The Backbone of Afghanistan

Ninteen Pashtuns:

Pashtuns the Backbone of Afghanistan
Their modern past began with the rise of Ahmad Shah Durani imperium 1747, There history is very old and famous for there bravery and specialty in there culture and conduct by cods of honor that is called PASHTAWALEE. They are known more by there culture and language. and tribal way of living as groups.
Beside other group they were the most that fought Russian Communists and British Empire and there bravery goes back in Alexander the great time that pushed him out of the areas of Pashtuns.
The total population of the group is estimated today to be about 70 million in the world, but most Pashtuns live in southern and eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan.
Some Pashtun populations live in India and Iran, and some refugee workers live in the Arabian Peninsula. The census for Pashtuns in Afghanistan remains uncertain because a big percentage of them still live in Pakistan.
Pashtuns are called the back bone of Afghanistan and their mainland is Afghanistan, which was divided by British colonial forces in 1893. Ethnically and nationally, Pashtuns are called Afghans. Pashtun and Afghan have the same meaning. Pashtuns lived with the instability of war for the last more then two decades, especially the ethnic wars that hurt them the most. They sacrificed a lot of blood. Pashtuns have always loved other Afghans and would stand for any person, from any ethnic group, who could bring peace and tranquility to the country. They showed this in the jihad’s time, when they followed other ethnic leader such as Rabani, Gailani and Mujadedi. They look at others from Tajik, Hazara, Turkman and Uzbek as brothers, and that since of brother hood hurt them because they always kept quit in offensive way against political attack of others as majority. they only were in defense situation, because in cold war northern alliance people attacked all Pashtun in the fight every where, and this attitude still continues.
Pashtuns lived in what is today called Afghanistan, which has lost some land to Russia and some to India-British, that land became part of Pakistan in the last century. These people are culturally conservative in general, from 3,000 years ago until today, and have their own culture besides the ones they’ve adopted from different historical movements.
By some documents and historical opinions, these people were Buddhists until they adopted Islam. They live in a feudal system, yet and they are most spiritual Muslims with honorable attitudes in their social, daily lives. They are almost sixty-two percent include twelve percent Farsi talker Pashtuns in Afghanistan. There are 18.8 million of them in Afghanistan, about thirty five million in Pakistan as second largest tribe, and five million are refugees from the war with Russia. There are a total of almost fifty five millions Pahstun in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Pashtuns affect Afghanistan’s destiny in both wartime and peacetime. They are ready to fight the enemy, and have always sacrificed a lot for their land and honor. They have been called most for national wars, and they have stood on the front lines. Their women were even involved, beside their husbands, fathers and brothers, against foreign enemy. In the seventh century AC; Pashtuns had to fight three times in ninety years. They fought against the Arabs and sacrificed much because of a religious conversion; they accepted the new, peaceful religion of Islam in the end. Those ninety years of fighting with the Arabs was the bloodiest chapter in Pashtun history.
During those years, the Arabs settled in Afghanistan to spread their religion further and change the entire culture to Islam. But the Pashtuns kept their old tribal culture and tradition with its principals and codes from thousands years before. This had been their way of life all along, throughout history, even when there had been other religions—for example, idolatry, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism and Islam. But the evidence shows that for many years, most had been Buddhist before Islam, and there is no remnant of Zoroastrianism or idolatry.
Pashtuns still live in a pure culture and use assemblies by the name of Loya Jerga and warra Jerga (big assembly or national assembly and small assembly) for tribal and national events, like solving a problem or making a decisions between people and tribes. They also use them for national matters such as appointing a king or a head of the tribes, impeachment, or waging national wars against common enemies. They handle social life by codes that are respected and accepted. In fact, their task—Pashtunwali—has been established.
These tribal codes or principles are for the cases of losing honor or belonging to others, the Pashtuns get together and order the assembly (Jerga) about it in their places, and accept the assembly’s decision. This kind of assembly has been adopted by non-Pashtuns in the country, too, because it is so advanced. It works like Senate or Parliament and Congress in other worlds.
