Civil Society Returns to Herat

When US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew into Herat in late April, he spent two hours with Ismail Khan, the powerful warlord of western Afghanistan. Rumsfeld did not encounter the small group of Afghan professionals and technocrats in the city. He missed an opportunity. By meeting with these people, Rumsfeld would have learned about a new effort to revive Afghanistan's civil society and shrink warlordism as the country begins reconstructing its economy and reconciling various groups' claims to it.

The group in Herat consists of men and women who hold university degrees and, for the most part, hid out during the Taliban militia's six-year reign in the city. When the Taliban shut down Herat University along with schools and offices, these people laid low in farms and villages. (The women among them could not legally work.) Now they have come together to form the Shura, or Council of Professionals. "We want to develop civil society to get it out of the clutches of the warlords and bring Afghanistan into the modern era," said Mohammed Rafiq Shaheer, the Shura's elected President. This mission statement reveals the Shura as the clearest early articulation of Afghanistan's reemerging middle class. And Shaheer's declaration that his group acts as a counter to forces like Khan is no accident. If Afghanistan is to break its political dependency on warlords - and its economic dependency on the hordes of Western consultants now arriving in the country - then Herat's Shura effort should spur replication in other cities.

The Shura works within a defined sphere that the Taliban and warlords never separated from the business of government: it seeks to promote human rights without regard to political affiliation. "The Herat professional Shura is an independent and non-political organization," says the charter of the group. "This Shura has been established to restore human rights in Afghanistan [in] full conformity of the Bonn Agreement," the Charter adds. Anyone with a university degree may become a member so long as he or she adheres to the terms of the Bonn agreements, which the United Nations brokered in December 2001 to set up the country's interim government in Kabul.

Reflecting its diversity, the Shura has ten separate associations under its umbrella. These include associations of lawyers, economists, teachers, engineers, painters, calligraphers, poets and even a group that promotes "agriculture, livestock and veterinary medicine." According to the charter, these guilds intend to "provide authorities and international aid agencies with professional consultations." However Shaheer says that so far no international aid agency except for the United Nations has consulted with them.

Indeed, Western representatives like Rumsfeld have paid calls on Khan, despite rumors that he has pursued relations with Iran that he has not coordinated with the Kabul government. Shura members have a love-hate relationship with Ismail Khan, even though several of his senior bureaucrats belong to the Shura. "Ismail is jealous of our knowledge and experience and the following we have," claims a Shura member. A bureaucrat who has tried to arrange informal meetings between the Shura and Ismael Khan admits that it is difficult "convincing such warlords of the need for professional technocrats as advisers." Says another educated adviser to Khan: "I am trying to push Khan to listen to the Shura because they are good people and they have good ideas, but it's not easy." If Khan sees the Shura as irrelevant, members see it as inevitable. "Ismail Khan does not accept our advice, he only accepts what the commanders say," says the bureaucrat who tried to broker meetings. "He has become harsh and lost touch with the new reality."

The Shura publishes a monthly magazine called "Takhassos" which means "Experts" in Dari, the Afghan equivalent of Persian. An early issue contains articles on how to revive Herat's schools, boost irrigation systems and repair bridges and roads. The magazine operates on a shoestring budget and has received one computer from the UN, although it expects support from another non-governmental organization soon.

But Khan dismisses the magazine's advice, countering that the Shura lacks credentials. "The government should be built on the merits of the mujaheddin (holy warriors) who resisted the Soviets and the Taliban," says Ismail Khan. "Many of those who want power never had a role in resisting the Taliban and I do not have anyone who can contest against me or my record of doing that," he adds. Shura members vocally support the American-led mission to dislodge the Taliban. In a town hall type meeting with the Shura and this EurasiaNet correspondent, some 50 men and women gathered to discuss the United States' role in Afghanistan now. Many expressed the fear that the United States would again walk away from Afghanistan once the terrorists of al Qaeda were mopped up.

Here, the Shura split with Khan again. Several members said that the warlords need to be better controlled "by more Vitamin B-52 injections," - a reference to US air power. Others said that the United States should now stop supporting the warlords with arms and money to find al Qaeda, and should do more for reconstruction instead. Yet the Shura wants above all to put Afghan reconstruction in Afghan hands. American and UN dominance "is our fault," said a doctor. "We were once strong, but now we feel inferior because foreigners are telling us what to do."

Fears of American caprice bled into concern about Herat becoming stuck in the diplomatic conflict between the United States and Iran. "We don't want interference from either," said a lawyer. "We can become a bridge between Iran and the US and provide a balance and make them become friends if we play our cards right," said another lawyer. The United States has accused Iran of allowing al Qaeda and Taliban militants to escape to Iran. Both the Iranians and the Americans have a military presence in Herat, and Ismail Khan frequently plays both sides.

The Shura seeks to define a more durable Afghan position. Yet it has no equivalent in any other Afghan city, including Kabul, which has expended the bulk of Western aid so far. If Afghanistan's professional middle class is to become an important player in the future and civil society is to return, both the Kabul regime and the international agencies need to do more to encourage the spread of Shuras - and other peaceful, professional, nationalist bodies - to other cities.