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| PASHTOON SPIRIT: Karzai needs the support of
Shah (centre) to bind the war-torn nation |
As he flew
in on April 18, the 87-year-old seated in the front row of the Italian
military plane must have seen, as the aircraft swooped low over the Bagram
airbase near Kabul, the scores of wrecked bombers, fighters and helicopters
that have been destroyed in the 29 years that he had been away.
Minutes later, the bald, smiling, frail Zahir Shah, former king of Afghanistan,
stepped out gingerly to a warm spring morning. There to welcome him were
many of the men whose decade-long squabbling has ruined his country. Close
behind him stood General Rashid Dostum who had once served the Soviets
so well and is now deputy defence minister. Then there were the heirs
of Ahmed Shah Masood, those representatives of the Northern Alliance forces
which first seized Kabul and, with the capital, effective political dominance
in November. And, of course, there was the man who brought the king back
from Rome personally, Hamid Karzai, the Pashtoon leader of the current
Interim Administration whose green and gold robe was in stark contrast
to the king's beautifully tailored Italian jacket. Shah then climbed into
a Mercedes which swept him to the upmarket, if battered, district of Wazir
Akbar Khan where a modest, two-storey villa had been prepared for him.
On the streets of Kabul, hundreds of supporters waving Afghan flags shouted
their delight at the return of their king. But in the main bazaars of
Shar-e-Nau, it was business as usual as raucous shopkeepers barely bothered
with the momentous event. "I've seen it all," says Mirwais,
a 51-year-old shoe repairer. "Kings, soldiers, politicians, clerics.
None makes any difference."
Born in Kabul in 1914 and partially educated in France, Shah was propelled
to power in 1933 when a mad student shot his father in front of him. Until
1953 his three uncles ran the country, but during the 1960s Shah began
to oversee a cautious modernisation of his backward realm. But critics
say the attempts to end the wearing of the veil for women and strategies
to play off the Soviets and the West laid the ground for the instability
that eventually resulted in the Soviet invasion six years after the king
was deposed by his cousin in 1973. His final return from exile was originally
scheduled for March but security fears have meant several postponements.
No one doubts that the threat is real. Quite apart from the remnants of
Al Qaida or the extremists run by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the hardline Islamist
former guerrilla leader, there are many who opposed the king's return.
The king is, like Karzai, from the Pashtoon tribes which make up around
40 per cent of the population. Leaders of Afghanistan's other ethnic groups
fear that their own influence and power will now be curtailed. Pashtoons
have dominated Afghanistan politically for almost all its recent history
and the current situation-with most key ministerial positions, defence,
foreign and interior, held by men from the Tajik minority (Mohammed Fahim,
Abdullah Abdullah and Younis Qanouni respectively)-is likely to end.
However, diplomats say that in addition to the symbolic value of his
return, the king's presence in Kabul will persuade many Pashtoons who
were concerned by the strongly Tajik nature of the current administration
to back the new set-up and that this will give the peace process and reconstruction
of Afghanistan a huge boost. Though the king has no formal political role,
he is expected to open the Loya Jirga-the traditional assembly of 1,501
delegates that will sit in Kabul to decide on the make-up of the interim
government that will take over from the current administration in June.
After another 18 months there will be general elections, according to
the agreement signed in Bonn last year. Though there are problems, the
very fact of the former monarch's return will gladden many Afghans. Fazeez
Khan, a Kabul student, told India Today, "It is hard to hope here
but if we can't hope now, when can we?" Indeed.
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CURRENT
ISSUE APRIL 29, 2002
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