By Mir Khillat Khursheed

Abstract

Western imagination is rife with the stereotype of a one-dimensional paper tiger from whom the ‘Afghan girl’ with haunted eyes must be saved. This paper argues that this stereotype serves as a crucial component in a self-perpetuating cycle feeding on war and conflict, which has ushered in a crisis of masculinity where the hegemonic ideal shifted from a Pashtun man to the deployed American soldier. The perceived ‘sterility’ of the Afghan man in face of the virile occupier, helpless to save their family and country from being ravaged by war has possibly created a stricter form of masculinity. As a result, Afghan men deliberately overcompensate and do masculinity in an aggressive and traditional manner to regain their lost authority. This overcompensation is further over amplified as the only form of masculinity to justify continued intervention. Through an analysis of popular depictions of Afghans, this paper demonstrates how positive indigenous voices are rendered structurally silent. Ultimately, this paper reveals how the politics of representation prevents the emergence of a peaceful post-conflict identity.

I. Introduction

In the collective imagination of the West, the Afghan man is a caricature embodying an oppressive patriarchy. This figure of the evil Muslim “mullah” is constructed as the diametric opposite of the oppressed Afghan woman in her periwinkle “body bag” burqa, a voiceless, faceless victim in need of Western intervention (Lacayo, 2001). This reductive binary is a second coming of classic Orientalist tropes. During the ‘War on Terror’, Afghanistan was reduced to another theatre for US cultural hegemony. Moral justification for this war was achieved by framing Afghanistan as the tribalistic “failed state” a threat to the freedoms of America (Voices of Democracy, 2016).

This paper argues that the four-decade conflict in Afghanistan has precipitated a profound internal ‘crisis of masculinity,’ stripping Afghan men of their traditional roles. This crisis is actively preyed upon and perpetuated by Western representation, which flattens a spectrum of male reactions into a single, monstrous caricature to morally justify intervention. This process creates a devastating feedback loop: the conflict fuels the crisis, Western media broadcasts its most pathological manifestations, and this broadcast is used as further justification to continue the intervention that aggravates the crisis, all while systematically silencing alternative forms of Afghan masculinity.

The Afghan man is constructed as an inferior “other” in need of tutelage by a superior and enlightened western presence to learn how to rise above their base instincts of tribal loyalty and religious fanaticism (Said, 1978). Asymmetric knowledge production directly and indirectly silences Afghan voices and replaces them by those that claim to speak for them as the voices of representation and re-presentation (Spivak, 2003). Indigenous voices are drowned out by complicit native informants who provide ‘authentic’ narratives that further lend credibility to the Western narrative. The ordinary Afghan man, the vast majority that are neither fighters in the Taliban nor provincial warlords, nor religious fanatical fathers, brothers, and uncles are lost and silenced.

II. Fractured Identity: Conflict and Crisis of Masculinity

Four decades of conflict have created a profound ‘crisis of masculinity’ for Afghan men, stripping them of their traditional role and protectors and providers of their ‘namus’. Female bodies can be argued to be the last battleground where a semblance of lost honour can still be regained. Western media portrayals of Afghan men are not just inaccurate, they actively prey upon the crisis by flattening a spectrum of male reactions, from violent hyper-patriarchy to progressive allyship, into a single caricatured oppressor. In doing so, these portrayals both mask and perpetuate the very conditions that fuel the crisis.

Connell has conceptualised a concept of masculine hierarchy, with hegemonic masculinity at the top, followed by complicit masculinity, and finally subordinate and marginalised forms of masculinity (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005). Taking pashtunwali as an example, a man is supposed to be the protector of “land, family, and community” (Deitrich, 2022; Hansen & WILPF, 2021). While using pashtunwali to understand Afghan men as a whole runs the risk of ignoring millions of Afghan men (over fifty percent) who are not Pashtun and overlooking the vast diversity among Pashtuns themselves, Afghan society was built on a very stereotypical framing of the gender binary, with men as protectors.

