The defenders of the old culture have no alternative but to resist the new culture with Taliban bullets, by setting schools ablaze, by slitting the throats of teachers, and by veiling women.

The thirty years of war also brought about some changes in the status of landlords. A number of landlords expanded their properties by taking part in the war against the Soviets or by becoming members of the jihadi parties. They grabbed private and state-owned land, or land possessed by other landlords from local ethnic minority groups, or land owned by defeated commanders. Some large landowners lost their political and social status as a result of the upheaval, while others became owner-peasants or semi-owner peasants after transferring their land to family members. As the status of landlords went through changes, the lives and class status of peasants were also transformed.

In countering the puppet “Khalq Democracti Government”, the criminal jihadi groups looted people’s properties and grabbed thousands of jeribs of state-owned land, in the process reinforcing the feudal order. Some of the notable individuals who were involved in large-scale land seizures included:

· Fahim, the current vice president (in Kabul and in the north of the country)

· Payenda Khan (Sare Pul province in the north)

· Dostum and his commanders (across the northern provinces)

· Aqa Mohammad Khan (Qala in Zabul province)

· Ewaz Mohammad Nazari (the Isakhan Plain in Bamyan)

· Hazrat Ali (the Gamberai Plain in Nangarhar and Laghman provinces)

· Zabet Jalil (Farah province in the west)

· Ahmad Khan (Ghor)

· Pir Bakhsh (Girdiwal in Ghazni)

· Haji Din Mohammad, Haji Qadir and Haji Zaher (in Nangarhar province in the east.

Urban land in Kabul and the state-owned land outside the city was also seized by individuals, including Sayaf, Mulla Ezat, Amanullah Gozar, General Besmellah and Haji Almas and Haji Nabi (the brother of Karim Khalili, the second vice-president).

Duringn this period, new groups of landlords emerged across the country owing their new status to the guns they possessed and the armed groups they controlled. This resulted in further strengthening of the feudal order. Then, under the Taliban regime, the feudal order was consolidated culturally, with any signs of capitalism suppressed by bullet and force.

Following the occupation of Afghanistan, the US and British imperialists introduced changes, such as the “exercise in democracy”, the “new market economy” and the so-called “free press”. These reforms prompted an increase in investment and some capitalist development. Commanders of the jihadi parties who hitherto had only stayed in rural areas moved into the urban centres and invested in various sectors, paving the way for the development of elements of capitalism. Of the total loans given to Afghanistan by the global banks up until until 2007, a mere 0.7 per cent was invested in agriculture, illustrating their lack of interest in this sector.

Afghanistan has 449 cities and town but they emerged from fiefdoms and do not resemble cities of western capitalist world.

Only Kabul, Herat, Kandahar, Marzar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad have anything in in common with the cities of the outside world. Capitalism is more developed in Kabul than in these other cities: since 2007, 87 percent of banking transactions – one of the most distinctive manifestations of capitalism – have been conducted in the capital, compared with six per cent in Herat, three percent in Mazar-e-Sharif, and five per cent across the other cities.

Within some cities, social relations and culture have been affected by the large numbers of peasants pouring in from the countryside, some fleeing rural bankruptcy; others resettled in the cities following their repatriation. When they migrate to urban areas, many peasants retain their local village customs and the practices of feudal society, causing major cultural tensions among families living in the cities. Incomers prefer to live with the old culture and invariably disapprove of signs of bourgeois culture. These new city-dwellers are strongly concerned about protecting their sons, and in particular their daughters, against the “corrupting influence” of bourgeois culture. Elderly villagers are nostalgic for the past when everything was “good”. They idealise people from the past as brave, honest, and generous; they prefer the old musical instruments; they are sentimental about traditional pastimes such as horse-riding and swordsmanship (Shamsher Bazi).Resisting cultural progress, they regard village traditions and customs as “genuine Afghan culture” and dislike busy city life. Even when they realise that it is impossible to revive the past, they try to at least maintain the status quo.

A number of educated feudal ideologists promote and hail such ideas through the media. But in practice, most of their hopes are dashed by the relentless invasion of capitalist culture. Fewer people attend mosques, while youth are relentlessly exposed to advanced capitalist culture. The older culture is now under siege on all fronts: from the mass media, the internet and other advanced communications systems as well as from the upsurge in commercial exchange with the outside world. With many young people now travelling abroad and studying western languages this cultural clash has been intensified.

The defenders of the old culture have no alternative but to resist the new culture with Taliban bullets, by setting schools ablaze, by slitting the throats of teachers, and by veiling women. Thus the conflict between feudal culture and capitalist culture has become highly visible in this semi-feudal society. This is a period of transition: eventually bourgeois culture will prevail, but the process will be more complex than in other societies.

Recent statistics show that Afghanistan has a population of 25 million, of which 72 percent (18 million people) live in the countryside, while 28 percent (7 million people) live in cities. Afghanistan is a predominantly peasant society and is controlled through landlord-peasant relations. Even many of the city dwellers are still committed to rural beliefs and customs, and have not broken with their past beliefs, due to lack of development of the means of production and development of capitalist order.

With the occupation of Afghanistan at the hands of US imperialism, the introduction of a market economy and inward investment by imperialist companies, the process of capitalist development has not been driven by dynamic changes at the base, but by superficial adjustments from the top. Because of this, the public mindset never welcomed these changes, and the imposition of a market economy and culture has created a mafia economy in Afghanistan

ARO