Ethnic groups in Herat Province

[randolph85]

An Afghanistani Pashtun waving Afghanistan flag or wearing shirts of flag colours or face-painting of flag, is also sensed as cringe-worthy and weird phenomena by me. In fact the sight of Afghanistani flag waving is more cringy and embarrassing because Afghanistan is winner of the most frequent flag changes in the twentieth century. Historical Flags (Afghanistan)

Not really cringe worthy since you only see these things at sporting events and national holidays. What is really cringe worthy and embarrassing is that are like 4 different versions of the modern Afghan flag floating around. Even at official government functions with flags lined up you will see flags with different size ratios of the center emblem some with or without Shahada. Ridiculous.

[Samandri]

Not really cringe worthy since you only see these things at sporting events and national holidays.

Well you will also see these things only at sporting events , national holidays and political gatherings of certain parties here in Pakistan.

Afghanistanis doing it , is more cringe. Not long ago the country was ruled by Taliban and there was no such cringy nationalism at all. Now all of a sudden Afghanistanis are mimicking Pakistanis in their nationalism.

[maneatinglizard]

Funny thing is..i find the pashtuns who change names !!!, language, culture, etc etc to please other as the biggest begharats... you need to know the definition of the word or not use it at all.. However, like i stated earlier that both pakistani and Afghani pashtun have to realize that we are working things out with our counter parts in respective countries..so just like you are not being called a slave of Tajik when their language, culture,political views etc is perceivibly imposed on you neither should you use that against anyone else..

Except no one is imposing Tajik anything on us. If anything, we’re imposing on them (which I am against).

Farsi is a part of Pashtun culture and history. Just about every Pashtun kingdom and empire used Farsi, and it’s been the Lingua Franca of the region for a thousand years. But even then Pashto is still one of the national languages of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Indian culture is being imposed on Pakistani Pashtuns. Everyone knows this. I’m not saying that every Pakistani Pashtun is beghairat because of the circumstances of their country. Nor am I saying that anyone who doesn’t support leaving Pakistan is a beghairat. I’m saying that the Pashtuns that willingly assist in the destruction of Pashtun culture, and that happily harm Pashtuns for their own personal benefit, are beghairat.

[khushal]

Except no one is imposing Tajik anything on us. If anything, we’re imposing on them (which I am against).

Farsi is a part of Pashtun culture and history. Just about every Pashtun kingdom and empire used Farsi, and it’s been the Lingua Franca of the region for a thousand years. But even then Pashto is still one of the national languages of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Indian culture is being imposed on Pakistani Pashtuns. Everyone knows this. I’m not saying that every Pakistani Pashtun is beghairat because of the circumstances of their country. Nor am I saying that anyone who doesn’t support leaving Pakistan is a beghairat. I’m saying that the Pashtuns that willingly assist in the destruction of Pashtun culture, and that happily harm Pashtuns for their own personal benefit, are beghairat.

Most Pakistanis think that Pashtuns in Afghanistan all speak Farsi. Funny thing is they are so stupid that when we speak Pashto with them, they dont analyze the fact we are speaking Pashto with them. I met many that think this and when I tell them its not the case, they dont believe it. I ask them then what am I speaking with you, Farsi and then I ask them how do they say 37 in Pashto, so far I have only met about 3 that knew how to count in Pashto. The vast majority especially from the city dont know how to count in Pashto.

Most of these people don't understand Afghans. They sit in their bubble caves like most Americans and see the world as the bubble but never knowing the reality.

[Samandri]

Except no one is imposing Tajik anything on us. If anything, we’re imposing on them (which I am against).

Farsi is a part of Pashtun culture and history. Just about every Pashtun kingdom and empire used Farsi, and it’s been the Lingua Franca of the region for a thousand years. But even then Pashto is still one of the national languages of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Indian culture is being imposed on Pakistani Pashtuns. Everyone knows this. I’m not saying that every Pakistani Pashtun is beghairat because of the circumstances of their country. Nor am I saying that anyone who doesn’t support leaving Pakistan is a beghairat. I’m saying that the Pashtuns that willingly assist in the destruction of Pashtun culture, and that happily harm Pashtuns for their own personal benefit, are beghairat.

