Insurrections are hardly new phenomena in Afghanistan.10 Previous Afghan leaders have had varying degrees of success in subduing rural religious insurrection. The degree of that success depended on how much of the population viewed the regime as legitimate and how much it stayed out of the daily lives of the people. And Afghan history demonstrates conclusively that legitimacy of governance comes exclusively from two immutable sources: dynastic (monarchies and tribal patriarchies) and religious, or sometimes both.11 These equate to the traditional and religious sources cited by noted sociologist Max Weber.12
Unfortunately, the Karzai government owes its only claim to legitimacy to Weber’s third source, the legal one (e.g., western-style elections and the rule of law). This has no historical precedent as a basis for legitimizing Afghan rule at all, however, and the notion that the West can apply it to Afghan society like a coat of paint is simply wishful thinking. In essence, the Karzai government is illegitimate because it is elected.13
...This problem of illegitimacy is especially acute at the village level of rural Pashtun society, where dynastic and religious authority has been unquestioned for over a thousand years.14 The widespread perception among Afghans that the Karzai government is illegitimate—because it lacks any traditional or religious legitimacy—predates Karzai’s August disgrace by five years.
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