Modernization to Collapse: How Foreign Interventions Unmade Afghanistan

Community News 9

Sep 13

A recent feature by journalist and author Sameer Arshad Khatlani traces Afghanistan’s turbulent journey from modernization in the mid-20th century to collapse under decades of foreign intervention and conflict. The account draws on historical analysis, personal stories, and academic research to examine how a country once on the path toward a modern, secular state has been repeatedly undone.

From Reform to Resistance

Khatlani recounts the experience of Afghan poet and diplomat Khalilullah Khalili, who anticipated Soviet intervention following the communist takeover of Kabul in 1978. His son, Masood Khalili, left doctoral studies in Delhi to join the Afghan resistance, later chronicling nine years of struggle in diaries published as Whispers of War (2017). The book records the suffering and resilience of Afghans during the Soviet occupation, a period that shaped subsequent decades of turmoil.

The Promise of Modernization

According to scholars Jawied Nawabi and Peter Kolozi of the City University of New York, Afghanistan in the 20th century had developed significant features of a modern secular state. By the 1970s, it had institutions such as Kabul University, a professional army, and a national airline, alongside reforms advancing women’s rights and education. Political modernization, however, was disrupted by successive foreign interventions that empowered reactionary forces.

Collapse Under Foreign Agendas

The paper Afghanistan: The Making and Unmaking of a Modern State argues that the neoliberal approach after 2001 emphasized governance and capacity-building while leaving Afghanistan dependent on foreign assistance. This, the authors contend, erased the country’s history of modernization and undermined its institutional base. The result was what they call a “phantom state” unable to unify or sustain itself.

Paul Fishstein of Harvard’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy challenges the persistent myth that Afghanistan never had a functioning state. He points to achievements from the early 20th century under leaders such as Amir Amanullah Khan, who introduced constitutional reform, compulsory education, and women’s emancipation. Foreign-backed conflicts, Fishstein argues, dismantled rather than revealed state weakness.

Personal Stories Amid National Struggles

Masood Khalili’s life reflects Afghanistan’s arc of resistance and loss. He survived the Soviet war, served as a diplomat, and narrowly escaped death in the 2001 assassination of Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud. The attack, carried out two days before 9/11, left Khalili severely injured but alive. Massoud, regarded by many as a visionary leader, was killed. His death preceded the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban, though the victory was tempered for Khalili by the absence of his commander.

The Present Day

The Taliban’s return to power in 2021 has brought Afghanistan back to restrictions reminiscent of earlier decades, with women largely excluded from public life. Masood Khalili, now 74, has reflected on the failures to establish enduring leadership despite past victories. “We won against the Soviets but eventually lost,” he said in a 2017 interview, citing a lack of vision for Afghanistan’s future.

The article concludes that Afghanistan’s story is not one of inherent statelessness but of interrupted modernization, where foreign intervention repeatedly dismantled progress. For many, the lives of figures such as the Khalilis symbolize both the hope and the unfinished struggle for a stable Afghan state.

Sherman Teichman