Globalizing Afghanistan: Terrorism, War and the Rhetoric of Nation Building ed. by Zubeda Jalalzai and David Jefferess (review)

This interdisciplinary collection of essays succeeds in introducing readers to the historical and contemporary place of Afghanistan in global struggles and the challenges of reshaping Afghanistan. The introductory essay by the editors outlines how Afghanistan has long been ‘an ideological battlefield’ and how its current Western occupation is driven by contradictory humanitarian impulses to help ‘the other’ while also protecting the West from the ‘other,’ most notably the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Rodney Steward’s essay, ‘Afghanistan in a Globalized World,’ provides important historical context by illustrating how first Britain, then Russia, and now the United States have sought to control Afghanistan often through complex ethnic and religious partnerships. He reveals the irony that Afghanistan gravitated toward the Soviet Union during the Cold War because of a lack of American interest. The Soviet regime with its focus on secularism and its liberalism toward women emerges as relatively benign compared to the Taliban, who returned from Pakistan and rose to power after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Nigel Gibson’s short essay argues that opium has always been a force of globalization in Afghanistan. This is an arresting thesis, but the essay falls short because a lack of detail leaves the reader without a sense of the exact role opium plays. Altaf Ullah Khan’s essay on Pukhtoon journalists from Pakistan and Kamran Rastegar’s essay on the importance of Iranian cinema in conveying knowledge to the West about Afghanistan are important reminders of regional complexity. These essays also complement Imre Szeman’s concluding essay that warns intellectuals of the dangers of seeking public forums that will simplify, frame, and distort their work on the complexity of Afghanistan. Khan illustrates how Pukhtoon journalists who were largely hostile to the post-9/11 US-led invasion of Afghanistan nevertheless worked with Western media because the money was good. Rastegar’s essay also demonstrates how Iranian film-makers sought to cash in on the post-9/11 Western interest in Afghanistan. Szeman’s essay may, however, be unduly pessimistic given how this short and accessible collection effectively challenges dominant narratives about the war and occupation of Afghanistan.

The two most provocative essays in the book critically interrogate simplistic narratives that portray the post-9/11 war and occupation as designed to liberate the women of Afghanistan. Gwen Bergner recounts how shortly after the occupation of Kabul in November 2001, Laura Bush defended the war because ‘only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women’s fingernails for wearing nail polish.’ Oprah Winfrey unveiled an Afghan activist who only wore a burqa for the cameras. Bergner notes how the West largely ignored the treatment of women under the Taliban. She argues that after 9/11, ‘in a reprise of colonial logic, brown women must be saved from brown men by white men.’

Mailha Chishti and Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims draw on their work training Afghan women about the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women in a more optimistic essay which suggests that Western feminists can interact with Afghan feminists. They acknowledge the need for dialogue on matters of religion but also candidly acknowledge the existence of a ‘transnational feminist apparatus’ that is part of the ‘larger international apparatus.’ Their focus on the anodyne provisions of the convention obscures some of the challenges of transnational feminism. They mention but fail to explore UN Security Council Resolution 1325 calling on nation-states to increase the representation of women in decision making. Post-invasion Afghanistan has duly followed this UN mandate just as it has followed similar UN mandates on terrorism. The new constitution reserves twenty-five percent of the seats in the lower house for women.

Alas the West has always had difficulty imposing even its benevolent will on Afghanistan. The 2009 elections saw a significant decrease in female voting because of violence and a failure to open polls reserved...