Edited Volume: In Search of Peace for Afghanistan – A Collection of Essays

Title:

In Search of Peace for Afghanistan

Subtitle:

Historical Letters of President Najibullah

and Dr. M. Hassan Kakar

A Collection of Essays

Edit and Foreword:

Edited by Jawan Shir Rasikh

with a Foreword by Lakhdar Brahimi

BACK COVER CONTENT

1. “Everyone gives different reasons for the misery of Afghanistan. I don’t think now is the time to talk about the faults and responsibilities of this or that side because nothing will come out of it except an increase of differences and a continuation of the bloodshed. Instead, we should all try to find a way out of the current bloody crisis. People of Afghanistan no longer want to be sacrificed because of the vengeance of others. Foremost they need peace so that they can forget the bitter past and turn their attention toward building a fair, safe, and sound future for themselves and future Afghan generations.”

• President Najibullah in his letter to Dr. M. Hassan Kakar

2. “If the involved parties, foreign and internal, are ready and determined, the procedures for creating a national government will not be a problem. If the internal sides give priority to the interest of the country and its people or that of their own, then it is possible that the current crisis can be solved. The leaders of the involved parties and in fact every prominent Afghan has a great responsibility in this regard. It would be naïve to think that others will prescribe a disinterested solution for us. It would also be a case of improper pride to say that we don’t need anyone’s help in this national disaster.”

• M. Hassan Kakar in his response to President Najibullah

1. 3. In Search of Peace for Afghanistan is a collection of twenty-two essays on war and peace making in contemporary Afghanistan. The volume is inspired by the discovery in 2019 of three historical letters of President Najibullah and historian M. Hassan Kakar. In the correspondence, exchanged in 1990, Najibullah and Kakar speak candidly about the hopes and desires of the Afghan people for peace, about plans to bring peace to their country, and about the national and regional-global actors, factors, and obstacles concerning the states of war and peace then in post-Soviet Afghanistan. The contributors to this volume, all established and emerging Afghan and international scholars, public intellectuals, and former and current members of civil society, policy, and state institutions, offer critical analyses of the correspondence, and fresh perspectives on historical and political themes related to the past and current peacemaking processes and efforts. They also offer insights on modern Afghan state-society-relations, public and political spaces, post-conflict society and development, and the role of non-Afghan, wider regional state and non-state actors and geopolitics, and present comparative examples of successful peace negotiations and best practices in international conflict resolution.

In Search of Peace for Afghanistan