AROUND THE WORLD 2: The Makeup of Afghanistan

By FEDERICO ARELLANO (Click here to read about the writer)
Scripps Howard Foundation Wire

Afghanistan is a complex country, populated by nine ethnic groups who speak a dozen different languages and who live in a varied geographical frontier.

The most recent war with Russia left the countryside peppered with landmines and many monuments and minarets reduced to rubble. The poverty left in the war's wake has taken an impossible human toll. But before the war, Afghanistan was very different.

"Before WWII, it was not highly stratified," said Robert Canfield, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Canfield has a PhD in anthropology and did nine years of field work in Afghanistan. "Classes, in Marxist terms, did not develop in Afghanistan."

"There were, of course, radical differences in wealth and influence, but Afghanistan - historically - is not like India, which has many castes and huge differences in wealth," said Canfield. "There were certainly a few powerful chiefs but they were also very dependent on their client population. The term ‘classes’ is a critical term when it come to capitalism, but capitalism was not a flourishing thing in those days."

For Thomas Gouttierre, director of the center for Afghanistan Studies in Nebraska, who also served as a Peace Corps volunteer, a Fulbright Fellow, and executive director of the Fulbright Foundation in Afghanistan for several years, "the divisions were always there and reinforced by geographical divisions. But for more than 200 hundred years, the Afghan people found a way to peacefully coexist until the Russian war."

The Afghan-Russian War that took place between 1979 and 1989 was bloody, cruel and to some, considered a factor in the demise of the USSR. "Nowadays there are no industries, of course," Canfield said. "But after WWII, Afghanistan began to educate their young people in Western languages, developed a banking system and a marketing system, which was in various ways controlled by the government. They exported Persian lamb skin and there was a huge industry of grapes, melon and nuts that were shipped to south Asia."

Nevertheless, fear of their powerful neighbor was always there. "My spirit will remain in Afghanistan, even though my soul will go to Allah. My last words to you, my son and successor, are: never trust the Russians," said Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan between 1880 and 1901, before dying. Rahman Khan is considered by Western scholars as the "founder of modern Afghanistan ."

Afghanistan was really a quiet place, there was no sectarian violence," Goutierre said. "It was remarkable, but as a result of that destructive war (with the Russians) this humpty-dumpty entity, social and political, broke into pieces and they could not put it together again."

In the opinion of some who have visited the country, the Afghanis had nothing to do with the Sept. 11 terrorists’ attacks. "There has not been one single Afghan ever implicated in a terrorist act against the West," said Robert Canfield, who teaches Sociocultural Anthropology. "There is a reason for that historically; Afghans, unlike other Moslems, were never under colonial domination. So their attitude towards the West was not colored by a deep resentment."

Canfield explained that the tradition of radical Islam developed in places where there had been a long and sustained colonial dominance and is the reason for the evolution of the fanatic interpretation of Islamic traditions. However, some Afghans living in the U.S. feel that the Taliban are not Moslem. "The Taliban are crazy people," says Sasmila, who works in a Washington, D.C., Afghan restaurant and did not want to give her last name. "They are using Islamic traditions."

The anti-Western shrill Islamic beliefs began in Egypt, Canfield said, and also in India in the context of opposition to the British and the attempts to develop a new society in contrast to colonial features. Nonetheless, in Afghanistan, "Islam was not the idiom of resistance," he said Long-held traditions help explain why Afghans are supporting Osama bin Laden. "They feel obliged to protect a guest," he said. "A typical old tradition in the Middle East is the obligation of protecting a guest against all attacks."

Sasmila, a Taijic, points out a distinct difference between the Afghan people and the Taliban: "They (the Afghan) are very friendly people," she said. "I give you an example of the poor people: if you came to my house and I have two children and my husband and I only have one piece of bread, I’ll give my bread and my milk to you because you are my guest."

"Lonely Planet" travel guide writer John King agrees. "People there are extremely hospitable,’ he said. "I think that goes with the fact of being Moslem, a deep-seated instinct for hospitality. We get quite a different impression in the West, but indeed if you travel around in Moslem areas, unless it happens to be highly politically charged as it is now, people are quite hospitable." King spent many years traveling through the north of Pakistan and wrote the latest edition of the Lonely Planet travel guide on the country.

