I began my career as a Foreign Service officer in Indonesia. There, journalists, diplomats and aid workers emphasized that local government was “incompetent, inefficient and corrupt. I heard the same when working in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq. My colleagues often seemed contemptuous of the nations where they served. They overlooked the cultures’ virtues and strengths, which are the keys to rebuilding nations, particularly after insurgency and civil war. Foreign policy experts will tell you that poor states lack rule of law, a vibrant civil society, a free media, a transparent civil service, political participation and a great deal more. Employees of major international agencies commonly complain that Afghans or Iraqis or Kenyans “can’t plan or “can’t implement. At its worst, this attitude is racist, bullying and ignorant. But there are less sinister explanations. As a diplomat, I was praised for “realism if I sent home critical telegrams. Now, working for a non-profit organization, I find that donor proposals encourage us to emphasize the negative aspects of local society. Many of our criticisms reflect our deep assumptions about citizenship, management and the state. Afghans and Iraqis are often genuinely courageous, charming, generous, inventive and honorable. Their social structures have survived centuries of poverty and foreign mischief and decades of war and oppression, and have enabled them to overcome almost unimaginable trauma. But to acknowledge this seems embarrassingly romantic or even patronizing. Yet the only chance of rebuilding a nation like Iraq or Afghanistan in the face of insurgency or civil war is to identify, develop and use some of these traditional values. Many international reformers over-exaggerate the power of technical assistance and formal processes. In fact, in these contexts, charisma can be more potent than bureaucracy. Politicians have to demonstrate an intuitive understanding of local power structures and empathy for the unexpected things people value about themselves. This may be uncomfortable for representatives of the international community. A leader who can restore security, reconcile warring parties and shape the aspirations of a people may resemble a Kemal Ataturk more than an American president. However, this is not a call for dictatorship. True progress must be sustained by the unconstrained wishes of the people. These should include, in Afghanistan, people with strong liberal values as much as conservative rural communities. These various desires must be protected from both the contorted control of an authoritarian state and the muffling effect of foreign aid. The international community often attempts to avoid imposing foreign systems. Donors try hard to emphasize grassroots consultation in designing a political system. But it is much easier for us in theory than in practice to admire and empower an unfamiliar society. For example, the international approach to nation-building in Afghanistan has failed to accommodate the splits between Hazara and Pashtun land arrangements, gender attitudes and codes, or their different approaches to literacy, the dignity of the individual or economic progress. We do not embrace the many unexpected ways in which Afghans might overcome trauma, invest, trade, and learn. Such diversity should not be imprisoned by the current centralized government, but empowered by a devolved and flexible federal system. Western management jargon is of little help to Afghan entrepreneurs, who use tricks, trust, community and crises in a powerful way. The strong Afghan sense of justice, community and religious belief can support a counter-narcotics program, the rule of law, democracy or security. But the real drivers of change are opaque. Ultimately, we must respect countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and trust in their ability to find their own solutions. This does not mean the international community must withdraw entirely. A Harvard MBA will be better at building a hydroelectric plant than a local tribal process. Foreign troops can sometimes, as in Bosnia, end a war. Our rigid values, critiques and methodologies can, even in a place like Iraq, set up a central bank and stabilize a currency. But the central problems are national and political. Our invective about state failure and our dissatisfaction have become part of the problem. Real solutions will emerge, often improbably, from local individual virtues, and from the cultures we struggle to describe and tend to ignore. Rory Stewartruns the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in Kabul. His latest book is the “The Prince of the Marshes and Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq . THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service.
Use traditional values more in rebuilding broken states
