Why did the mentalities collapse and the people, not just the system, fall?
Author: Abdul Naser Noorzad, security and geopolitics researcher, especially for Sangar
Afghanistan's fall into chaos is the numerous times in the history of Afghanistan. It is in this sense that the people did not react to this fall and the tyrannical rule of ethnic and state terrorism. The pathologies of the Afghanistan’s society with its diverse ethnic composition show a highly polarized society with deep social divisions. The author intends to point out the causes of this historical collapse and break in the path of urban civilization, Taliban rule and the creation of a separatist atmosphere.
First - The first cause of this fall and people's indifference towards it is the non-realization of the concept of the nation in the real sense, which had practically collapsed in the minds even before the fall of the republican system and the copy of western urban civilization and imposed democracy. Centralized system, pure ethnic mentality, widespread corruption, lack of meritocracy, strongly ruling nepotism, external intervention, atmosphere of distrust, deposed leaders and the influence of the intelligence game on top of it, are among the first causes of the non-realization of the concept of nation among the resident ethnic groups. It had become Afghanistan. This space is still noticeable under the clouds of the current collapse of Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban. This is why the issues of ethnic federalism, separatism, etc. are raised;
Second - Because the political systems were formed based on foreign interventions, ethnic mentality and descent hegemony, they could never penetrate and settle in the general mentality of the Afghan people. Instead, we witnessed the ideological collapse of a highly polarized and multi-fabricated nation with different and even conflicting goals in many cases;
Third - The class society which was the result of the unsuccessful and extremely divisive implementation process of democracy, which had made the distribution of political and economic points based on certain perceptions the rule. That is, practically, a collapsed, divided and broken mentality used the sources of power and wealth in the direction of pursuing a different and wrong path. In such societies, with the incurable disease of prejudice and ethnic arrogance, rooted in its fabric, how is it possible that a group of power, drug, and kidnapping mafias can make money under the name of democracy and use the tactics of Depriving the democratic appearance of the basic rights of the people, which included the right to provide livelihood, security and bread;
Fourth - Because the political culture had not matured properly in the society, due to disbelief in the functioning of political systems, it had become a general belief. The level of despair and lack of expectation from the functioning of governments and political systems to improve the situation had helped to weaken the foundations of political culture;
Fifth - Due to the fact that the external and powerful hand played an essential role in the coming and going of political systems, according to the general belief formed in the mentality of the people, one should not worry about the fall and collapse of the systems; Because the big powers make these changes based on their share in political and military interests. If a military goes, another one will come and people should not worry about its coming and going;
Sixth - People were in a vacuum of thought for survival as a result of fourteen decades of crisis. There has been no regular plan as a saving prescription for the future of the country. In the eyes of politicians who used people's feelings and emotions as a tool, ethnic perceptions and lineage policies made people distrustful of the principle of change and the right to self-determination;
Seventh - Leadership was not formed in the society. Even the various ethnic groups that were moving in the direction of ethnic politics suffered from the lack of an effective leadership. While in such important times, there should be a leader or he should be active in order to help raise the morale of the people and people are interested in their destiny based on the hope of it. While the opposite is true in the case of the fall of Afghanistan, and we witnessed the fall of mentalities.
What has fueled the crisis of mental collapse and ideological collapse among the people of Afghanistan can have good causes, but such a collapse cannot have happened apart from the external influence. Mentalization for the unbelief of people's thought and relationship with a collective belonging like the nation was the work of intelligence organizations, which has also yielded results. There is no way back and all the back bridges have been destroyed to become a nation.
Unfortunately, there is no way out in the writer's mind. Maybe not everyone agrees with this argument. The reality must be accepted with its bitterness. Otherwise, it is a waste of time to refer to the meaningless concepts of becoming a nation, national unity and other ineffective concepts.
