"...regional rivalry that has gone on between the neighbours of Afghanistan needs to come to an end. And Pakistan has to play a major role in that..."
AUTHOR: Ahmed Rashid - Privy to the Taliban
dawn.com
By Shehar Bano Khan
Ahmed Rashid's book, Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia, has shot him to instant fame (and fortune). It is rated as a bestseller by The New York Times, and, ever since the United States' pounding of Afghanistan, has been replaced on the shelves by the bookstores in the shortest period of time. The rush for the book world over has risen stupendously, so much so that the publishers have run an additional 300,000 copies of the print in New York alone.
The demand in Britain has crossed the figure of 80,000. One of those copies can be found at the Downing Street, in London, where Tony Blair, the British prime minister, is browsing through it to find leads for the institution of a post-Taliban Afghanistan. According to an article published in one of Britain's leading newspapers, The Guardian, "...Tony Blair's plans for a post-Taliban Afghanistan are heavily influenced by [this] book..."
Before catapulting to international fame, Ahmed Rashid was given a minor preview of what was to follow. At the beginning of 2001, he was awarded the Nisar Osmani Award, for courage in journalism, by the HRCP (Human Rights Commission of Pakistan) for his effort to accurately evaluate the abandoned and devastated country that is called Afghanistan.
A lack of material on the pariah Taliban can be one reason why the book has become a political Bible for politicians and diplomats alike. If any other researcher had put in 21 years of scholarship into such a subject, Ahmed Rashid might have spent his time a bit differently. For he has become a busy man. Far too busy for personal interviews. Toggling between appearing on the Western media, as an expert, on the current situation, and writing as a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, leaves him little time for personal commendation.
Hounded by the Western media and a constant rush to meet deadlines, forced him to squeeze 20 odd minutes of his well-synchronized time to talk to Dawn. His latest interview, as an expert on the region of Afghanistan and the Taliban, was an attempt to address certain questions troubling everybody's minds in the post-US attack weeks. Ahmed Rashid underlined the futility of the Operation Enduring Freedom, stressing that the key 'for the United States to defeat the Taliban rested more on its ability to manipulate Afghanistan's complex ethnic balance than in military might'. He foresees the danger of the West walking away, once again, after killing Osama bin Ladin and Mulla Omar. Following is a full text of the interview:
Dawn: How do you feel about your book, Taliban: Islam, oil and the new great game in Central Asia, being read by Tony Blair and hitting number one on The New York Times bestseller list?
Ahmed Rashid: (He shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly and relaxes in an arm-chair to reply). Aaa.... I am gratified that the world is now learning about the Afghans though this book. The aim of this book was to highlight the plight of the Afghans who had spent 20 years at war and were totally ignored by the international community. The recommendations and the conclusion of the book, unfortunately, predict much of what has happened since September 11.
I believe that Afghanistan is the most destabilizing element on the world scenario. The main focus of this book is to emphasise that Afghanistan and the Afghans need international attention. This kind of regional rivalry that has gone on between the neighbours of Afghanistan needs to come to an end. And Pakistan has to play a major role in that. It needs to stop interference, invariably, on the wrong side. It is important that the governments should continue to be engaged in Afghanistan so that development and reconstruction can take place.
The danger is that the West is going to kill bin Ladin and Mulla Omar and walk away. It is up to the people of the West and the Muslim world to ensure that their governments don't make that mistake.
Dawn: While you were writing the book, did you realize it was going to become a rave and an international bestseller?
AR: No... I mean, the book did extremely well when it came out in March 2000. It was translated into nine different languages, and did very well in the United States. But, it had limited readers. So, I was already pleased. Obviously, I could not predict what would happen after September 11. Had my book not been successful before, it would not have been successful now.
Dawn: Do you not think that one of the reasons why your book has done so well is because there is a lack of material available on the Taliban?
AR: Oh, of course! Absolutely! There's no writing being done of international standard on Afghanistan for the last 10 years. There are other books coming out now on the Taliban, but this is probably the most comprehensive. The reason being that it deals with a lot more than Afghanistan. It deals with the geopolitics of the region, the oil issue, Islamic fundamentalism and many other issues.
Dawn:How did you collect the data for your research, considering, I presume, that you had to travel a lot to the Central Asian Republics and Afghanistan?
