KABUL — The grassroots protests that pitched Iran into political crisis serve as a reminder of the vital role that youth can play in leading a robust civil society. In neighboring Afghanistan, which will hold its own elections in less than a month, youth will choose not to engage despite their deep dissatisfaction with incompetent and corrupt governance.
Even at the American University of Afghanistan, where I teach international relations to students who constitute perhaps the country’s most politically aware demographic, apathy is in the air. Their desire for change is as palpable as ours was last November, but it is matched by pessimism toward their own power to influence Afghan politics.
For all the suspicion that fabrication of votes, bribing of election officials, intimidation, and worse will likely mar the August 20th election, Afghanistan’s internal problems are not what undermine my students’ zeal for civic participation. Why vote, my students ask me, when the United States will choose Afghanistan’s next president?
The truth is, while Afghanistan’s election will be a model of neither freedom nor fairness, the source of injustice will not be some grand American conspiracy. The Obama administration and its representatives in Afghanistan have a strong interest in ensuring that the elections are as transparent as Afghanistan’s fragile infrastructure and worsening security situation will allow, and have advertised their impartiality extensively. But in the end, the constant accusations of meddling are only a symptom of what is a much deeper public diplomacy problem.
Many of my students harbor a profound distrust of the United States. This was clear to me from the first days of the semester as students wondered aloud whether U.S. motivations in Afghanistan are driven by a desire to counter Russian and Chinese regional influence, to establish a puppet regime to ease the transit of oil through Central Asia, or simply to satisfy some neo-imperialist instinct. The source of this distrust is not some warlike Afghan nationalism, but growing anger toward continued insecurity combined with wildly exaggerated views toward American power.
To my students, America’s ability to project its military around the world, combined with its centrality in the creation and stewardship of international economic regimes, constitutes political omnipotence. When they ask themselves why insecurity persists and reconstruction languishes after eight years of American intervention, they conclude that America simply has no interest in Afghanistan’s development, and must instead be using its presence there to forward its global ambitions — whatever they may be.
I can’t blame my students for overestimating what American power can accomplish around the world. After all, Americans were confident just a few years ago that achieving our goals abroad relied only on our willingness to throw off self-doubt and the constraints of international law and opinion, to extend our power to its fullest using whatever means proved most expedient.
It took a humbling experience in Iraq, a helpless response to the Russian invasion of South Ossetia, and a financial catastrophe to build the emerging consensus that American power is fallible, and that achieving our foreign policy goals will almost always rely in part on factors outside our control.
When I see this mythologized vision of American power in class, I warn my students not to give us too much credit. We discuss recent instances of American frailty or miscalculation, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. We read about the difficulties of delivering aid in non-permissive environments, discuss the tough decision-making processes in the field that lead to civilian casualties, explore how strains in the transatlantic relationship hamper the NATO mission, and examine how the contentious addition of Iraq as a front on the war on terror stretched America’s military to the brink.
It is rewarding to watch new perceptions form as students retain their frustration but trade in conspiracy theories for new realizations: Sometimes the United States can’t fix every problem, and bad policies often belie good intentions.
Afghans believe that their futures depend principally on America’s willingness and ability to reconstruct their state. It is time to share with them the lesson we Americans learned in recent years about the limits of our power. Just as President Barack Obama made a point early on of admitting our mistakes and laying bare the extent of the challenges he confronts domestically, it should be the job of American public diplomacy to explain and even highlight our country’s weaknesses and limitations as well as its many strengths.
Only when Afghans understand the many complexities and constraints that prevent the quick emergence of a strong and secure state can we forge a productive partnership based on realism rather than misinformation and rumor. And only once they get past the misconception that Afghanistan’s fate hangs on the secretive whims of American policy will my students begin to form the young, engaged political class that might one day bring a new kind of governance to their struggling country.
Oliver S. Mains is a senior lecturer in international relations at the American University of Afghanistan.
More GlobalPost dispatches from Afghanistan:
Many Afghanis find hope in Obama
Economic crunch to affect NATO in Afghanistan
Spurned by US, Karzai eyes Russia
Editor's note: This story was updated to clarify the photo caption.
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/090725/why-young-afghans-wont-vote