I started reading about Afghanistan in 2001. I think most of us did not know much about them before 2001. And, after that - many of us have come to associate one of these names when it comes to that country - "Taliban", "Al-Qaida", "Osama", "Islamic State", "Bamiyan", "9/11 sponsors", etc among others..
Not any of them denote positivity. I want to just pen down my thoughts about how the world is changing and how Afghanistan might be the turning point in Geo-Politics.. Let's get started..
Down the memory-lane..
If you go back many centuries, Afghanistan was a key central region at cross roads of the fabled silk road. Roughly 30% of the world trade happened on the silk road. It formed sort of the gateway into both India and China from the West. Any European trade had to cross this part of the world. Over the centuries, this region has seen its ups and downs. The only other equally important trading junction was - Israel; at the confluence of three continents - Asia, Africa and Europe.
Anyway, in short, the Afghans of those times were Businessmen. Let's look through the ages...
Pre-Islamic Era:
Let's head back roughly 1500 years.
I was reading the translated accounts of the traveler, Hsuan Tsang (the Chinese Buddhist monk) who spent close to 2 decades traveling into India to collect the Buddhist scriptures from the ancient Indian kingdom ruled by king - Harshavardhan.
The year was 630 AD when Tsang supposedly entered the kingdom of Bactria-Samarkhand (times when the Indian kings still ruled the place). The place was bustling with activity and he describes this part of the world as: "This is a rich land, where the treasures of distant countries accumulate, where there are powerful horses and skilled artisans, and the climate is most pleasant".
Supposedly, just like tourist attractions of the current times, religious monuments attracted tourists during those times - so, lo and behold, the wily Afghans had build their own state of the art Bamiyan Buddha as their tourism mainstay. For centuries, the region was a bustling economic hub, tourism hotspot!
Supposedly the Buddhas of Bamiyan were a flourishing pilgrimage during those peaceful times. The silk road was not too harsh to travel and it had brought prosperity to all the lands between Europe and China. This part of the world seemed to be at the cutting edge of technology - the first high speed cross-asian postal network, canal systems (which were still running from the Greek times of the old kingdom of Bactria and Samarkhand), top-of-the line orchard farming techniques (Citrus farming was somewhat of their monopoly)..etc..
I am digressing.. let's move forward fast.
The Islamic Ages:
The region saw Islamic conquests after Tsang's visits and subsequent capture - the Abbasid's during 800 AD and post a small relapse (when the Hindu kings recaptured the area), Muslim rulers from Samanid's onwards have had the area under their tight grasp..
However, even during these times - The Bamiyan had supposedly thwarted attackers like - Genghis (1200's), Babur (1500's) and Aurangzeb (1800's).
Post the 1500's - the importance of the region had anyway fallen.. mainly due to the greed of the later rulers charging hefty fees for the usage of the silk road (by the many mini-states of the middle east)...
The Europeans felt that it was much better spending money on exploration in the 1400's to find a safer sea route to India. By the time of 1600 AD, the region had lost out to the cheaper, more safer (from attackers) and easier (no hassle of middle men) sea routes... That supposedly put an end to the prosperity to the land. Alternate sources of revenue - farming, mining, etc never really took off due to the apathy of the rulers...
Moving fast ahead into the 20th century.., lack of education, lack of opportunities, hardships, feudal farming system, among other things, lead people to bend more towards extremism.
The feeling that somehow God will intervene when things go wrong, leads people to look more towards God-men than Good-men.
Taliban (Religious students) captured most of Afghanistan by the 1990's - it's ironic that the movement itself started as a student uprising against the warlord stooges of US and USSR!
Post 2001:
2001 was when most of the world stood up and took note of Taliban. What 1500 years of attacks could not accomplish, Taliban achieved the full destruction of Bamiyan Buddhas with the use of dynamite within weeks in March 2001.
It is ironic that Mullah Omar, the then leader is supposed to have said - "If the statues were objects of cult for an Afghan minority, we would have to respect their belief and its objects, but we don’t have a single Buddhist in Afghanistan, so why preserve false idols? And if they have no religious character, why get so upset? It is just a question of breaking stones."
The slick businessmen of Afghanistan of the 600 ADs would be turning in their graves looking at their descendants blow up their own cultural heritage.
The 9/11 attacks of 2001 sealed the fate in one way for the Taliban. By the end of 2001, US and its allies had taken over Afghanistan and for the first time in decades, >50% of the population could breathe a sigh of relief (women and children)..
I am no expert on Taliban or Afghanistan. How things have panned out post 2001 need to be told by someone in the region. What anyone writes, will always be reflective of what their biased views, opinions and world-views are..
With a new centrist US backed regime coming in; much was expected. If anyone were to be asked in 2001 as to how they feel their country turns out in 20 years, most would have been super optimistic. They might have build castles in their dreams. In reality, nothing much seems to have changed.
2021 and beyond:
There are many questions which come to mind when looking at the way Taliban recaptured the country they lost 20 years back.
It does not seem like they had to fire even a single bullet. Within a week of US leaving - they seem to have captured most of Afghanistan. How could that be even possible without massive local and international support...?
To put that in perspective, the Olympics was held for a little over 2 weeks. Taliban were able to capture the whole of Afghanistan in less time than it took for the 2021 Olympics.
Here are some questions that come to my mind:
- Could the US not build a self sustaining rulership in 20 years? Was that not enough?
- Where did the $90B/yr get spent?
- Who has got the $2 Trillion (just to put that in perspective - its comparable to Apple, Amazon or Microsoft) that was spent by the US?
- Are the taxpayers in the US not going to question where this money of theirs went? Down the sink hole?
- Usually, money gets transferred from one to another. Was the US just bribing people, with massive corruption, where contractors, military agents, NGO's gobbled up trillions of dollars!?
- Does this event signify end of the $ as a tool for diplomacy while RMB takes over? China seems to have increased their presence while US goes down
- The Chinese media seem to have been rather quiet.. what's building up there? Has the CCP taken note of their new role?
- Is this the inflection point where balance of power tilts firmly in favor of China?
- It seems Taliban has already got their act together building fairly close economic ties with China, how will China react?
What you and I see on TV might be just the tip of iceberg. The world seems to be changing fast.
We may not be really seeing the reality. It does seem to me that this can end up as a wake up call to all of the world, that US is no longer the power it was. I fear this might end up hastening the removal of US as the dominant world player.
I shudder to think what the second and third order effects of this are. The decade of 2020-30 is definitely going to throw up some Googlies! What implications does this massive debacle hide?
It seems, nothing much has changed for Afghanistan in 20 years. But, a lot has changed for the world because of the US pull out....