Weirdly, Pakistanis (non-Pashtun) in general blame Farsiwans for every ill in Afghanistan and present the Pashtuns there as helpless victims of Farsiwans. And they have convinced themselves that "Northern Alliance" are the ones with real animosity towards Pakistan while Afghanistani Pashtuns have soft corner for Pakistan. And when the subject of Shia-Hazaras pops up, suddenly a picture of powerful Pashtun majority mistreating a helpless minority, appears in their mind. They know little about their own Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhwa, and know even less about Afghanistan. The truth is, its the Afghanistani Pashtuns who are responsible for all the animosity and friction with Pakistan. Afghanistani Pashtuns have pure and tribal hate for Pakistan/Pakistanis and they are not diplomatic and oily-tongued about it. As they long as Durand line issue exists, they will be hateful and revengeful. And there is simplicity and honesty about their straightforward hate and vengeance.

Pashto of Afghanistan is cumbersome and unnatural because of the Afghan monarchy intervening in the language and modifying it to bring it on par with Farsi. It lacks the fluency that Pashto of Pakistan has preserved. Check the very old Pashto texts of Afghanistan and you will realize that Afghanistani Pashto has actually degenerated over time.

Pashto was even court language of Ahmad Shah Abdali who they consider to be founding father of present-day Afghanistan. Even official history of Ahmad Shah Abdali is in Farsi. They always acknowledged the superiority of Farsi and had no qualms over it. But in 20th century, influenced by European and Kemalist nationalism, they tried to bring Pashto on par with Farsi and even went to the length of producing fake document like Pata Khazana to compete with Shahnama of Farsiwans. This akhroatness deteriorated their relations with Farsiwans, who became conscious of Pashtun imperialism for the first time.

[Samandri]

I think a Pakistani is better equipped to describe the differences between Pashtuns there, but from what I’ve read, people from Quetta and the surrounding area are very similar to Kandaharis, FATA Pashtuns are similar to the Pashtuns across the border in Loya Paktia, while parts of KP are being increasingly Indianized. An urban Peshawari from a upper-class family may be closer to a Punjabi at this point than Pashtuns in FATA, let alone Afghanistan.

There is this misconception, confined to imagination of Pashtun diaspora of West, that FATA is homogeneous and is world's apart from adjacent regions of KP. They say FATA is untouched by British-imperialism and Punjabism, and is pure and respect-worthy because of that. They imagine that culture of FATA is different from KP.

Interestingly Desis/Indics also think along along the same lines, that FATA is Homogeneous and it is culturally different from KP, and so is Afghanistan. They think that differences among Pashtuns runs along East to West, while in actual its from North to South. Dawar of North Waziristan is closest kin of Bannuchi of KP to his east and is culturally, behaviorally and linguistically more close to Bannuchi than he is to Bangash and Turi to his north in the same FATA. People of North Waziristan are closest to their neighbors in east (in KP) or to their neighbors in West (in Afghanistan). People of Kurram agency are closest to their eastern neighbors of Hangu (in KP) or to their western neighbors in Khost (in Afghanistan). People of Bajaur are closest to their eastern neighbors of Dir and Malakhand (in KP) and to their western neighbors of Kunar (in Afghanistan). Upper FATA (Mohmand and Bajaur) and upper Afghanistan (Nangarhar and Kunar) were colonized by same way of Pashtun immigration as upper KP, so these regions have same dialect and more things in common than they have with lower regions of Afghanistan, FATA and KP.

[Ironhide]

Except no one is imposing Tajik anything on us. If anything, we’re imposing on them (which I am against).

Farsi is a part of Pashtun culture and history. Just about every Pashtun kingdom and empire used Farsi, and it’s been the Lingua Franca of the region for a thousand years. But even then Pashto is still one of the national languages of Afghanistan.