The difference is that the assemblies or jergas play a big role in every level of society and country. Assembly members must obey the cultural rules. They are chosen by the government in Jerga as elders in (meshrano jerga) and chosen by people in (Wolosi Jergas) . They work like the House of Representatives on big issues like constitution war and other events that I mentioned earlier.
The assemblies have worked together for thousands of years. Pashtun tribes originally are one big tribe made by small groups that calls also tribes with one language and one believe in culture; all together still believe in the codes and principles of Pashtunwali. Even the most modern Pashtun is bound to them. Most they don’t cheat each other, and they live in peace and togetherness, they honor there land and family. but generally there tribal system is unfair towards women destiny
But these people have been cheated a lot by there political leaders, governments and opponents. They have been trusted in national matters because they sacrifice more than others and because they are majority, and history is the witness of that because they are taught like that. During the wars with England and Russia and the ethnic war, they sacrificed more than others because they were fighting by tribal order or the orders of their leaders. They do not act as governments do—like tyrants and despots. Even those tyrants were either Pashtun or non-Pashtun.
These people are purposely kept in the dark so they don’t know of the oppressors’ conduct in the country. Still, they live traditionally, as they have historically, under a feudal system. They have their rich, historical civilization, but the oppression they have faced throughout history has made those historical civilizations vanish.
The Pashtuns’ mainland is called Gandhara, which means “the wool of goat and lambs.” This shows what their business was at the time. The Pashtun name comes from Pakht or Pasht, which was taken from Paktia, a famous tribal state. according to documents, and their language is the oldest in history, originating thousands years before Christ. The Pashtun language comes from Sanskrit, an ancient Indian language, and their race comes from Arian; Indo-European.
The Pashtun are willing to die for their land; it is their first honor. Their second honor is their women and families.Pashtuns’ government existed for more than a thousand years and they have existed on their land for more than a thousand years as a substantial military force.
After Islam came to Afghanistan, the Pashtuns built their empire in India and Afghanistan. The common Pashtuns were kept far from city life and businesses so they could not reach other cultures and developments until in time war they are ready the way that they were convinced. Simple Islam was working fine for them besides their own culture, when they were not used for politics. In the last century, the government did not pay attention to their language or let that develops, compared to Farsi because Iran had cultural influence on our Farsi talkers. Thus the Pashtuns did not develop and kept their conservative ways, so they were ready for more sacrifices by the order of their leaders in the feudal system. Most of the leaders were bribed by the governments; if some did not accept it, there was conspiracy and jail. They were distant, like many in history, in the time of King Zaher Shah and his father, Nader Shah or before that.
Pashtuns have some poetry and art that shows their civilization, but government and political leaders did not even try to make them understand their real history as civilized people. There are many books written about Pashtuns and their history, culture and civilizations, including The Pashtuns by Sir Olaf Caroe, Afghanistan by Louise Dupree and PATANS (Pashtuns), by an Englishman who was the governor of the northwest frontier (Wazirestan).
Pasthuns were always given arms to defend the country under any circumstances. The government kept them away from corrupt governments in the feudal system until they were busy with their cultural lifestyle and did not know about the government’s activities or the outside world. Despotic rulers further prevented any uprising because they were majority…
Most of them learned in war what has happening to them. In both war and peace, most they lived decently. They had a sense of responsibility, but some of the leaders killed them and betrayed them from the time of the king to Communist time to fundamentalist time.
Common Pashtun people are hard workers. They mostly live in poverty and lack of comfort, but love their freedom and their land. The common people are simple and clean-hearted; they have made the history of Afghan rich. For the past few years, they have been easily lied to by politicians, and I am not comfortable with that.
I was also upset by the Northern Alliance’s ethnic war, with there propagandas and harassments. These people were always distressed by politicians, kings, presidents and leaders who were intent on power, especially in the last century.
In Pashtun culture, there is a code that says that when a person runs to them from an enemy, they give protection and hospitality to that person. But the Taliban, as a fundamental Islamic group, cheated the Pashtuns in this matter politically. Osama knew better about their culture and stayed with the Taliban as Pashtuns. The Taliban used two cultures for his safety: the Pashtuns and Islam.
