Nation-Building Elevated

[Dayuhan]

Serious question. Perhaps, some road examples could be found in Vietnam - many general examples exist where farmers with shaky or no legal title joined or at least supported the VM or VC out of fear of land possession loss.

In my time I've had close prolonged exposure to 3 insurgency situations. All were driven by actual or threatened loss of land exacerbated by abusive behaviour by local elites supported by national military forces and absence of any option for peaceful redress. People might complain about not having a well or an irrigation system, but they don't start shooting. When thugs start coming around forcing people off their land and stomping or killing those who object, people fight.

In effect, are the "masses" "voting" for the insecurity they know and have adapted to; as opposed to what is thought by developers to bring more stability, whereas to the "masses" it represents greater insecurity ?

If people know it and have adapted to it, it's no longer insecurity.

There's often a rather pedantic assumption that "economic development" brings "stability" and that the combination brings "security". That assumption often does not take actual conditions into consideration.

Specifically, you have to look at competing agendas. Even in a small village you're likely to have competing elite factions. If you're looking at a village and seeing consensus and unanimity, with no internal conflict or dissent, you're not looking hard enough or you're looking at a different species.

If a dominant faction, often associated with formal government positions, is perceived as abusive by some part of the population, that provides a lever for the insurgent, and for competing factions. NGOs have their own agendas. If you choose to work with or through the local government, you may be perceived as aiding and supporting an abusive elite. Choose to work outside that elite, and you may be perceived as supporting a rival faction, which may cause problems with the local governing elite. Economic development efforts in environments where the rule of law is absent and the style of governance is feudal are likely to be manipulated for the benefit of a small minority, and cause proportional resentment among others.

Bring resources in, bring plans in, announce plans to change things... that will always destabilize. Of course every community has its own mechanisms to manage instability, but those mechanisms can be overwhelmed if the change is too large or too abrupt to manage, or if it is locally perceived as a change that will favor one faction over others or will otherwise upset an existing balance.

Let's not kid ourselves, we have an agenda too. If we go into an Afghan village looking to "help", we're not doing it because our hearts bleed for the poor Afghans, we're doing it because we want them to support us rather than the Taliban. We know it, they know it, and the Taliban know it, so why pretend otherwise?

I was thinking about contacting a friend in Jalalabad, and somebody else might have contacts or be there at a place where there is a definable problem to solve. Something where somebody needs more help than the random clutter we carry around in our brains that could be put to a specific use. Afghanistan is digitized to the Nth, and available through univ links in open source format (imagery/shapefiles), but google earth ain't bad either for basics.

If only there was a Google Earth for social geography, mapping all the overlapping patterns of alliance and rivalry, loyalty and resentment, etc...

If I look out my window I see a moderately remote mountain village populated by an indigenous tribe, which was a hotbed of insurgency not al that long ago. I've been here 11 of the last 15 years, and I'm still figuring out the local power/conflict dynamics.

I asked this before, but I have to ask again: what are we trying to accomplish with this project? Whether it's Afghanistan, Haiti, central Africa, Colombia... what's the goal?

It helps to know.