On the other hand, Indian culture is being imposed on Pakistani Pashtuns. Everyone knows this. I’m not saying that every Pakistani Pashtun is beghairat because of the circumstances of their country. Nor am I saying that anyone who doesn’t support leaving Pakistan is a beghairat. I’m saying that the Pashtuns that willingly assist in the destruction of Pashtun culture, and that happily harm Pashtuns for their own personal benefit, are beghairat.

Pashto is pashtun culture not farsi.. Niether is urdu pashtun culture. Begharat is a very strong word,, but i believe in treating every begharat equally on both sides of the border. As far as your last point i agree but i want it imposed on pashtuns on both sides of the border.

[maneatinglizard]

Pashto is pashtun culture not farsi.. Niether is urdu pashtun culture. Begharat is a very strong word,, but i believe in treating every begharat equally on both sides of the border. As far as your last point i agree but i want it imposed on pashtuns on both sides of the border.

Pashtuns have spoken Farsi since we’ve appeared in the books of history. It was not imposed on us, Pashtuns spoke it because it was the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic world. No Persian or Tajik forced us to speak it, that’s why it’s only a second language for all Pashtuns except the ones that abandoned Pashto on their own. Farsi was spoken by what are now Pakistani Pashtuns too, by the way, until the British and later Anglicized Punjabi elites imposed Urdu in a failed attempt at cutting off colonial India from the greater Islamic world.

Seeing Farsi as some kind of threat to Pashtun culture is post-colonial nationalist nonsense. Perceiving Pashto and Farsi as competitors is likewise. We can easily learn both languages. I know people in India that were taught 3 or even 4 languages, so surely we can learn 2.

Pashtun culture existed and thrived with Farsi employed as a second language in business and governmental matters for a thousand years without us losing our identity.

What’s actually a threat to our culture is secular western ideology, which is what is really being imposed in Afghanistan. And I do agree that true people pushing that are beghairat, whether they are in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The thing is, the ones pushing those ideologies are usually the so-called nationalists themselves, not the poor Tajiks or Punjabis that mean us no harm.

[Ironhide]

Pashtuns have spoken Farsi since we’ve appeared in the books of history. It was not imposed on us, Pashtuns spoke it because it was the lingua franca of the eastern Islamic world. No Persian or Tajik forced us to speak it, that’s why it’s only a second language for all Pashtuns except the ones that abandoned Pashto on their own. Farsi was spoken by what are now Pakistani Pashtuns too, by the way, until the British and later Anglicized Punjabi elites imposed Urdu in a failed attempt at cutting off colonial India from the greater Islamic world.

Seeing Farsi as some kind of threat to Pashtun culture is post-colonial nationalist nonsense. Perceiving Pashto and Farsi as competitors is likewise. We can easily learn both languages. I know people in India that were taught 3 or even 4 languages, so surely we can learn 2.

Pashtun culture existed and thrived with Farsi employed as a second language in business and governmental matters for a thousand years without us losing our identity.

What’s actually a threat to our culture is secular western ideology, which is what is really being imposed in Afghanistan. And I do agree that true people pushing that are beghairat, whether they are in Pakistan or Afghanistan. The thing is, the ones pushing those ideologies are usually the so-called nationalists themselves, not the poor Tajiks or Punjabis that mean us no harm.

Ahha! see so poor Tajik or Punjabies are our fellow country men ... and we all have to grow together albeit not at the cost of each other.. but a symbiotic relationship..
but urdu or farsi is not pashtun language however you phrase it.. Israel had to reintroduce Hebrew after i dont know how many centuries... because they understood the importance of language..
Secular western ideology is a threat to everyone when they adversely goes into conflict with our justifiable cultural and religious heritage. But with the same token we have to understand that culture is also an evolving process..and we have to have a balanced approach.. on one side we cannt agree to be manipulated in the name of religion, while on the other side we cannot condone promiscuity (not that all western are promiscuous), family structure, etc etc.

[Friends of Baloch]

True.

