combat brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, military officials are scrambling to find more scholars willing to deploy to the front lines to interpret tribal structures and explain cultural differences. MORE

Possible hostage outcomes

The Associated Press ran a piece today about possible outcomes of the hostage standoff. Here are the options, along with the AP assessment:

• RELEASE TALIBAN PRISONERS

The Taliban has submitted an initial list of eight prisoners to the government, most of whom are related to the kidnappers and are not senior in the Taliban hierarchy. ...But the Afghan government appears unlikely to agree after it was heavily criticized earlier this year for releasing five Taliban in exchange for an Italian reporter...One high-ranking Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the government "is not ready to make any deal with terrorist kidnappers, even if they kill all the hostages."

Photo: Shah Mansoor Dadullah was one of five prisoners released this year for the Italian journalist. He is currently a top Taliban commander in the south and may have had a hand in the Korean hostage crisis. (Source: Afgha)

Triumph of the Tube...

"With democracy comes television. It's hard for some people to get used to."  - Saad Mohseni, founder of Tolo TV

Indeed, one study shows that two-thirds of Afghans living in the five most urban provinces watch TV every day or almost every day. The NY Times today shines the spotlight on what is, for most Afghans, as big a cultural change as any... 

A massive phenomenon in Afghanistan: Television. By Barry Bearak (IHT/NYT July 31):...Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Afghanistan has been developing in fits and starts. Among the unchanging circumstances that still give people fits: continuing war, inept leaders, corrupt police and woeful living conditions...But television is off to a phenomenal start, with Afghans now engrossed -- for better or worse --  in much of the same escapist fare that seduces the rest of the world: soap operas that pit the unbearably conniving against the implausibly virtuous; chefs preparing meals that most people would never eat in kitchens they could never afford; talk show hosts wheedling secrets from those too shameless to keep their troubles to themselves. MORE

Tom Perriello: Two Views from Qandahar

Qandahar is a lot to take in on a short trip. I had forgotten how much cleaner and wider the streets are than in Kabul. And that the city comes to life in the evening for those two magical hours before the onset of darkness. New development is visible everywhere and statistically trends are headed up from 8 months ago inside the city.

Yet the mood is grim. People talk about corruption that stretches from petty police bribes to drug dealing at the highest levels of provincial Government. While people remain solidly anti-insurgency, a deep fissure has appeared here between the people and government that was a mere crack in 2005.

The logical link between enabling corrupt warlords and undermining our own counter-insurgency efforts is crucial to understand. A corrupt government does not make people pro-insurgency. It simply means people no longer have a dog in the fight. Between a corrupt government (who demand payoffs) or the Taliban and other anti-government forces (who offer handouts), you follow the path of least resistance and try to stay out of the way. MORE

Grounds for hope--Coleman and Charney cite progress in women's rights

  Amidst the prevailing winds of pessimism it is good to have a reminder of how much ground Afghanistan's women have gained, both in legal rights and in societal acceptance of those rights. The polling data is truly striking--80% accept women in parliament, 70% in the workforce; 88% support education for girls. This data has held robust in survey after survey (in the piece below, Charney references data which is consistent with his first survey in 2004.)

Two caveats: first, these favorable views do not appear to be strongly held, and second, among influential elites the picture is quite different. Nevertheless, as Coleman and Charney remind us, "applying unrealistic yardsticks to Afghanistan leaves us unable to see important changes taking place there."

There are grounds for hope in Afghanistan. June 18, 2007, (Globe and Mail) by CRAIG CHARNEY AND ISOBEL COLEMAN: As the Taliban and NATO spring offensives grind on, many people's perceptions of Afghanistan are pessimistic. Some say our Western efforts have changed nothing, so we will fail: The ongoing abuses against women, corruption, and warlordism are opening the door to the Taliban. Others say unless we change nothing, we will fail: Steps towards gender equality and democracy are disturbing a male-dominated, ultra-conservative society and reviving Taliban support.

These perspectives miss the real grounds for hope in Afghanistan: Afghans themselves are changing their society, with Afghan women playing a leading role. Despite the Taliban's military revival, Afghan women have won broad support for their rights to study, work, and vote, largely gained since the Taliban's 2001 ouster, and overwhelmingly reject their former oppressors. But, at the same time, Afghans are struggling to reconcile many of their Islamic traditions with the modern world, as the case of women also shows.