When the Taliban broke Buddha’s biggest statue ,that showed an erase of Pashtun or Afghan culture from the old times, they wanted to regenerate the culture of strict Islam among Afghans specially Pashtun’s.
Pashtun or Afghan culture is all about daily activity that is continuously practiced in all aspects of life. The culture is not an exact entity; it differs from the main part of culture, which is made up of language, daily conversation, dialogue, proverb and music. Pashtun’s don’t have any animosity toward any tribe or people until they realize that they have been betrayed and cheated by them either personally and nationally. Pashtuns are brave, honest, simple, straightforward people.
The Northern Alliance’s ethnic media put these people down so much during the cold and warm wars, but still, they are willing to cooperate in a peaceful manner.


Twenty
Tajiks
The Tajiks in Afghanistan got their name in the time of King Amanullah (1919). They got the name when it was declared that whoever was not Pashtun and who speaks Farsi—which included eight percent of Farsi-speaking Pashtuns at the time—were Tajiks. This new name replaced Degan, which they were called before.
The Tajik were not a tribe. In fact, they were different people from different tribes, including non-Arabs and non-Turks. After some internal fighting in Afghanistan, they became a figure of a tribe with different tribal roots such as Kashmiry Muslims, Indians, Qerghezes, Wakhanis, Tatars, Sunnis of Iran and Tajiks of Tajikistan, Qazaqs and Samarqandis people. They lived in Afghanistan for hundreds of years, mostly in the northeast, north and west. They were Sunni Muslims who had no specific social structure; they adopted that from their neighbors.
Mainly, Tajiks live in the Herat province on the Iranian border. They are mostly farmers; the land owner (zamindar) is the village leader, like Khan was to the Pashtuns in their feudal system. Their resistance leader is Ahmad Shah Masoud, a close rival of the Pashtuns in the ethnic war, and their group’s name is the Northern Alliance. They fight against Pashtuns for power, prestige and their form of government.
The Tajik are the second-largest tribe in Afghanistan, after the Pashuns. Real Tajiks comprise 12.38 percent of the population, or 3.5 million people, compared the Hazaras’ nine percent, the Uzbeks’ 6.1 percent, the Turkmans’ 2.68 percent and the Aymaqs’ 2.68 percent.(the information has been taken from deferent sources) Altogether, they fought, on an ethnic basis, under the name of the Northern Alliance or minority , against Pashtuns under name of the Taliban.
In December 2001, they had a treaty and announced their form of government, which were five tribal republics each for Turkmans, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Pashtuns. But in 2004, by Loya Jerga (big assembly) and the country’s constitution, Afghanistan was named once again as the central government, and the people were all called Afghans, even though the council’s assembly was not that genuine during the US invasion and with its power over people and government.
The military leader of the Northern Alliance or the Tajiks was Ahmad Shah Masoud. He was killed by a suicide bomber in September 2001. It is believed that whoever perpetrated the attack on New York’s Twin Towers on 9/11 attacked Masoud, too.
Common Tajik people are hard workers. Almost all are busy in agriculture, domestics and manufacturing, like Pashtuns, and significantly contribute to the national economy, like others. Russia always saw political and economic interest in these people and got involved in their ethnic wars, giving the Tajik politician a lot of support. Iran saw the Tajiks’ political, economic and cultural value as well, and had their men in their Treaty of Mazar. CommonTajik people are decent and honorable and love their country and shared the national wars against enemy of the land; they did not sell their country to foreigners, like their political leaders like or some Pashtun leaders did.
Tajiks speak a dialect of Persian. They once governed, in the fourteenth century as a Turk, once again in 1929, for nine months, and again from 1992 to 1996.
The fundamental Tajiks are represented by the Jamaat-e-Islami party (Islamic society) with the guidance of Burhanudeen Rabani, who was overthrown in 1996 by the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Rabani was also one of the heads of the Northern Alliance.
Afghan Tajiks were a combination of different tribes, including some farsi talker Pashtuns. They were victims of their circumstances, like the all Pashtuns, and have been overly influenced—and greatly cheated—by their political leaders in the matter of putting Pashtuns down in one nation.
And, their political group became oppressors. The Pashtun majority was under national oppression infact.