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A little over a hundred years or so years ago Theodore Herzl, a member of the Jewish Diaspora, and his colleagues in the Zionist Congress mapped out a way back for his people to what he considered his tribe’s God-given land. The aftermath of following that bloody roadmap resulted was the creation of the Zionist state. I would hesitate to take even a few lessons from Herzl’s playbook because of the decades of misery brought on by its execution and by the guaranteed decades of hegemony to follow. However, a few people have private messaged me at this point, asking about what the next step ought to be for galvanizing Pashtun independence if it is not the unsavory and doomed-to-fail approach of breaking Pakistan’s back and running to India with open arms merely because “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Where Herzl and his colleagues and the Pashtun Diaspora meet is our capabilities to potentially influence the creation of a Pashtun state via external pressures, for the better or worse.
A summary of these failed and doomed-to-fail plans include: 1) destabilizing Pakistan 2) doing 1) with the assistance of RAW, Central Intelligence, and the Iranian replacement of Savak. 3) Keeping the US around long enough to accomplish 1 and 2. and 4) Living happily ever after in a secular and unrepresentative Pashtunistan capable of punishing the former panjabie elite. The latter of course is headed by the typical Durrani oligarchs like Hamid Karzai… yet the time valued lesson of oligarchies failing due to their lack of meritocracy is lost on the advocates of steps 1 through 4.
The major rate limiting step and crux of their failed planning lies in the future (and past) of what was formerly the NWFP and now Khybar Pashtunkhwa. If Pakistan breaks up, there is no guarantee at all, and no evidence to support the premise that our brethren across the Durand line would join either a greater Afghanistan or an independent Pashtunistan. There are a few things my brethren on the Abdali/Khiljzai side of the Durand line would do well to remember:
1) Khybar Pashtunkhwa is still settled along tribal lines: Khalils live in the vale of Peshawar, Khattaks live in and around Karrak, Wazirs occupy their own land, Yusufzais are within their own territories, Mehsuds stake their own claims, Mohmands have their agency, and the Afridis dominate the hills as they have since time immemorial. Even if Pakistan were to fracture… these people are going no where save where they always have been. They will not automatically submit to Kabul any easier than they would to Islamabad. In fact, they abhor Kabul and what is stands for based on my travels through those districts. If anything, the state will fracture along the current borders of the provinces with the NWFP opting out a joint venture with our folks on the Kandahar-Kabul side of the dividing line. The only monkey wrench in all this is Quetta where the locals feel quiet a bit of animosity per Baloch nationalism and are still very much interlinked into the Abdali confederacy. This NWFP sub state will further fracture along FATA and mainland NWFP territory.
A) As a subpoint here, it seems like a major fallacy to assume that it is the inherent right of the Abdali and Khiljai government to dictate terms to the NWFP tribes. Ahmad Shah was the only individual capable of doing this and faced multiple insurrections to his own rule despite his granting autonomy to these groups. His son Timur Shah had to actually deal with the potential Arbab-Khalil malik/assassin attempting to take the throne from him during a visit to Peshawar. This foolish view that we can impose a recreation of the Durrani empire onto the NWFP is baseless in both logic and sense. It also lacks a historical foundation.
2) Pakistan has played a nefarious role in Afghanistan’s affairs but this in no way means that India, with its Punjab link to Pakistan will not play a similar role once we invite that greater player which spawned Pakistan into our internal affairs. As I noted in a prior response, India plays for its own benefit and was an equal opportunity killer of Pashtuns during the war against the Soviets, flying mig to mig with their USSR colleagues. Through the brainwashed Afghan Diaspora populace has forgotten this; the Mujahedeen fighters have a longer memory. The subsequent support for Najib Gaw was also very revealing of long term intentions. Indian Military Historians have noted, very aptly, that major crushing threats to India have continuously hailed from the central Asian direction. The list they provide includes Ahmad Shah Abdali, Sher Shah Suri, and Ghaznavi. The brand new Punjab state and Sindhistan will no doubt feel that some of their goals align with their brethren in India and seek to neutralize a strong Pashtun state as the Pashtuns have historically broken apart Mughal and Sikh/Hindu power players alike.