Weirdly, Pakistanis (non-Pashtun) in general blame Farsiwans for every ill in Afghanistan and present the Pashtuns there as helpless victims of Farsiwans. And they have convinced themselves that "Northern Alliance" are the ones with real animosity towards Pakistan while Afghanistani Pashtuns have soft corner for Pakistan. And when the subject of Shia-Hazaras pops up, suddenly a picture of powerful Pashtun majority mistreating a helpless minority, appears in their mind. They know little about their own Baluchistan and Pakhtunkhwa, and know even less about Afghanistan.

Pakis in general dont even know about the history of their own Punjab and Sindh, how are they going to know about anyone else? They never seriously study their own history let alone anyone elses. Punjabis are only ever interested in trying to show off and making up fake history by denying their ancestors and appropriating the identity of others to soothe his deep rooted feelings of inferiority and rejection. This goes for Sikhs/Hindus too not just pakis. I have seen it is fashionable among Sikhs to also claim some kind of Iran conncetion while at the same time claiming how Afghanistan was once upon a time ruled by some fictional Punjabis and so was always a natural link with India. So which of these stories do these f*ckers want to have? Some bogus descent from Iran or some fictional glory history of Bundjab ruling Afghanistan in some distant past? They want it both ways, because they are liars on each count. This is the typical Punjabi limited view of themselves and the history of others.

Not only do Pakis try to reinvent the pre-British era history of Punjab and Sindh as something always standing separate from and in opposition to India/Hindus but i have noticed that in recent years Pakis are even rewriting the history of the Quit India movement and subsequent Pakiland movement itself as something ethnic and rooted in racial/historical differences when fact is the only thing it was about was religion and Indian Muslim elite not wanting to be a numerical minority in an overly Hindu India that the British had introduced universal suffrage and political representation to (thus forever disadvantaging Muslim voters and parliamentarians).

Punjabis really want to believe that they are not Indians, that their society does not have a caste system, that their culture is not rooted in Hinduism, that their ancestors were not largely converted from Dalits and other Hindu low caste and Hindu gypsy type people like Jats, Awans, Arains etc and instead make up lies that Jats, Arains etc are some kind of warrior invaders from Iran and Scythia etc Pakis actually believe this dumb sh!t about themselves, but when you call them out on it, they get upset and try to throw it back at you with stupid sh!t like "Afghans were Hindus too...".

Punjabis are afraid to look at who they really are and tell the truth about themselves. They want to live in fiction and dont want to learn about themselves and their real history and it drives them to enormous levels of envy and anxiety when Pashtuns and Baloch in Pakiland take an interest in educating themselves about Pashtun history, Baloch history, Afghanistan... For Punjabis there is only 1947 preceded by a selective and largely fictious history, alongside a whole lot of appropriation from other peoples' histories.

People like this that dont know and dont want to know themselves can never trusted to seriously learn and tell the truth about others. They cant even bring themselves to admit that what is today their Punjab and Sindh is the core of what the word Hindu was invented for and applied to in the first place how are they ever going to concede that Pashtuns have a history and identity that wasnt approved by the self-haters at Rawalpindi (bud bud) HQ?

[Friends of Baloch]

Dude, once again.., WHAT DO YOU CARE? What difference does it make if Pashtuns make up 49% or 51%? Why this obsession?

They care because this was what Pakiland was churning out during the 1990s and it was very popular and apparently has never truly gone away. They used to brag in those days that Afghanistan was Pakiland's "5th province". Interestingly this designation was made before even considering what number province Kashmir was supposed to be in this new 'Super Pakiland' that these Dravidians were salivating about in the 90s

Ethnic surveying of Afghanistan was always a thing and probably goes back to the Soviet Union before the invasion of 1979.

Pakis who self-credit themselves with 'defeating' the Soviet Union adopted the Soviet outlook of trying to view and break down Afghanistan into ethnic compartments. They have been writing about it for years.

Gen. Musharraf was one such self-appointed expert on ethnicity in Afghanistan even claiming once that Karzai wasnt a real Pashtun and that 'Panjshiris' and 'Tajiks' were something like 'the 8%' that ruled the 60-something% Pashtuns against their will

F***ing pakis!