ABSTRACT
The post-war reconstruction of Afghanistan is as yet in its early stages, and may well continue to be disrupted by struggle over the appropriate form of political authority in the post-communist era. The country’s social and economic problems are awesome in scale, not least because Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world even before the communist coup of April 1978 set it on its path to disaster (Vivekananda 1993). That said, there are some grounds for hope as well as despair. Much of Afghanistan is now relatively stable, many Afghans have acquired new skills through exposure in exile to agencies of international civil society, and the country is dotted with projects being implemented at the local level through constructive alliances between Afghan communities and Afghan and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs). These provide points of light in a landscape darkened by the emergence of antediluvian political forces, massive physical destruction, population displacement, and threat of mine injury, as well as the hidden but potent threat to social cohesion posed by the psychological scar tissue which many Afghan men, women, and children carry as a result of the sickening traumas of two decades of slaughter.
