Where Afghan and American democracies disagree

I read with fear a Washingtonpost article in which Afghanistan is described as democratizing and developing because a music TV show –American Idol – has been badly mimicked by a bunch of disconnected youths in Kabul.

Hank Stuever, author of the article titled TV preview of 'Afghan Star' naively writes: “The Taliban cruelly dialed Afghanistan's clock back to the Middle Ages, so it now falls to the producers and performers of "Afghan Star," the country's version of "American Idol," to bring pop culture forward to at least a David Cassidy level of cool.”

Hank wrongly links the duplicate show’s cell-phone text voting to a new “culture of democracy” and puts a hugely exaggerated number – 11 million! - for the viewers without mentioning where and how he got the statistics in a country which is yet to count its people.

He compares the show to a “Borat”-like mimicry of the Western pop culture and lauds an Afghan girl – Setara – as “outspoken” for dropping her scarf and doing a funky dance in a show.

Himself a gay, Hank writes about a man - Daoud Sediqi - who used to run the “Afghan Star” show as a modernizer and an enlightener. Off course he does not mention the fact that Mr. Sediqi has ran away from his country (applied for asylum in a Western country) apparently because he was imposing an indigestible pop culture on his conservative nation.

Eight years on with billion of dollars spent and hundreds of Americans and thousands of Afghans killed there is still no common understanding of “democracy and development” between Afghans and the Americans, sadly.

We, Afghans, love our traditions, religion and values regardless of how bad or derogatory they are perceived in the West. We love our sisters, daughters and mothers to have their scarves and avoid dancing in clubs and discos.

We believe democracy means legitimate, accountable and efficient governance – not a corrupt regime of warlords imposed by fraud. We consider development means achieving human security from physical violence, hunger, illiteracy, preventable diseases and poverty. We don’t think eating McDonald burgers and wearing tight jeans would solve our problems. Blindly copying the Americans way of life does not fit us and would lead us nowhere but to problems we have repeatedly suffered since 1919.

A distinct Afghanistan, albeit democratic, is possible between the Taliban’s Middle Ages and the American Idol.

The ‘Afghan Star’ is a fake, fragile and alien social product which cannot be digested by a majority of Afghans. Its expiry date is: ‘when US forces withdraw’.

PS: This is understandably not a thorough critique of Afghanistan’s democratization, but a few quick observations.