Legacies of Militarized Literacy Discourses in Afghanistan from 1978-2022: A Comparative Critical Discourse Analysis of Four Literacy Interventions in Afghanistan

• In Event: Teachers at the Frontline: Identity, Well-Being, and Professional Practice

Proposal

This research uses a series of literacy textbooks published under four historically and
ideologically different periods in Afghanistan from (1978-2022). First, the research
investigates the People’s Literacy (1978) that was published by the pro-Soviet Union
government, People’s Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (PDAPA). Second, the paper
looked at Jihad Literacy (1990) sponsored by the US Agency for International Development
(USAID). Third, the research explores Daesh Literacy (2015) in schools in Eastern
Afghanistan controlled by the Islamic State of Khorasan (ISIS-K). Lastly, the research
examines the New Literacy (2022) published by a pro-Taliban private publisher based in
Kabul.
Initially, the research explores text production under each literacy from the Cold War
politics to the War on Terror and how these literacies have shaped and is sharping the
larger discourse of education and learning in Afghanistan. Then the research focuses on
thematic coherence and examples across literacies relevant to the normalization and
socialization of violence through schooling. Further, the research critically examines the
acquisition of alphabets and numeracy coupled with visual literacy practices and events
linked to objects of direct violence. The findings are relevant to the discussion on
increasing militarization of education spaces and texts either as victims of direct violence
and or victims of broader sociocultural violences that shapes the realities of children in low
resource contexts, and more importantly its implications for the study and pedagogy of
peace in the world.
According to Shields (2013), as the two competing superpowers; the United States and the
Soviet Union entered a Cold War (1947-1991), each tried to boost their power by
influencing Third World countries. With its geostrategic location, Afghanistan became a
frontline target of their competition. To counter communist influence in Third World
countries, the U.S. adopted a foreign policy of opposition and the use of force (Shields,
2013). This extended to Afghanistan as well. After the Soviet Union invaded the landlocked
country of Afghanistan to advance Communism, the U.S. funded and supported the
Mujahedeen factions in opposition to Soviet influence. According to Shields (2013), both
blocks introduced massive aid programs to promote their respective models of
development and modernization. Dabashi (2008) calls this phase the making of the
"Wahabi-inspired Taliban" (Dabashi, 2008, p.38) in Afghanistan, about the Mujahedeen
who expelled the Soviets with the backing of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan.
The post-9/11 US-led occupation of Afghanistan, as described by Schwartz (2011), saw the
US Military spearheading post-conflict reconstruction efforts during the Bush and Obama
administrations. This intervention, termed Military Neoliberalism, was driven by neoliberal
economics and aimed to transform the host country's political economy. The U.S. Military's
role as the main guarantor of international order has been underpinned by the
predominance of liberalism as the guiding ideology of economic globalization, focusing on
privatization, free trade, and deregulation. This intervention sought to bring Afghanistan
into the political and economic sphere of the US-led Western bloc, akin to the Soviet
approach, through military means.
The interventions of the Cold War and the War on Terror, give rise to various fundamentalist
movements of Mujahedeen, Taliban, ISIS, ISIS-K around the world but Afghanistan has
been one of the hot spots. “ISIS was born during the Iraqi civil war that began under the
American occupation between 2003 and 2011” (Olivier & Mathieu, 2020, p. 2). The authors
claims that initially the group participated in the Jihad against the American occupation
and the Shia led government it established in Iraq. Initially, there were known as “it was
called Jama’at al-Tawhid wal Jihad [Oneness and Jihad], though it quickly came to be
known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq” (Olivier & Mathieu, 2020, p. 3). Initially, they were focused on
Iraq and after the Americans left, they focused on Syria amidst the Arab Spring revolutions
that shook the region. Olivier & Mathieu (2020) found that the Islamic State (ISIS)
introduced alternative educational system to formal education in Syeria and Iraq. In 2015,
ISIS established a province named Khorasan in Eastern Afghanistan where they focused on
reshaping the education system in accordance with their ideology.
This research focuses on overarching ideologies and how they justified the promotion of
direct violence. It provides a historical review of the four different literacies and the
background into the nature of the political forces and institutions behind it. Further, it
provides textual analysis of the literacy textbooks that aims at the learning and practice of
direct violence along with visual objects and images focused on the teaching of direct
violence. It also critically examines how learners acquired in the learning by providing
context arounds school settings and by sharing autoethnographic narratives of the author
of this article from his primary education at Al Jihad School. The analysis and discussion
provide lessons and implications of the findings which shows that once ideological
violence permeates education, regardless of the ideology, it results in the construction of a
social reality that revolves a society in a perpetual state of violence and suffering

Authors

• Nangyalai Attal, UMass Amherst

• Mujtaba Hedayet, University of Massachusetts Amherst