Ethnic Factor in Afghanistan

AbstractEthnicity as an issue has been faced by all multi-ethnic societies. But it is a matter of great apprehensions and graver outcomes in those societies which are going through post-conflict reconstruction, like Afghanistan is today. The paper will discuss in detail the ethnic groups, which exist in Afghan society along with the country's ethnic history. This paper attempts to analyze the fact how social and political objectives of ethnic groups are liable to be accommodated in the new structure of Afghan State. It will also argue about the composition of ethnic groups, impact of war on ethnic communities, and why the ethnic fault lines may continue and under what circumstances, they may fade away?Keywords: Ethnicity, communist regime, Mujahideen, multi-ethnic state, racial homogeneity, post-colonial states, Treaty of RawalpindiIntroductionAfghanistan is the meeting place and centre of four ecological, cultural and strategic areas; the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian Sub-Continent and the Far East, for the Pamir Mountains intrude into Chinese Sinkiang (Marwat, 1997: xiii). Devastated by wars over the last three decades, Afghanistan has strived for peace and solidity regardless of grave internal and external challenges, together with its history, demography, geography, geography and global power politics. Like most of the post-colonial states, through out the history, Afghanistan has remained a "multi-ethnic state", having more than "one ethnic group, speaks too many languages, and has multiple and multi-layered identities" (Shahrani, 2002: 715-722). The questions of ethnic identity and group cohesion has achieved the political worth as the 28 years long war has immeasurably tainted the population landscape of the country (Rais, 2008: 34).The origins of the various ethnic groups in Afghanistan are the subject of much speculation and legend. Though having few indigenous ethnic groups, yet Afghanistan is neither a "self-contained ethnic unit", nor its national culture is "uniform" (Dupree, 2010: 57). The diversity has undermined Afghanistan's attempts at nation-building. Within its borders, there is no ethnic majority, there are two ethnicities composing at least a quarter of the population, and as many as five composing at least 5 %. The diversity is as a result of Afghanistan's location at the peripheries of the world's great empires. Proto-Aryans, Persians, Turks, Mogols, and Indians have all conquered Afghanistan and their descendents fill the land. Thus it is common to find Afghans who look Northern Europeans, South Asian, East Asian, and Southern European all in the same province. The four major ethnicities of the country are Pashtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks. The lines between ethnicities are distinct, based either on language, religion or race.Ethnic History of AfghanistanDubow (2009) states that during the old times, the "North half of Afghanistan has been firmly a part of Persia". In the period preceding the Durrani Pashtun ascendancy in 1747, the ethnonyms of 'Afghan' and 'Afghanistan' denoted a particular ethnie (Smith, 1981: 66). The term "Groupe Ethnique" for Afghanistan was first time used by the French researcher and anthropologist, named Dollot (1937: 47), who "categorized Afghan people in several ethnic units". There had been no term of "Ethnic Groups" till 19th century and more realistically, the "foreign academicians and the governments began to divide Afghan society systematically into ethnic categories by the differences in language, sect, culture etc" not before the id 20th century (Boboyorov; Poos & Schetter, 2009).The creation of the Durrani monarchy in 1747 triggered a dramatic turning point in the history of the vast region wedged between the river Oxus and Indus, when the ethnic group, called "Pashtun" constituted an overwhelming majority. After the Achaemenid period, multiple states rose and fell on the territory of what is now Afghanistan (Saikal 2006: 17). …