| Title: | Afghanistan, Education and the Formation of the Taliban |
| Citable URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/10427/35330 |
| Author: | Nolan, Leigh E. |
| Date: | 2006 |
| Citation: | Nolan, Leigh E.. "Afghanistan, Education and the Formation of the Taliban." 2006. Tufts University. Digital Collections and Archives. Medford, MA. http://hdl.handle.net/10427/35330 Available from Tufts Digital Library, Digital Collections and Archives, Medford, MA. http://hdl.handle.net/10427/35330 |
| Rights: | http://dca.tufts.edu/ua/access/rights-creator.html |
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Abstract: Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Abstract: In the past half-century alone, Afghanistan has seen the collapse of its monarchy, the installation of a Soviet secular state, a successful Mujahideen insurgency to overthrow the Communist government, debilitating factionalization of Mujahideen clans, the precipitous rise and collapse of the Taliban government, and the installation of Hamid Karzai's fledgling government in the wake of post 9/11 US intervention. Underlying these successive waves of conflict has been an ongoing struggle between secular and religious control of Afghanistan's educational institutions. Control of the education system has been a mobilizing force for the conservative Islamist movement, the socialists, the overthrow of the Soviet government and the subsequent rise to power of the Taliban. This thesis will examine both the symbolic and the substantive role that the education system in Afghanistan has had in precipitating these successive waves of conflict with a particular focus on the madrassa system and its impact on the emergence of the Taliban.