A new military masculinity was shaped by the war, where the hegemonic position was taken over by two conflicting figures: that of the deployed American soldier and the insurgent Talib. These two figures held power in society, and most Afghan men who did not subscribe to either faced a sense of emasculation as they were unable to fulfill their traditional duties as a man. This crisis was further perpetuated as Afghan men were helpless to protect their families and country from the ravages of war. This paper argues that this helplessness has created a situation where Afghan men react in certain ways to regain their agency and sense of manhood. This argument does not absolve Afghan actors, such as the Talib, from perpetuating gender-based violence of their agency in constructing a brutal patriarchal regime. The hyper-masculinity with its obsessive focus on public female erasure is a direct antagonist to the Western saviour. It is a reactionary identity forged in identity. This paper does not ignore the Taliban’s agency but locates it in a specific political context.

III. The many shades of masculinity

To understand the various reactions to this crisis of masculine identity, this paper studies various fictional and fictionalised representations of Afghan men in literary and visual media. Khaled Hosseinei’s Amir and Assef from The Kite Runner, Mohammed Gulab from memoir turned film Lone Survivor, and Awalmir or Al from United States of Al are used as examples to study representations of Afghans in popular media and what narratives they perpetuate.

A. The Pathological Response

In Hosseini’s ‘The Kite Runner’, Assef embodies the hyper masculine reaction to the occupation. Stripped of any legitimate power, he seeks to reclaim his masculinity through the most brutal means available: sexual violence and ideological extremism. His cruelty is a desperate and pathological response to powerlessness. Assef is practising a complicit form of masculinity as he is trying to work up to the ideal hegemonic masculinity of the Taliban. This ‘compensatory masculinity’ posited by Willer et al (2013) argues that “threatened men” tend towards behaviour that establishes their dominance in social hierarchies. It can thus be argued that the perceived emasculation created by decades of conflict has created a feeling of insecurity among Afghan men, who respond to this via overcompensating their masculinity. This is done by extending greater control over the subordinate masculinities and the feminine. There is a deliberate performance of masculinity which manifests in various ways such as the perpetuation of gender-based violence against women but also the policing of men who do not ascribe to these ideals (Wimpelmann, Hakimi, & Sa’adat, 2021).

Further, the ideas of “collective shame” following a military defeat fuels a desire to reclaim honour (Masterton, 2020). Honour in traditional Afghan society is tied to women (Hansen, 2021). Thus, there is a fervent desire to control female bodies to reclaim the honour lost, often via reactionary and even aggressive means (Al Jazeera, 2015). Assef’s homosexuality as per the overcompensation thesis explains his racist vitriol towards the minority Hazaras and him joining the ranks of the Taliban. Assef outwardly fulfils the criteria of the ideal Pashtun man; he is athletic, charismatic, and well off. However, his personal knowledge about his homosexuality caused a sense of inferiority which led him to assault both Hassan and later his son, Sohrab. In direct contrast, Amir represents flight from the crisis. Unable to perform his role as protector, failing to protect Hassan from his sexual assault, Amir fails to succeed as the Afghan model for masculinity. He is unable to fulfill his Baba’s standards for an Afghan man; Amir doesn’t fight bears, or build successful businesses, he is not athletic, not interested in soccer, hunting, or buzkashi, and most importantly he does not stand up for himself as an honourable Pashtun would. Instead, he memorises and recites poetry, a decidedly unmasculine thing to do. Amir fails to reach the standards of Afghan masculinity, so he travels and steps into a different model of masculinity in the United States. He embodies a masculinity where he can succeed as a writer, something which would not have been very likely in the war-torn, hyper-masculinised world he left behind. Amir’s journey thus becomes an allegory for adopting an external, westernised masculinity as a means of navigating this crisis.

B. The Noble Savage

Osman, Zeweri, and Karzai (2021) write of the latest Afghan representation on ‘United States of Al’ where Al, the ‘noble savage’ makes his way to America and as a “good muslim” fits in almost immediately (Mamdani, 2005). The show portrays Afghanistan as a “land of warlords, corruption and unbridled violence” (Osman et al, 2021). Sexual repression and misogyny is ‘outsourced’ to the Afghan immigrant, Al is befuddled by women in bikinis and makes disparaging comments about women being “expired” (Osman et al, 2021). Al, however, embodies a good muslim, worthy of being saved by America due to his assistance to American soldiers.

