Jirga: Pashtun Participatory Governance
Intro Continued
where tribalcohesion was difficult to maintain, much less govern through a single institution.The opposite was generally true in Pakistan where British colonial rulers generally left the tribes to manage their own internal affairs. As a result, the Mahsuds, Ahmadzai and Utmanzai Wazir tribes generally inhabit areas that have well defined boundaries that can be governed by levels of jirgas that range upward from villages to the entire tribe. Most of the tribes in Afghanistan are dispersed and mixed with other tribes, and as a result, jirgas are generally found at the village level or at a group of contiguous village areas, but seldom achieve any “tribal jirga” status. As a result, the loss of traditional governance within Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes has resulted in gaps in institutional control that can be capitalized upon by opportunists.
Additionally, tribes like the Mahsuds and most of Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes may lack their own territories that permitted rivals to emerge, but opportunist mullahs were soon able to learn how to stake out as their own the “religious territory” that allowed for the appearance of individuals engaged in deadly rivalries. This was normally competition, at first, between weak secular maliks who quickly lost out to the organizational ability and oratorical abilities of themullah class. Soon, however, the opportunist mullahs, frequently self-ordained, were competing with one another in deadly clashes that were necessary for them to have the vital external enemies upon which to focus the ire of their personal supporters. In this environment, the term shura and its religious connotation was heard more commonly than the more stabilizing term, jirga, and the maliks who served upon them.
Khan Idris documented the jirga of one Yusufzai village in a ground-breaking study. The following material and its case studies provides an excellent insight into the ways that “Athenian democracy” is used among Pashtuns seeking to govern themselves through consensus among trusted elders representing extended families.
Editors, Tribal Analysis Center