What Muslims Want:
In Afghanistan, and Elsewhere-Democracy

Thomas O. Melia

If ever there were a country so devastated and forlorn that democracy could be considered a luxury-to be pursued only after more rudimentary human needs were met-I expected that Afghanistan after the Taliban would be the place. After all, few countries have experienced comparable devastation from civil war, foreign invasion, natural disasters, and misrule over a twenty-five year stretch. None seemed more inhospitable to our notions of a modern liberal society, considering the gender apartheid that banned education for girls and work by women; medieval punishments for religious dissenters and common criminals alike; the destruction of the giant Buddha statues at Bamian as part of a bizarre campaign to erase from the country every last artistic rendition of the human face; and of course the hospitality shown to Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda henchmen. Surely there was more afoot here than a few Taliban zealots run amok. There could well be a broader cultural disinclination for democracy as we know it.

Eminent scholars, of course, have long explicated the ways in which Islamic culture generally is not conducive to democratic practice, though some others have disputed this claim. The experts had said that democracy ought not to be a high priority of the international community in Afghanistan. In a widely read paper early in the year, two leading thinkers on democratization strategies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace had argued instead that a modus vivendi had to be established with the warlords who had made common cause with U.S. forces to rout the Taliban. Any effort to mold the country into a democracy, wrote Marina Ottaway and Anatol Lieven, would be not only "quite impossible in Afghanistan today, but fits only the wishes of a small minority of Westernized urban individuals…very out of touch with their own society."

So I went to Kabul last April fully prepared to disappoint my friends at the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a non-governmental organization devoted to the promotion of democratic institutions and ideas worldwide (After more than a dozen years at NDI, I departed in early 2001 to join Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, Inc., an international opinion research firm). Decisions about the country's future were being made in Washington, Bonn, Brussels, Tokyo, and other world capitals-but ordinary Afghans were not getting much of a chance to weigh in. Now NDI had asked me to help bring that perspective to light on the eve of the "emergency Loya Jirga." This was a version of the traditional Afghan gathering of elders being convened in June 2002 with United Nations assistance to chart the country's future and legitimize the interim government of Hamid Karzai. While I was confident I could do part of what NDI wanted-record and amplify the views of Afghans about Karzai, the king, the Taliban, and reconstruction priorities-I was also prepared to report back that democracy was neither well understood nor in great demand.

My findings could have ended up supporting the unappealing conclusion that accommodation with warlords was the only smart way to move the country forward.

Thomas O. Melia is an associate at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy and adjunct professor in the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.