Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Kuala Lumpur The official website of the Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
Ambassador Ischinger, Minister Von Der Leyen, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Let me first deal with context. We are confronting the fifth wave of political violence in a symmetric war in 140 years. Anarchism was the first wave; national self-determination was the second wave; New Left in Japan, Europe, and the United States was the third wave; Jihad against the Soviet Union and struggle in Sri Lanka started the fourth wave; the post-9/11 terrorism constitutes the fifth wave. A narrative combining epistemology, history, and teleology matched by utilization of the information technology of the fourth industrial revolution is translated into a distinct ecology, morphology, and pathology of violence. Our knowledge and response are both fragmented as we are struggling between naming the phenomena, knowing it, and having an action plan on the basis of an aligned strategy to disrupt, overcome, and destroy the fifth wave of terrorism. Symptoms are often addressed, causes are rarely confronted. Voices of analysis are not followed and there’s no common framework. Without a common framework on intelligence that drives use of force, we keep repeating mistakes. While the enemy learns fast, we are slow to adapting. From seeking ungoverned space, the aim of the fifth wave is to establish territories of terror.
My second point is on dimensions and drivers of conflict. I am focusing here on Afghanistan as an illustration. Often times the war is described as a civil war, it is not. First, we have a regional and global conflict. Every country in the region has been exporting its misfits to us; China, Russia, the ‘Stans, particularly and Pakistan, and others. Second is Daesh. When we warned against Daesh, particularly in this conference last year, it was greeted as a way that I wanted to attract attention to Afghanistan. Today, I hope nobody is in denial.
Third, Al-Qaeda: Al-Qaeda is not finished. At a time when we have focused on Daesh’s threat, I hope to God I am wrong, Al- Qaeda has regrouped. And, now we need to deal with a renewed Al-Qaeda threat. The Tehrik-e- Taliban of Pakistan, the Haqqani networks, and others are common threats but, what’s the platform? The criminal economy provides the common platform for all these movements. Narcotics and refugees, smuggling are part of the same network. Unless we focus on the soft belly of globalization, which is the $ 1.7 trillion of criminal economy, we will be addressing only part of the problem, not all of it.
There’s the additional problem. State sponsorship of malign non-state actors continues. Worse, some states behave like non-state actors and this is, of course, driven by the failure to agree and act on rules of the game. All of this combines to have a displacement effect. We address the problem in one part, it results in displacement of the phenomena in the other. And what, from an Afghan and regional perspective, particularly needs attention: action in Syria and Iraq against Daesh is likely to displace it geographically and spatially. We need to define the boundaries of this ecology carefully. Otherwise, we will be missing a significant part of the solution.
Ambassador Ischinger described 2016 as bleak. From an Afghan perspective, I’d like to describe it as one of cautious optimism. I think everybody, in a bleak forecast, needs a ray of hope. An aligned strategy requires, simultaneously, preferably coordinated action in five levels: Global, Islamic, Regional, National, and Sub-national. So, why the good news? First, I’d like to express gratitude to President Obama, Chancellor Merkel, Prime Minister Cameron, Prime Minister Renzi, leaders of 40 countries that have agreed to renew the Resolute Support Mission in support of Afghanistan. NATO, ladies and gentlemen, is fully alive and willing to act responsibly. I’d like to extend a very big thank you to NATO, to its Secretary-General, and to the entire organization. Second, regional support: We have worked very actively with China, with Central Asian states—Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, in particular—India, Iran, Russia, and Turkey through bilateral and multilateral mechanisms. We’re in the process of creating an emerging consensus that, a stable of stable Afghanistan that can tackle the actors and drivers of instability, is in everybody’s benefit. This requires continuous work and because of that, bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral mechanisms all need to be supported but key to this is, the country wants this has to take ownership of the process and not just wait that others act on good will.
On the Islamic dimension, the Mecca Declaration against terrorism is a very, very significant development. For the first time, Muslim scholars are confronting the problem, naming it, and simultaneously exposing the fundamental weaknesses of governance. I hope that this declaration is matched with coherent action and coordination. What is fundamental from an Islamic perspective is who claims to speak for the Islamic civilization, culture, and history. Islamic civilization is a grand synthesis. When we measured the circumference of the Earth, the rest of the world didn’t know that the World was round and that was a thousand years ago. We need claim back our heritage and create a vibrant and comprehensive debate among ourselves so we can work.
The other dimension is national. In here, our emphasis is, first of all, to acknowledge our problems. A country that has inherited the mantle of being, the dishonor of being, among the ten most corrupt countries does not have the right to speak for itself unless it addresses its fundamental corruption. A country that has 41% of its people living below poverty must bear the shame. A country that cannot empower its women, youth, and the poor must bear the responsibility for addressing the fundamentals. So, as a result, we need to get the politics right. It is the politics of empowerment; it’s the politics of creating citizens, and turning the state into an instrument for the realization of the rights and obligations of the citizens.
We are working a compact with our citizens and are in the process—a very difficult process, no doubt—of turning the state into an instrument of the realization of the hopes and aspirations of our citizens. Second is mobilizing for security. Security is not about use of force alone. Every problem is not a nail to be hit with a hammer. A multi-dimensional approach where we take governance, and that’s where sub-national issues come to the front, I’m delighted that we have pioneered for the first time in a couple of hundred years a balance between our governors and cabinet and created written compacts with every single province to I can preside of mechanisms of delivery.
But on Daesh, again, we are very grateful and proud that our partners have agreed now to target Daesh like Al-Qaeda. In the last month, we’ve silenced the voice of Daesh to its radio in one of the most remote mountains of Afghanistan, they are on the run. They’ve lost 150 people but what makes us particularly hopeful, 750 retired Afghan Army officers, all commandos, enlisted in a single day to take on Daesh. Their atrocities have brought back a reversal at the level of narrative that now has resulted in significant mobilization in Eastern Afghanistan, and that’s the key. When people mobilize to tackle terror, it’s a very different approach than when guns alone are used. When people ask for simultaneous use of air power with ground mobilization in a will to push them out, that’s the key to success. Equally, because we have been speaking about refugees and the Minister named us, pull and push factors both need to be addressed.
A country with a 41% rate of poverty forced into a significant recession bordering on a depression and networked globally will produce refugees. We must analyze the root causes and create the condition for stability. The current economic recipes of global institutions for fragile states are not working. If Europe does not want refugees, it has to create the conditions for getting commodities and value chains and linkages. Our people don’t want to move but we need to create the opportunities and it must be on the basis of a just society, where foreign assistance is used to create opportunities and not enrich a few. And, this is key to the public. Because of this, the public must be put first because what makes us trust in the future is our resilience. We have coped with earlier waves of violence, our historic resilience gives us the confidence that will overcome the fifth wave. Second is our latent resources. We are an extraordinarily rich country inhabited by extraordinarily poor people. It has to be reversed. And, our partnership—now based on mutual values, accountability, and mutual trust—should provide a platform for an aligned strategy. We invite governments, firms, and global civil society to join us in deploying the tools of great imagination and creativity to overcome the fifth wave of violence.
Thank you.
