Learning from the Taliban: A Message to the Western Anti-War Movement
ACTIVISM, 12 Jan 2015
Rev. Aaron Doncaster – TRANSCEND Media Service
14 Nov 2009 – “I would basically describe it as a religious network which turned into a political movement”. These are words used by Antonio Guistozzi when describing the evolution of the Taliban since they were overthrown by occupying armies in 2002. According to Guistozzi, a researcher at the school of economics in London, the Taliban has been adapting to changing political conditions on the ground by forming alliances with local communities. So what does this mean?? It means that rather than being an organization/government of theocratic fundamentalists, which it was before NATO invaded, the Taliban has evolved into a confederation: a sort of united front to oust the occupying forces, albeit one with theocratic fundamentalists in its ranks.
How does this evolution of the Taliban affect anti-war organizing here in the west? I would argue that from a strategic point of view, if we fail to understand the changing geopolitical situation in Afghanistan, we undermine our ability to engage in tactically effective campaigns that could lead to us achieving our goals.
What are our goals??? In order to understand this question we need to realize that just like the Taliban in Afghanistan, we in the western anti-war movement are not a homogeneous group. I am going to describe from my perspective two different groups from the mosaic that makes up the western anti-war movement, which I believe are impeding the development of a strategic plan of action that is needed to end the occupation.
There are those who are opposed to violence, who go around parroting anti-war clichés without having a clear strategy for ending violence and who cannot decipher between conflict, resistance and violence. I call these folks authoritarian dogmatic pacifists. They tend to enjoy speaking Ad Nausea at anti-war events and tend to take control of organizing efforts.
Even if they have an ability to think strategically, their indulging in actions of self-aggrandizement cloud and hamper their strategic thinking. The other group of people who hinder the ability to develop an effective strategy to end the occupation of Afghanistan are the sub groups of our society who jump on the band wagon, usually riding the coat tails of ardent organizers, only to jump off when the going gets tough or when their ability to confront authority in a specific way is put in jeopardy by the possibilities of victory. These folks, from my experience often tend to be the politico-hipster type and those who get drunk on the power of confronting authority. They often claim to be some sort of warriors but when it comes down to it, they are cowards. You can often find these folks at protests and demonstrations, yelling slogans like “fuck the police” at a safe distance from the police while others are often getting accosted by those same police. Unfortunately, I have firsthand experience of this.
Before I go any further, I want to say that these assumptions are only deduced from my own experience and analysis and it is very possible that my experience and analysis of the Western anti-war movement is an exception from the norm experienced by others, thereby causing my deductions and analyses to be incorrect. With that being said, as someone who considers them self to be part of an anti-war movement here in the west, I feel like all others who claim to be part of this movement, to have a right to have my feeling, opinions and analysis herd and critiqued.
So after that small digression, a digression that was needed in order to understand that which we digressed from, let’s again ask ourselves what is our goal or goals? I think that even with selfish oriented folk, dogmatic folk and cowardly folk within the anti-war movement, I believe that the argument can still be made that the main goal is to end the Afghanistan war.
So with that being understood, how do keep our eyes on the prize???
We must understand that the pro war hawks in the military and in government who have their own vested interest in seeing the war in Afghanistan continue. These forces will do anything in their power that is politically acceptable, to see the demise of the anti-war movement. They will even go as far as sending spies into our midst.
There are also those in parliament, who send gate keepers into the anti-war movement to make sure that the movement does not become too effective. These folks have no interest in bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan, the just want us to believe that they want an end to the war in order for them to gain political power. I only have to point to the NDP government in Nova Scotia to prove my point.
When we realize that there are those who have their own vested interests within the anti-war movement (the NDP to name one group) that diverge from our main goal and add to a hierarchical organizational structure of the movement, it then behooves us to not only look more deeply at the diverging goals of those in the movement but also to look at the organizational structure that allowed such divergences to appear I believe the solution to our problems within the anti-war movement are to be found in the evolution of Taliban over the last 8 years. The reason why the Taliban have been so effective as of late is that they have gotten away from their hierarchal structure and built alliances that allow for allied groups to keep their autonomy. Such an organizational form allows for a diversity of tactics to be used when attacking your enemy. If we here in the west do not take on a form of organizing within the anti-war movement that allows for a diversity of tactics and allows for respecting a diversity of tactics, then I believe we will fail in achieving our main goal of ending the occupation of Afghanistan. By learning from the strategic effectiveness of the Taliban, it does not at all mean that we are accepting their ideology. If this were the case, then I guess I should stop going to marches with theists. Sure there will be those who say we are Taliban sympathizers but those who refuse to see the differences between tactics, strategies and ideologies and who would continue, even after we make it clear that the ideology of the fundamentalist Taliban is backwards and oppressive, to call us Taliban sympathizers, I believe they deserve to be looked upon with suspicion. Weather they are inept when it comes to forming strategy or they are government agents, anyone who puts ideology and dogma before strategy deserves to be looked upon with suspicion. I have argued before and I will continue to argue that now is the time for us to learn this and only through a concerted campaign that allows for direct action civil disobedience and economic sabotage, can we expect any kind of success when organizing to end this war.
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Reverend Aaron Doncaster - Rad-Green <at> lists.econ.utah.edu
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