3) There continues to be little evidence that the secular democractic government that the US seeks to impose on the Afghan populace is something that they are warming up to. This may be because of the fact that it is neither secular, nor democratic in its current incarnation. As I have harped on, democracy in the American sense finds its foundation in a field in Britian called Runnymede where 12th century nobles forced King John to cede rights to a parliament. The road to American secularism and democracy took centuries. There is no easy, load your CD-ROM form of democratic secularism that the Afghan tribes are willing to accept. Furthermore, Hamid Karzai, an Abdali himself, is an oligarch, tied to centuries of monarchy by marriage and does not provide that key ingredient that a functioning state requires: a merit filled government led by a meritorious leader. In fact, his Shamizai lineage makes him as unqualified to lead an oligarchy. I have cited Matthew Hoh and others here repeatedly, who are American government officials now recognizing that the tribal belt and the southern Afghan basin have traditionally been governed by a fusion of tribalism supplemented by Islamic law. As an example, there was never a time when an adulterous Pashtun in a village was simply afforded the right to life, liberty, and property. That individual met his maker with brutal efficiency at the end of a gun.
So what to do in the face of all this? Also, as Pakistan hobbles towards disintegration by trying to simultaneously please all comers, should we not plan for something to come?
The answer is absolutely. As a member of the Pashtun Diaspora, this depends on your moral code. As an American-Firster, I hesitate greatly in putting American lives in harms way for the struggles and aspirations of people who have the right to manifest their own destiny at their own pace. Therefore, American military hard and soft power ought not to play a role in this answer. Bob and Tim do not need to die to create a Pashtunistan.
A more reasonable set of less bloody and fool hardy suggestions might be as follows, though this will take decades, if not a century of more to execute (remember, even Israel took about 50+ years to plan):
1. Forge links that make sense. Marry across the border back and forth. Stitch a tie that binds the disparate Pashtun groups. This is currently difficult as a Pashtun family in Helmand tends to marry into their own and a Pashtun family in Peshawar tends to marry into their own. I have found that my own cross border marriage has created a binding tie between two families that span Helmand and Wana. There is bound to be resistance to this at first, but in this day and age, most parents of the Diaspora are more than happy to accommodate the marriage of two Muslims. With the regional shifts that are occurring as the economy gains traction on the Afghan side of the border, there should be no issue with Pashtuns that establish properties on both sides of the border intermarrying. In addition to strengthening blood ties, this will create a cultural renaissance and deplete the Parsiwaan and Indian infiltrates into our customs.
2. Forge economic ties that cross the border. Make it so that both regions increase their business links. Companies should be based out of Kabul, Peshawar, Kandahar, and Quetta. Workers should be awarded for migrating back and forth across the border and land should be easily available with first buyer rights in Pakistan going to Afghan brethren and vice versa. Exclude other groups from co-opting these efforts and make them uniquely our own. This then makes the gentleman from Jalalabad feel as if his interests are best served by opting into a nation state with his brother from Peshawar or Quetta. Furthermore, the individual from Quetta and Peshawar will get to travel far and wide and see that Pashtuns of the vale of Kandahar and in Spin Boldak are as full of nang and are as against the Persianization of their culture as the Peshawari is.
A. As a subpoint here to all my physician or physicians to be brethren, a hospital system spanning the Pashtun lands is just such a venture that would bring economics, well to do people, and a prospering field into unison.
3. We are all generally Hanafi Muslims. We are greatly blessed in being able to pray behind the same imam in the Ahmad Shah Baba Masjid as we are in being able to pray shoulder to shoulder in the masjidoona right across the border in Quetta. Any majlis ought to easily incorporate Pashtuns from Kacha Gerrai camp as easily as it would a Pashtun from Mazar. Islam is generally something that should bind us if we can abandon the new innovations of Ahle Quran and Ahle Sunnah and all this odd and neuveau terminology. This should also augment our abilities to inter marry. If an ulema is derived from all the Pashtun regions, then Islam serves as a major force multiplier for unity within our own people
4. Think like the Jews in that we ought to work like an extended family. We should work as a meritocracy, but Pashtuns can rightfully prefer their fellow Pashtuns for positions within our own territories. For example, just as an African American gets preference at Howard Medical, there should be no shame in the overwhelming majority of the medical seats in Nangrahar and Peshawar going to Pashtuns who are meritorious. Institutes of education ought to open their doors to cross border admission. I am proud that Khybar has taken this step and allotted seats for Afghans and hope to see reciprocation on our side of the border.
