In an article over at Foreign Policy, Thomas Barfield posits that being Medieval (as Afghanistan has been accused in recent months by Britain’s new defense minister) might not be such a bad thing. As the article’s subtitle notes — “The religious and political struggles of that era can offer some useful lessons.”

In July 1973, Afghanistan’s King Mohammed Zahir Shah was overthrown by his cousin Daud, who then abolished the monarchy and declared himself the president of a republic. The New York Times sarcastically editorialized that Afghanistan had just “leaped into the sixteenth century.” Radio reports soon brought news of this slight even to provincial northern Afghanistan, where I was working at the time. Daud’s government in Kabul expressed its displeasure, but an Afghan friend familiar with the region’s complex history saw it differently. “We may have acted hastily,” he joked. “The 15th century was pretty good around here!” Indeed, the Timurid dynasty that had its capital in Herat during that period was internationally renowned for its fine arts, monumental architecture, classical poetry — and effective governance.

I was reminded of this story last month when the Afghan government accused Britain’s new defense minister, Liam Fox, of insulting Afghanistan by describing it as a “broken 13th-century country.”

Visit Foreign Policy’s site to read the complete article: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/06/02/is_afghanistan_medieval?page=0,0

You might also be interested in this excerpt from Barfield’s new history of Afghanistan: http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i9144.pdf