September 23, 2001
For centuries, the outsiders have found Afghanistan
a deceptively easy country to invade. Once there, however, they found that
its people are impossible to control and that it's a hellishly difficult
place from which to withdraw. The country's modern history is replete with
failed efforts by great powers to bend the Afghans to serve their interests.
British colonial forces fought and lost three wars there in the 19th century
and the Soviets' decade long debacle is still fresh in the world's mind. America seems poised to embark on a military venture
in Afghanistan that will likely involve the use of ground forces in as yet
undetermined numbers. However, U.S. soldiers will operate among a people who
are vastly different from the Afghan stereotype popularized by the British
colonial writers and reinforced by the Western media in the 1980s. The stereotypical Afghan is a bearded, craggy faced
mountain warrior. A turban or round, rolled wool "Khyber cap"
adorns his head and a rifle is clutched in his hands. In earlier days, the
rifle would have been a long, highly ornamented flintlock. British colonial
photographers captured these images in black and white. Television footage
from the war against the Soviets shows the Afghan holding a modern AK-47 or,
more chilling, a Stinger missile. The imaginary Afghan prefers fighting to any other
human activity, ceasing his blood feuds with neighboring clans and tribes
only when there are outside invaders on whom to make war. He makes his living
usually through theft, ransom or robbery. This Afghan is also full of
contradictions. In social relations, he is at once the most gracious of hosts
and a traitorous betrayer of loyal friends. In battle, he is capable of
unparalleled feats of daring matched by equal acts of cowardice when he
deems, like the Afghan hound going limp when grabbed by the throat, it is better
to give up and live to fight another day. Taken together, these
characteristics make the Afghan a wily, formidable foe. As with most
stereotypes, this one is salted with just enough truth to guarantee its
consumption. The largest segment of Afghan society is composed of
the various Pathan tribes. They make up nearly 40 percent of the population
and have long controlled most political power. Afghanistan's Pathans live in
the mountainous region adjoining Pakistan. The Afghan-Pakistan border runs
squarely through the heart of the Pathan population. In fact, there are more
ethnic Pathans in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province alone than there are
in all of Afghanistan. Efforts to distinguish an "Afghan" Pathan
from a "Pakistani" Pathan are as meaningless as the border between
the two countries. Stereotypes of Afghans are loosely based on Pathan society
and its particular social code of conduct. While conducting research in
Pakistan in 1988, a Pathan businessman I met socially in Islamabad invited me
to visit his village near the Afghan border. I readily agreed. A friend from
Sindh province in western Pakistan learned of my intention to go and
earnestly warned that the Pathan gentleman might be intent on kidnapping me
and holding me for ransom. He urged, "That is one of their favorite ways
to make money." When I told my Pathan host the story, he smiled and
arched an eyebrow and said, "Maybe I will." Both Pakistanis were
sophisticated, well-educated professionals acting according to very old
stereotypes. Afghanistan's ruling Taliban are poorly understood
in the West. They are often mistakenly referred to as a 'militia' as if the
organization was created solely as a fighting force. Though there are armed
fighters loyal to Mullah Umar, the Taliban is best understood as a religious
revivalist movement whose followers gained control of the government and are
well armed. The Taliban movement is composed largely of ethnic
Pathans. Many of its leaders and strongest supporters are former war orphans
educated in religious schools in the Northwest Frontier Province operated by
Pakistan's Jami'at-i Ulema-i Islam political party. The sheltering and
hospitable treatment of guests seeking refuge is a feature of the Pathan
social code. This tradition reinforces Islamic injunctions about the
treatment of guests and travelers. The Taliban's willingness to harbor Osama
bin Laden is thus a matter of honor as well as a religious obligation. If the popular picture of the Afghans is distorted,
what then should Americans know about the country's people? Afghan society is
much more diverse than the image above suggests. Sixty percent of the
population is non-Pathan. Northern Afghanistan is populated by ethnic Uzbeks
and Turkmens related to those across the borders in the former Soviet
republics of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. They are Sunni Muslims like the
Pathans but speak Turkic languages. In central, western and northwestern Afghanistan are
ethnic Tajiks and Hzara who speak Dari, a dialect of Persian. Tajiks are
Sunni Muslims like those in the former Soviet Tajikistan while Hazara are
Shi'a as in neighboring Iran. The Northern Alliance, the primary opposition
to the Taliban, controls 5 percent of Afghanistan, and is made primarily of
ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks. The alliance has pledged 15,000 troops to fight
alongside U.S. forces against Taliban militiamen. The value of such support
should be discounted. The alliance has not been successful in fighting the
Taliban because it is ethnically divided while the Taliban are unified by their
shared Pathan identity and religious fervor. Afghans differ from their popular image in other
important ways. The overwhelming majority are not well-armed holy warriors
but subsistence farmers armed only with rustic implements. They struggle to
eke out a living under the worst imaginable conditons. The suffering caused
by several years of a U.S.-led economic embargo of their backward,
war-ravaged economy has been compounded by terrible droughts. Mobilizing
Afghan farmers to fight American troops who have limited objectives and no
intention of staying in Afghanistan might prove difficult for Afghanistan's
leaders. Moreover, it is not clear how far the influence of the Taliban
extends into the countryside where 80 percent of Afghans live. Though the heroic Afghan warrior is largely a
fanciful literary and media creation developed over centuries, the country's
ability to extract a terrible toll on invaders should give American
strategists pause for reflection. In 10 years of fighting, the Soviets
suffered 13,000 dead and many times that number wounded. Any incursion by
U.S. forces in Afghanistan will certainly result in casualties. The number of
U.S casualties will depend on how large a force we send, how they are
deployed and how long they stay. The number of Afghan casualties will depend
on those factors and on what methods the United States might choose to
employ. Terrorists, in their Sept. 11 attack on the United
States, acted on the basis of stereotypes they had been taught about America.
Our response to their actions cannot be based on simply a different set of
stereotypes. We must face realities as best we can, even when they are
inconvenient or do not lend themselves to quick solutions
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