Afghanistan Project CMS

<p>As the Afghan state evolved, it faced a lack of resources, as well as a vast and difficult terrain.</p> <p>To consolidate its power, the government needed to rely on tribal leaders.</p> <p>Traditionally, the Afghan State had to rely on militias, on tribal groups that worked for the interest of the State, but whose loyalty was always in question, in part because they maintained their identity as a tribal group.</p> <p>And so the State had to play a balancing act. On the one hand, it needed powerful tribal leaders to exercise authority over their own pockets of the country, but on the other hand, it needed to make sure those leaders were under the control of Kabul.</p> <p>That&rsquo;s always been very difficult, both because of the lack of resources and because of the ongoing, to this day, identification of individuals with their tribes, with their indigenous social groups.</p> <p>What that means is that people oftentimes look first to their local authorities before their national authorities. And a large part of that is due to the importance of kinship in Afghanistan.</p> <p>There are obligations to defend your paternal kin, in times when they come into contact, for example, with, or into hostile relations with other groups. Your obligation primarily would be to defend your paternal kin in opposition to more distantly related or unrelated people. So kinship is an important variable.</p> <p>Uniting the tribes despite their different kinship ties has been a consistent challenge for Afghanistan as it tries to create a cohesive nation.</p> <p>Abdur Rahman Khan, the king of Afghanistan in the late 19th century, had a special strategy. He identified key leaders in communities who could carry out the national agenda &mdash; while also gaining the trust of locals.</p> <p>One such leader was a Pashtun man named Babrakan.</p> <p>He was from the Zadran tribe in Paktia Province in eastern Afghanistan. The story is that Abdur Rahman initially recruited him to be his representative among the Zadran because he was not, himself, a powerful figure. He did not want any rivals for authority, to his own authority, among the Zadran. So Babrakan was loyal to him. He was a resourceful man. Reputedly, he was a thief before he became &mdash; that&rsquo;s the story anyway &mdash; that he was a thief before he became part of Abdur Rahman&rsquo;s government service. It&rsquo;s interesting, though, because at that time the State had so little authority in the tribal regions that they needed to find representatives from within the tribe who would represent the interests of the State. They didn&rsquo;t have officials&rsquo; administrative centers. What they basically had was tribal militias and figures like Babrakan, who were supposed to be, at least, supposed to be loyal to the State.</p> <p>In the 20th century, the relationship between the state and the tribes would be tested. When Abdur Rahman Khan&rsquo;s grandson &mdash; King Amanullah &mdash; attempted to outdo tribal authority, he would see the scales tip and he would learn the importance of balance all too late.</p>