The Afghanistan solution

There is no military solution for Afghanistan. The only solution is on mind level.

The present mind set for Afghanistan is not good. How will the minds involved change?

In a practical situation like this, it is matter of minds and paradigms.

The basic model for the workings of a mind is that new information is related to old information and old experiences in the light of ambitions and intentions for the future.

The present situation is very messy. New information is very contradictory. On one side there is information from the outside world of peace and progress. On the other side it is a complex information from inside Afghanistan about violence, corruption, drug money and different religious ideas and also attempts to create a democratic, modern society with equal rights.

This mess is related to old knowledge and experiences, which are also very messy. There is a history of disrupted education, disrupted national structures, desperate religious fighting and very contradictory measures done now and then by foreign powers from Soviet to USA, from Pakistan to UN.

All this is related to an ideal about the future of prosperity and power, expressed in a way that fits history, family and the local community.

So the situation is impossible. It is much worse than it was for Germany and Japan after world war two. The countries were devastated, but they had a tradition of understanding and working that could be used effectively more or less immediately.

The basis for Afghanistan would be the same as for all other nations, a paradigm about the power structures. Within such a paradigm, the new society could develop.

These days it is a fight about the paradigm with weapons and suicide attacks, but the main factor is the understanding. If the democratic alternative is understood and anchored in the minds of the population, the violence becomes just hostile and without lasting effect.

So Afghanistan needs a new story, a story about how the activities of the many citizens is structured in a way that makes the foreign troops obsolete and where religion is integrated in a way that gives freedom also to women.