Photo Source: DefenseLINK: An Afghan woman of the Pashtun tribe in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo by Senior Airman Bethann Hunt, USAF.

Afghan journalists announce boycott to protest execution

AfghanWire has comprehensive coverage this week of Afghanistan's response to the murder of Ajmal Naqshbandi, the Afghan journalist beheaded by Taliban forces on Sunday. I found this phrase, from a pamphlet, particularly poignant: "The whole country is in mourning of this young man who travels to the south not to fight with any one; not to kill anyone but to guide a journalist, someone who is like a mirror to the world..."

Ajmal's execution strikes a nerve for Afghans, who in it see in it a microcosm of their national tragedy. Foreign powers get involved in Afghanistan and enlist the help of Afghan allies. But when things go wrong they'll pay any price to bail themselves out, leaving Afghans to pay the price. MORE

Photo: Ajmal Naqshbandi, the Afghan journalist who was executed by the Taliban Sunday. Source: Afghan Embassy.

Amnesty law passes; what next?

Alex Thier and Scott Worden have a piece in the Christian Science monitor that suggests that Karzai, if he plays his cards right, can "seize this opportunity to cement his leadership by transforming a self-serving attempt by warlords to avoid justice into a measure that truly sets a course for reconciliation and peace."

They argue that the outcry the bill spurred--especially from the National Council of Islamic Clerics who say it violates sharia law--is a positive sign; moreover, because of language within the amnesty provision, it "does not really protect any individual from answering for his crimes -- so long as a victim is brave enough to bring a claim." Thier and Worden argue that the best way to proceed is to implement the bill within the context of Karzai's Action Plan for Transitional Justice, which precludes amnesty for "crimes against humanity" (which are also prosecutable under international law.) In sum--and like Barney Rubin last week--they believe there's some lemonade to be wrung from these lemons. Worth a read...

Healing the wounds of the civil war requires both reconciliation and accountability
WASHINGTON (CSM) By J Alexander Thier and Scott Worden

Like every country facing the aftermath of civil war, Afghanistan is struggling to balance the need for peace and stability with demands for justice and accountability...Although President Hamid Karzai successfully negotiated a crucial amendment to protect the rights of victims of war crimes, the new amnesty law still favors the powerful warlords who sponsored the bill.

Afghanistan's three legal systems

Last month, in the wonderfully reported Honor Among Them, the Economist asked "how the Pushtuns' ancient tribal code is fighting for survival against radical Islam"? The author notes that "By one estimate, jirgas settle over 95% of Afghanistan's disputes, civil and criminal." I'm not sure what estimate they are referring to here, but the author argues that people shun both sharia and legal courts "not just because the regular courts are incompetent and corrupt...(but) where authority is contested by a well-armed citizenry, the jirga's verdicts, delivered with the warring parties' consent, tend to be more enforceable than off-the-peg legal or Islamic judgments."

The irony is that while the West see Taliban-style sharia as backwards, their code looks almost progressive compared to Pashtunwali. Sharia guarantees to women certain rights of inheritance and does not recognize the exchange of women as a means to end disputes or the Pashtun habit of wife inheritance.

Some try to finesse the differences... MORE

Photo: A pashtun jirga breaks for lunch from a murder trial. Pakistan, Feb 2000. Credit: T. Kurosaki  

 

On vice and virtue

The BBC reported yesterday that "Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has passed a bill setting up a Taliban-style department under a cleric to enforce Islamic morality." The provincial governor cannot veto it a second time, though it may face a challenge by the Supreme Court. In any case, the impact is unclear since "the wording of the bill has been deliberately left vague and therefore open to different interpretations."

The NWFP move comes several months after Afghanistan's cabinet approved the Ministry of Vice and Virtue--albeit in a very different form from that the existed under the Taliban.  As one source puts it, the Ministry may well be an attempt to "walk the tightrope between the turban and the Armani suit" by offering an escape valve for Afghan anger toward imported vices...Read on for an excerpt from an article by Aunohita Mojumdar... 

Sea Change in the Judiciary?

An excellent piece in the Times by Alex Thier, who advised the constitution and judicial reform process. The new slate of justices is one of the few positive developments in the past weeks, and may open the door a crack for the further reforms that he identifies as necessary...

Order in the Courts (NYT)
By J ALEXANDER THIER