Why Split Afghanistan, Why not Split Afghanistan…………
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“Members of the Taliban were not responsible for the violence, nor were their sympathisers. Instead, it was a rare show of force by Afghanistan’s Shiite minority and a sign of the growing sectarian tensions that are threatening to add to the security concerns in the country. “Even when the police came here, they were not scared,” said Gulab Gul Zadran, as he sat in the ruins of his medical clinic. “They just kept destroying things.” Although the exact circumstances of the bloodshed are still not clear, the trouble began following clashes between ethnic Hazaras and Pashtun nomads – known as “Kuchis” –on the capital’s outskirts on Friday. Hazaras then staged a protest inside the city, which developed into a riot. Anarchy paralysed the Koti Sangi area of Kabul, with mobs of young men attacking local shopkeepers. Scores of people were injured and one police officer was among the dead. The exact number of civilians killed is disputed, with both sides claiming they suffered significant losses…………Despite the ethnic tensions in Afghanistan, there is no appetite for one radical idea recently put forward by a former US ambassador to India: “de facto partition”. Robert D Blackwill, who also served as an envoy to Iraq under the former US president George W Bush, provoked anger here when he effectively called for the country to be divided between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns……...”
Any deal with the Taliban will be a Pashtun-Pashtun deal. Wrong: it will be a Pashtun-Pashtun-American-Pakistani deal, with the other Afghans likely left out in the cold. The Hazara, Tajiks, and others will have the pre-2001 period to look forward or backward to, with the Pashtuns, a plurality of the population with a strong historical tendency toward tribalism and sectarianism, lording it over the others. The Hazara, being both Shi’as and many with distinctly East Asian facial features, will again be at the bottom of the pile, just as they were again after the Taliban took over.
The prospect of the Taliban taking over again, a strong possibility given their hold over the Pashtun, with their intolerant Wahhabi and tribal attitudes toward others, makes one think of a split. Why not split it? In fact, why not create a Pashtunstan that includes all Pashtun lands that straddle Pakistan and Afghanstan? Okay, it is not realistic, but it is a nearly de facto thing.
Cheers
mhg
Mon Email
“Members of the Taliban were not responsible for the violence, nor were their sympathisers. Instead, it was a rare show of force by Afghanistan’s Shiite minority and a sign of the growing sectarian tensions that are threatening to add to the security concerns in the country. “Even when the police came here, they were not scared,” said Gulab Gul Zadran, as he sat in the ruins of his medical clinic. “They just kept destroying things.” Although the exact circumstances of the bloodshed are still not clear, the trouble began following clashes between ethnic Hazaras and Pashtun nomads – known as “Kuchis” –on the capital’s outskirts on Friday. Hazaras then staged a protest inside the city, which developed into a riot. Anarchy paralysed the Koti Sangi area of Kabul, with mobs of young men attacking local shopkeepers. Scores of people were injured and one police officer was among the dead. The exact number of civilians killed is disputed, with both sides claiming they suffered significant losses…………Despite the ethnic tensions in Afghanistan, there is no appetite for one radical idea recently put forward by a former US ambassador to India: “de facto partition”. Robert D Blackwill, who also served as an envoy to Iraq under the former US president George W Bush, provoked anger here when he effectively called for the country to be divided between Pashtuns and non-Pashtuns……...”
Any deal with the Taliban will be a Pashtun-Pashtun deal. Wrong: it will be a Pashtun-Pashtun-American-Pakistani deal, with the other Afghans likely left out in the cold. The Hazara, Tajiks, and others will have the pre-2001 period to look forward or backward to, with the Pashtuns, a plurality of the population with a strong historical tendency toward tribalism and sectarianism, lording it over the others. The Hazara, being both Shi’as and many with distinctly East Asian facial features, will again be at the bottom of the pile, just as they were again after the Taliban took over.
The prospect of the Taliban taking over again, a strong possibility given their hold over the Pashtun, with their intolerant Wahhabi and tribal attitudes toward others, makes one think of a split. Why not split it? In fact, why not create a Pashtunstan that includes all Pashtun lands that straddle Pakistan and Afghanstan? Okay, it is not realistic, but it is a nearly de facto thing.
Cheers
mhg
Mon Email
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