No one gets to be more liberal than a European member of a green party. Certainly, Joschka Fischer who was the leader of the German Green Party for 20 years, qualifies to be considered a liberals’ liberal.
But
look what Joschka Fischer just did. He wrote an article under the title:
“Darkness over Kabul,” and the subtitle: “Now that President Joe Biden has
formally declared an end to the US troop presence in Afghanistan, conflict and
chaos are all but certain to follow. The Afghan people will be the first to
suffer, but they are unlikely to be the last”.
What’s
the significance of that, you ask? The significance is that the words which
Joschka Fischer has used to express his sentiments, are not those of a liberal
at heart, which he undeniably is. They are the words of a rightwing colonial
master who is steeped in the literature of nostalgic neocolonial reveries,
which Fischer is not. So, the question: How did this happen to a nice guy like
Joschka Fischer? Well, it happened, not because the man harbors hidden rightwing
tendencies, but because he is bound by the “Western” languages in which he was
raised: German, possibly Hungarian too, and certainly English.
There
is nothing unusual about that because a close relationship exists between the
language and the thought process in all the cultures and all the languages.
Whereas in the twenty-first century, “Darkness Over Kabul,” may invoke a
specific vision to a Westerner, it invokes a different vision to an Oriental,
especially the people of Afghanistan and those living in the region. This does
not mean things will remain static forever. On the contrary, things will most
certainly have changed a century or two from now, as will the languages, the
cultures and most importantly, the perception of how daily life is unfolding.
Whereas
Joschka Fischer worries that the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan
will create a power vacuum that will trigger a fierce competition among the
regional powers who will seek to fill the vacuum — thus cause hardship he
characterizes as “dark” — the people of the region react differently upon
hearing that word. To them, dark were the days during which the Western troops,
led by America, occupied a piece of land in their region. To them, the
departure of American troops and their allies, will be the day when the sun
will rise again over their region after the long decades of darkness that the
Western powers imposed on them.
And
so, for Joschka Fischer to lament the departure of the American troops and
those of the coalition from Afghanistan, is nothing more and nothing less than
the display of chagrin similar to what the colonial soldiers of old used to
feel when kicked out of the countries they were occupying. And what this says
in the final analysis, is that words alone mean little when viewed out of a
cultural context in which they acquire their significance. In fact, knowing
about the influence of language on the process of thinking, we begin to
understand why a liberal such as Joschka Fischer, would go on to write the
following:
“Radical
Islamist terrorism has not been defeated, either militarily or ideologically. Regional
stability will probably be more fragile after the Western withdrawal than it is
today. We should harbor no illusions; the West’s troop drawdown amounts to a
defeat, the humanitarian consequences of which will be dramatic. For the Afghan
people, the war will continue. Legions of Afghans will try to flee to the West.
Those who remain will face a dismal fate. Militarily, the withdrawal makes
sense. Yet in humanitarian and moral terms, it is flirting with a foreseeable
disaster. How will Islamist extremist groups interpret the West’s acceptance of
defeat? Will Afghanistan really not become a terrorist safe haven again? Might
not Russia
and
China respond to the West’s perceived weakness with increased aggression toward
Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively?”
Thus,
instead of restricting his thoughts to the right of the Afghani people finally
being left alone to shape their own destiny, Joschka Fischer has analyzed the
situation in that country in Western terms. This is why he was incapable of
thinking about Afghanistan potentially becoming another Vietnamese economic
tiger or a thriving Bangladeshi society: peoples that started from scratch,
having won their independence, and building a nation to make humanity proud of
its children and its heritage.
Instead
of letting his thinking process go along that line, Joschka Fischer has allowed
the words he used to weigh like an albatross and his thought process. He thus
wrote about Afghanistan becoming the center of its neighbors’ attention, and
the danger that each of Pakistan, China, Iran, India and the various Islamist
groups will bring to Afghanistan. He thus ended the article with the following
thought, which is a purely colonial speculation unbefitting a liberal in any
language:
“There is no stable alternative to a Western military presence in Afghanistan. The Western withdrawal will inevitably result in a humanitarian catastrophe. The Afghan people will be the first but not the last to suffer”.