Both King and Sasmila note that Afghanis enjoy a simple life. "Afghan people spend their money on food and enjoying life," said Samila. "The average number of sons in a family reaches five and it is common for a greater family nucleus to live together in the same house. Grandparents and married sons with their wives stay under the same roof. "Weddings are huge," Sasmila said. "They kill many animals and hundreds of people attend. The celebrations could last three days."

"In all my years of traveling up there, I was treated extraordinarily well," King said. "Most non-fundamentalist Moslems, non-militant Moslems, regard Christians and Jews as what they call ‘people of the book,’because they have the same religious tradition. The Islamic tradition considers itself as a more modern or more recent, sort of an update of Judaism and Christianity. So they still behaved quite honorably towards Christians and Jews," King said, though he added he is reluctant to travel in Pakistan now, "not because of the people, but because of the ones who are very militant."

Ethnic mosaic:

"No matter what ethnic group we are talking about not one of them is monolithic," according to Gouttierre, director of the center for Afghanistan Studies. That seems to be the principle to understand Afghanistan society and its people.

The mountain chain that runs northeast to southwest curves the country into three main areas: the South, inhabited by Pashtoons; the West, which is essentially occupied by Tajiks and Farsiwans; and in the north, Uzbeks, Tajiks and other Persian language speakers. In the middle of the country, in the higher mountains, the Hazarahs are found. Nevertheless every single ethnic group, including the minorities, is found in Kabul, traditionally the melting pot of Afghanistan.

"Basically the main ethnic group in the country is a group called Pashtoons, their original language is Pashto which is where the term Afghan comes from. "The words Afghan and Pashtoon are identical," Canfield said. He is working on a book on the distinctive patterns of a coalition that have formed under the leadership of Islamic authorities in the country. Historically, that group was the dominant one in the country, and they’ve always claimed to be the largest ethnic group numerically. Afghanistan means the Land of Afghans, and was coined by the Pashtoon-dominated government. Though "some of the people in the country have resented and resisted the Pashtoon domination and prefer to call themselves by their ethnic and linguistic identities," Canfield wrote in an article,"Who are the Afghans?"

The rest of the population of the country is Persian speaking. They developed an eastern dialect of Persian that is very compatible with the Persian of Iran. The Afghanistan government call it Dari and it has long been the language of bureaucracy and public affairs.

Pashtoon: 38 percent of the population. "They are composed of different tribal lines, but the lineage is usually divided almost regionally. The Pashtoons spread through the south and east of the country.," said Thomas Gouttierre, an American scholar who lived and worked for nearly 10 years in Afghanistan.

Tajiks/Farsiwan: is the second largest group, which comprise a third of the population of the country. Persian speakers, the Farsiwan people live in the western part of the country, surrounding the province of Farah and north of Kabul. The western Afghanis are essentially Iranian, "they do not know Pastho," pointed out Canfield. The Tajiks also speak a dialect of Persian, the Tajic, and inhabit the northeast and north central part of the country. (This includes the Chahr-aimaq Ghowr, Chaghcharan, and eastern Herat).

Hazarah: "The third main ethnic group is the Hazarah, who are descendants of the Mongols and share similar features. Hazarahs represent a fifth of the population and live in the central area of Afghanistan in the mountains, in the province of Bamian. "They are found in large numbers in Kabul, the capital city, just like every other ethnic group. But they also are established in other urban centers, because they are known for being hard workers, and often take on the manual tasks," said Gouttierre.

Uzbeks: this group is notable in the northwest. Their native language is Baki, which is a Turkish language, and all the men speak Persian. They are also found in the northern cities and in Kabul. They make up 8 percent of the population.

The rest of the population is composed of minor ethnic groups: Turkoman, in the northwest and northern cities; Qizalbash in major cities; Aimak in the northwest; Nooristani in the east, primarily in Konar province; Baloochis in the south, above the Pakistan border. Click here to tell us what you think about this story!

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