AR: Well, I have been covering Afghanistan for 20 years now. In that way, this book is not about the history of the Taliban. This book is as much a history of Afghanistan and my experiences in it. The book is not about a quick trip to the Taliban and then coming back to write about them. It is not a quick book. I planned to write it many times but never got down to it. Initially, I wanted to write it in 1989, after the Soviet withdrawal. Then I planned to write it in 1992, after Kabul fell to the Mujahideen, but could not. In 1998, when I saw that there was absolutely no knowledge about Afghanistan and the Taliban, that I decided to get down to it. But, more importantly, I was looking at this new kind of Islamic fundamentalism that the Taliban represented .....
Dawn: You think it is new?
AR: What?
Dawn: This kind of Islamic fundamentalism?
AR: Yeah, I mean, this kind of an idea of a global jihad and the type of Islam the Taliban stood for, were not created by any other Muslim society.
Dawn: Did you meet any of the Taliban leaders like Mulla Omar?
AR: I could not interview Mulla Omar because he doesn't give interviews. He has given several interviews to one journalist for whom I have a lot of respect.
Dawn: Do you speak Pashto, the language of the Taliban?
AR: No, I don't.
Dawn: As you could not speak their language, did you not have any problems in writing about them? I mean, there you were researching their kind of Islamic fundamentalism and their eventual rise to power without knowing what they were actually talking about?
AR: You know, I'm hopeless in languages.
Dawn: In your view as a historian and an expert on Afghanistan, why is there this aura of secrecy around Mulla Omar? Is it to do with his kind of Islam?
AR: This is how the Taliban emerged. This is the whole philosophy of their formation, foundation and how they developed, which was very secretive. The founding members of the Taliban are still a very closed group of people. Later on, they institutionalized the secrecy by forbidding television, photography and all the rest. So, this entire secrecy mania was institutionalized in the their interpretation of Islam. For them, it was more of a logistical thing which was then given an aura of religious fiat. They did not want to divulge their work.
Dawn: As you have studied these religious ideologues in detail, why have their religious secrecy lasted for more than six years? Do you think they have something to tell the world?
AR: See, I've met all the Taliban leaders. They are very simple people. The only education they had was at the seminaries on the border of Pakistan given to them by extremely uneducated teachers. They are not worldly wise or even Afghan wise. You know, Mulla Omar has never travelled in Afghanistan and has never been to the north of the country. He's never been to Herat, to Mazar-i-Sharif and only twice visited Kabul in his life. These are a bunch of people who have very little knowledge about Afghanistan, leave alone anything else.
Dawn: Is not the West and its media responsible for turning Osama bin Laden into a legendary figure? Do you believe he is capable of all that he is being accused of?
AR: Look, I have no doubt that he carried out the attacks on the World Trade Centre. He had the capability of bombing the US embassies in Africa and the capability to bomb the US carrier in Yemen last year. There are people around him who are very bright, technically intelligent and educated. Bin Laden was partly set up by these people as a leading figure, and later, the Western media fell into that trap. But I don't think that he is running the day-to-day operations of Al-Qaeda, I think those are being done by his lieutenants. You can say that he is a very appropriate figurehead. He is a Saudi, is very rich and comes from a very well known family.
Dawn: Now, in your opinion as a journalist and not as a historian, why have all the other media networks been turned out of Afghanistan with the exception of Al-Jazeera? Do you find the coverage on the war on terrorism balanced in the Western media?
AR: Al Jazeera has very close links with bin Laden and that is why they are there. It is bin Laden who has allowed them to be present there, not the Taliban or for the fact that they are brilliant. Now, if there is inaccurate reporting by the Western media it is because they are not there.
Dawn: What is your prescription for a viable Afghanistan?
AR: The process of a Loya Jirga, which King Zahir Shah represents, is the only logical conclusion to this war. It is the only instrument which all the Afghan people recognize and can bridge the ethnic divide in Afghanistan. I think Pakistan should put its weight behind it, so far it has not.
Dawn: But this is not the ground reality. What the world is witnessing is indiscriminate annihilation of a starved nation. Do you subscribe to that as a political expert?
AR: The ground reality is that the Western alliance has not helped to create an entity in the Pashtun south of the country. When that is created you will see a weakening of the Taliban. They will not be weakened by bombing. But, nobody as yet has come up with a political strategy.
Dawn: What should have been the US strategy?
AR: The US should have started off by forming a political structure. The military campaign should have come as part of a political strategy. The US started the other way around. |