This of course, is all with a caveat. Pashtunistan is land locked. In one way this is blessing. For centuries, our warring back and forth has resulted in a static situation where we have become very good at war and very backwards at everything else (except maybe writing poetry and talking fondly of past times). I have always thought of Pashtun territory as a greater part to a larger whole. The ability to trade and barter with local states in a peaceful manner ought only to consolidate Muslim gains and create a federation of local nation states that can erase the lines drawn by British map makers and manipulators. Then, perhaps, an ummah can exist where the Sindhi and the Pashtun, or the Tajik and Pashtun can speak to each other on equal terms with civility and work as a part of a federation much as Ohio and California are a part of a federation of United States. Each state has its own dignity and its own share of the pie, but all are equal players in front of the federal government.
A summary of these failed and doomed-to-fail plans include: 1) destabilizing Pakistan 2) doing 1) with the assistance of RAW, Central Intelligence, and the Iranian replacement of Savak. 3) Keeping the US around long enough to accomplish 1 and 2. and 4) Living happily ever after in a secular and unrepresentative Pashtunistan capable of punishing the former panjabie elite. The latter of course is headed by the typical Durrani oligarchs like Hamid Karzai… yet the time valued lesson of oligarchies failing due to their lack of meritocracy is lost on the advocates of steps 1 through 4.
The major rate limiting step and crux of their failed planning lies in the future (and past) of what was formerly the NWFP and now Khybar Pashtunkhwa. If Pakistan breaks up, there is no guarantee at all, and no evidence to support the premise that our brethren across the Durand line would join either a greater Afghanistan or an independent Pashtunistan. There are a few things my brethren on the Abdali/Khiljzai side of the Durand line would do well to remember:
1) Khybar Pashtunkhwa is still settled along tribal lines: Khalils live in the vale of Peshawar, Khattaks live in and around Karrak, Wazirs occupy their own land, Yusufzais are within their own territories, Mehsuds stake their own claims, Mohmands have their agency, and the Afridis dominate the hills as they have since time immemorial. Even if Pakistan were to fracture… these people are going no where save where they always have been. They will not automatically submit to Kabul any easier than they would to Islamabad. In fact, they abhor Kabul and what is stands for based on my travels through those districts. If anything, the state will fracture along the current borders of the provinces with the NWFP opting out a joint venture with our folks on the Kandahar-Kabul side of the dividing line. The only monkey wrench in all this is Quetta where the locals feel quiet a bit of animosity per Baloch nationalism and are still very much interlinked into the Abdali confederacy. This NWFP sub state will further fracture along FATA and mainland NWFP territory.
A) As a subpoint here, it seems like a major fallacy to assume that it is the inherent right of the Abdali and Khiljai government to dictate terms to the NWFP tribes. Ahmad Shah was the only individual capable of doing this and faced multiple insurrections to his own rule despite his granting autonomy to these groups. His son Timur Shah had to actually deal with the potential Arbab-Khalil malik/assassin attempting to take the throne from him during a visit to Peshawar. This foolish view that we can impose a recreation of the Durrani empire onto the NWFP is baseless in both logic and sense. It also lacks a historical foundation.
2) Pakistan has played a nefarious role in Afghanistan’s affairs but this in no way means that India, with its Punjab link to Pakistan will not play a similar role once we invite that greater player which spawned Pakistan into our internal affairs. As I noted in a prior response, India plays for its own benefit and was an equal opportunity killer of Pashtuns during the war against the Soviets, flying mig to mig with their USSR colleagues. Through the brainwashed Afghan Diaspora populace has forgotten this; the Mujahedeen fighters have a longer memory. The subsequent support for Najib Gaw was also very revealing of long term intentions. Indian Military Historians have noted, very aptly, that major crushing threats to India have continuously hailed from the central Asian direction. The list they provide includes Ahmad Shah Abdali, Sher Shah Suri, and Ghaznavi. The brand new Punjab state and Sindhistan will no doubt feel that some of their goals align with their brethren in India and seek to neutralize a strong Pashtun state as the Pashtuns have historically broken apart Mughal and Sikh/Hindu power players alike.
3) There continues to be little evidence that the secular democractic government that the US seeks to impose on the Afghan populace is something that they are warming up to. This may be because of the fact that it is neither secular, nor democratic in its current incarnation. As I have harped on, democracy in the American sense finds its foundation in a field in Britian called Runnymede where 12th century nobles forced King John to cede rights to a parliament. The road to American secularism and democracy took centuries. There is no easy, load your CD-ROM form of democratic secularism that the Afghan tribes are willing to accept. Furthermore, Hamid Karzai, an Abdali himself, is an oligarch, tied to centuries of monarchy by marriage and does not provide that key ingredient that a functioning state requires: a merit filled government led by a meritorious leader. In fact, his Shamizai lineage makes him as unqualified to lead an oligarchy. I have cited Matthew Hoh and others here repeatedly, who are American government officials now recognizing that the tribal belt and the southern Afghan basin have traditionally been governed by a fusion of tribalism supplemented by Islamic law. As an example, there was never a time when an adulterous Pashtun in a village was simply afforded the right to life, liberty, and property. That individual met his maker with brutal efficiency at the end of a gun.