Afghans are similarly reduced to one-dimensional figures in ‘Lone Survivor’ (2013), further removing any aspect of their rationality and denying them any intellectual agency. This ‘noble’ representation of the Afghan as a convenient plot device was used and discarded, while the real Muhammad Gulab lost his nephew, business, and livelihood due to Taliban threats (Schneiderman, 2021). A decade on the real Gulab faces potential homelessness in Texas, while the Marine whose life he saved discarded him completely after Gulab disagreed with the recollection of certain events in Lutrell’s memoir turned film (Schneiderman, 2021). Gulab’s adherence to ‘pashtunwali’ can be seen as another attempt to reclaim honour and agency via respecting the traditional code of honour. Gulab is thrust into a world where he is powerless against both the Taliban and the Americans, following the pashtunwali code of hospitality, he can exercise moral authority and perform a powerful version of masculinity. While the film decontextualises and glosses over Gulab’s motivations, they can be seen as another response to the crisis of powerlessness.

C. The Invisible Alternative

Research by both indigenous and foreign scholars portrays a third, constructive reaction to the crisis. Male allies for women’s justice and equality within Afghanistan are actively trying to resolve the crisis from within. Echavez, Mosawi, and Pilongo (2016) showcase how higher education and generally favourable interaction with women loosen the traditional holds of patriarchy prevalent all over the world and also further undo the generational damage inflicted by a military masculinity fermented over the past forty years of foreign wars and internal strife. These allies are forging a new, modern masculinity which is not dependent on the traditional model of controlling women or military prowess. Instead, they use Islam and rationality as a means of defending their ideas and grounding them in a solid Afghan and Islamic foundation. These allies are crafting a masculinity which can survive the end of the conflict and thrive in the post-crisis rebuilt Afghanistan.

As Farooq Yousaf and Dean Peacock (2023) write that broad research portrays a clear binary of “patriarchal and conservative men”; however, they portray a different image of Afghan men as “allies” for the women’s struggles. Their research highlights how it is useful for those in power to portray Afghan men as patriarchal and oppressive as the emancipation of Afghan women is a “bargaining chip” for imperialist powers to claim supremacy and justify their interventions in Afghanistan (Yousaf & Peacock, 2023). This is a clear retelling of the white man’s burden trope for colonial intervention. War has undoubtedly affected both gender roles and the social “construction and realisation of manhood” and womanhood (Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 2024). Under the threat of violence and economic downturn “military masculinities” emerge which emphasise traditional notions of gender (WILPF, 2024). However, this is just a general and even stereotypical understanding that overlooks the many nuances and realities of everyday life for Afghans. Indigenous scholars caution against such “essentialising” and instead focus on diverse and even fluid masculinities, and underline “intersectional” and “situationally constructed” realities for many Afghan men (WILPF, 2024). While the Taliban has succeeded in closing down the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, both male and female scholars rely on Islamic teachings to justify and argue for women’s issues. The Women Ulema Network, crucially uses male allies (WILPF, 2024) arguing on the basis of Islam to appeal to the Taliban and employing logic and rationality. The fact that masculinity is a social construct and can be created or constructed is enough to hope that a liberated and stable Afghanistan will shirk off these stereotypes and step towards an egalitarian gender framework (Connell et al, 2005; Willer et al, 2013).

IV. Conclusion

The true “epistemic violence” of Western representation is not the simple invention of a stereotype, but the deliberate selection and amplification of the most pathological reaction (Spivak, 2003). By focusing exclusively on the hyper masculine hegemonic Taliban figure, the other forms of being an Afghan man are overlooked and rendered invisible. The men reforming from the inside using traditional or religious ideas are overlooked and the ones adopting a Western masculinity are presented as proof of the success of America’s civilising mission. The selective framing creates a devastating feedback loop: the conflict fuels a conflict of masculinity, the West broadcasts its most violent manifestation, and this broadcast is used as further moral justification to intervene in the region and fuel the emasculation of the Afghan man, who is unable to solve his own problems and broker peace to end his own wars. Afghans are stuck in this loop, unable to construct a peaceful identity. To understand the politics of representation of Afghan identity, it is crucial to contextualise this within a global narrative that ultimately profits from the pain. A promising avenue for further research can be a digital ethnography project studying how Afghans utilise and represent themselves on social media platforms such as Instagram and X (Twitter) and analysing how Afghans themselves subvert or perhaps even internalise these tropes.

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