Cultural Imperatives: Peacebuilding in Afghanistan through Local Culture and Customs

As the 2014 deadline for withdrawal of coalition forces approaches, Afghanistan’s fate remains uncertain. Officials have long concluded that the war in Afghanistan could only be won through a negotiated settlement and not militarily. After years of shunning negotiations, in 2011 coalition forces pursued talks with the Taliban, however these ambitious plans have now been deemed as being too unrealistic to achieve by 2014.  To promote reconciliation and unity the socio-cultural factors that enable communication among conflicting parties is important. Communication is also a decisive factor in social integration as well as the strengthening of social solidarity in society. In the case of Afghans, communication in conflict resolution is central to the concept of jirga and is deeply embedded in Afghan history, practice and people.  Jirga refers to the gathering of people for the purpose of consultation. Its integration into national politics is a reflection of its prevalence and success as a mechanism of conflict resolution among most Afghan ethnic/tribal groups; “it has national currency.”  Although the Karzai administration made use of this “national currency” in 2002, the Emergency Loya Jirga, it is evident that it failed in its attempts at national reconciliation due to a multitude of factors. This paper will investigate those factors while examining peacemaking/peacebuilding initiatives in Afghanistan, through the use of Afghan indigenism and methods of local dispute-resolution for reconciliatory purposes. While there is a continuing need for jirga in resolving local, tribal and national conflict, the socio-cultural significance and political potential of jirga is ignored as it has only minimally been adapted to the current efforts in Afghanistan. This paper will investigate the feasibility of a national jirga process and how it can be more inclusive and widely used, representing both men and women, initially from a grass-roots level and ultimately to a national level.