So what to do in the face of all this? Also, as Pakistan hobbles towards disintegration by trying to simultaneously please all comers, should we not plan for something to come?
The answer is absolutely. As a member of the Pashtun Diaspora, this depends on your moral code. As an American-Firster, I hesitate greatly in putting American lives in harms way for the struggles and aspirations of people who have the right to manifest their own destiny at their own pace. Therefore, American military hard and soft power ought not to play a role in this answer. Bob and Tim do not need to die to create a Pashtunistan.
A more reasonable set of less bloody and fool hardy suggestions might be as follows, though this will take decades, if not a century of more to execute (remember, even Israel took about 50+ years to plan):
1. Forge links that make sense. Marry across the border back and forth. Stitch a tie that binds the disparate Pashtun groups. This is currently difficult as a Pashtun family in Helmand tends to marry into their own and a Pashtun family in Peshawar tends to marry into their own. I have found that my own cross border marriage has created a binding tie between two families that span Helmand and Wana. There is bound to be resistance to this at first, but in this day and age, most parents of the Diaspora are more than happy to accommodate the marriage of two Muslims. With the regional shifts that are occurring as the economy gains traction on the Afghan side of the border, there should be no issue with Pashtuns that establish properties on both sides of the border intermarrying. In addition to strengthening blood ties, this will create a cultural renaissance and deplete the Parsiwaan and Indian infiltrates into our customs.
2. Forge economic ties that cross the border. Make it so that both regions increase their business links. Companies should be based out of Kabul, Peshawar, Kandahar, and Quetta. Workers should be awarded for migrating back and forth across the border and land should be easily available with first buyer rights in Pakistan going to Afghan brethren and vice versa. Exclude other groups from co-opting these efforts and make them uniquely our own. This then makes the gentleman from Jalalabad feel as if his interests are best served by opting into a nation state with his brother from Peshawar or Quetta. Furthermore, the individual from Quetta and Peshawar will get to travel far and wide and see that Pashtuns of the vale of Kandahar and in Spin Boldak are as full of nang and are as against the Persianization of their culture as the Peshawari is.
A. As a subpoint here to all my physician or physicians to be brethren, a hospital system spanning the Pashtun lands is just such a venture that would bring economics, well to do people, and a prospering field into unison.
3. We are all generally Hanafi Muslims. We are greatly blessed in being able to pray behind the same imam in the Ahmad Shah Baba Masjid as we are in being able to pray shoulder to shoulder in the masjidoona right across the border in Quetta. Any majlis ought to easily incorporate Pashtuns from Kacha Gerrai camp as easily as it would a Pashtun from Mazar. Islam is generally something that should bind us if we can abandon the new innovations of Ahle Quran and Ahle Sunnah and all this odd and neuveau terminology. This should also augment our abilities to inter marry. If an ulema is derived from all the Pashtun regions, then Islam serves as a major force multiplier for unity within our own people
4. Think like the Jews in that we ought to work like an extended family. We should work as a meritocracy, but Pashtuns can rightfully prefer their fellow Pashtuns for positions within our own territories. For example, just as an African American gets preference at Howard Medical, there should be no shame in the overwhelming majority of the medical seats in Nangrahar and Peshawar going to Pashtuns who are meritorious. Institutes of education ought to open their doors to cross border admission. I am proud that Khybar has taken this step and allotted seats for Afghans and hope to see reciprocation on our side of the border.
This of course, is all with a caveat. Pashtunistan is land locked. In one way this is blessing. For centuries, our warring back and forth has resulted in a static situation where we have become very good at war and very backwards at everything else (except maybe writing poetry and talking fondly of past times). I have always thought of Pashtun territory as a greater part to a larger whole. The ability to trade and barter with local states in a peaceful manner ought only to consolidate Muslim gains and create a federation of local nation states that can erase the lines drawn by British map makers and manipulators. Then, perhaps, an ummah can exist where the Sindhi and the Pashtun, or the Tajik and Pashtun can speak to each other on equal terms with civility and work as a part of a federation much as Ohio and California are a part of a federation of United States. Each state has its own dignity and its own share of the pie, but all are equal players in front of the federal government.
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