Afghans

 

 

A word of warning to my children, my grandchildren, and my great-grandchildren:

You too will have to deal with Afghanistan!

This morning I heard a commentator on TV say that Russia like all the "civilized countries" wanted a "united Afghanistan".

There is no such thing as a "united Afghanistan". There is no such thing as an "Afghan". Afghanistan as we define it is peopled by ten different cultural, ethnic, religious groups that feel nothing for each other except enmity or at best a desire to be left alone. There are Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks, Aimaks, Baluchi, Kyrgyz, Turkmen, Nuristani, Pamiri and a smattering of other ethnicities and cultures. These groups are basically Islamic in religion although there is some Animism and Agnosticism scattered here and there. Even among the Muslims there is no semblance of unity in the way they interpret their faith and observe it in everyday life. The Hazara, for instance, have been persecuted by the remainder of the groups for centuries because they are predominantly strong Shi'ite Moslems while the balance are Sunni. No one of the ethnic groups is dominant. The Pashtuns are the largest group but number a little less than 40% of the population of what we call Afghanistan.

Most of the groups are illiterate and almost universally illiterate for the women. They make their living in different ways. Some are farmers, some are nomadic herdsmen and a few are tradesmen and artisans. These traditional ways of life have been greatly shaken by recent warfare and by the worst drought in Afghan history.

A person in this milieu believes in the old Arabic proverb, "Me against my neighbor, my brother and I against the city, my tribe and I against the world". Generally they do not think of themselves as members of a nation but rather as owing allegiance to their ethnic group that believes as they do. These groups speak a tribal specific language generally and are not always capable of communicating with members of other tribes.

Well, you say there has been a "united Afghanistan" for a couple of hundred years. On western civilization's maps that is true but not really true in fact. The ethnic groups never assimilated into "Afghans". They became even more tribal specific. The central government in Kabul tolerated this condition and allowed warlords in each group to exercise local authority.

Add to this problem the fact that almost every male citizen in the country is armed with an assault rifle and knows where there is plenty of ammo hidden and you have a milieu that is a peacekeeper's nightmare.

So I believe that if we catch fifteen or twenty top al Qaeda including Usama bin Laden and get the hell out of Afghanistan and lobby for a NATO or Pan-Islamic peacekeeping force we will be doing the best we can do.

But I believe that the country will fall apart or become the pawn of a strong warlord that will crush human rights once again. If it falls apart I expect Russia will step into the gap and take it over.

So y'all take care of it.