The Kansas City Star
When several hundred anti-Taliban Afghan leaders met in Pakistan in late
October to plan a new government, they issued a call for what is known
in tribal circles as a loya jirga, or grand council, to weigh
their options.
It was a traditional solution to a 21st-century
problem and a symbol of how deep the tribal roots run in Afghanistan.
"We don't know how far they go back," said David Edwards, an anthropologist who has lived among the Afghan tribes. "A long, long way. We're talking centuries."
That history underscores how complex the search for a solution will be. The diverse Afghan people have to find some common ground. But as the bloody civil war of the last two decades proves, that won't be easy.
Among the tribal ethnic groups, allies one day can be enemies the next. That remains true not only in Afghanistan but in many parts of the world, where tribalism remains powerful in the 21st century.
In Afghanistan, the recurring divisions fueled over the years by political infighting and the ambitions of tribal warlords have doomed most attempts at national unity.
"There is no sense of nationhood," said Martha Brill Olcott, an expert on Central Asia at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You don't have a functioning state. In a functioning state, groups accept that they can lose a little bit on occasion because they will get rewarded for being part of the system down the road."
In Afghanistan, Olcott said, "Blood is much more important."
Tribal Diversity
