Controversial customs among Pashtuns

[khushal]

Arent Zazais clickin up with Mangals to bang on Turis in Kurram?

historically Zazi and Turi have had alliances against the Mangal. Recently since the shia/sunni divide has been politicized, There are Zazi that are fighting agaisnt the Turi's. But most are staying out of it. At the same time many Turi take refuge accross the border in Jaji.
Mangal since the 90's have been very anti taliban but recently they have taken aid from them against Turis in exchange for sanctuary.
What i dont understand is sometimes the Turis have the upper hand and sometimes the Mangal has the upperhand. I dont know if the pak military is somehow doing this by design to divide and rule by giving aid to the turis so the mangal would be forced to take aid from from the taliban by giving them sanctuary.

[khushal]

Interesting. Yes mashallah paktia is very beautiful mountainous region....i am a inhabitant of desert, so i am strogely attracted towards mountains. Iqbal says about people of desert and mountain,

"fitrat k asoolo ki karta he nagehbani
ya banda-e-sehrai ya mard-e-kohistani"

Marwats have their own unique style of attan, i have tried to find its video on internet but there is none. With recent talibanization of our areas cultural activities are badly affected..Now you wont hear dhol, suruna, pokanrai in weddings, neither attan..talibans also eliminated some bad trends like trend of dancing boys (orrki) in weddings. But now doing attan is considered "halkay/kacha"..in villages there used to be riwaj of chowk where young boys used to do attan at mazdigar...chowk trend is now disappearing...Among all tribes in settled areas of KP, only marwats, bhittanis and khattaks have tradition of attan..If situation remain as such than within few decades attan may vanish from our area.

I doubt it will dissapear. War extremenizes people. once war disappears, people will go back to their traditional way of life. In our area people beleive that the seculars and the kacha/dumtob/quanlutz brought the foreigners and hence the misery to the afghans. the problem is the war.

[IamDZJ]

What do you mean by misusess that privilege? Going to school or work is univerasl law to all human beings even in the Quran is it said that both men and women are allowed to work. My sisters are living here and going on there own to school or to a shop if my mother needs something, they are wel behaved and didn't do anything that would make us feel ashame, our society needs to change, we can't live like this anymore, we have to progress.

chances of a girl who has never been out to run errands or go shopping on her own running away from home with some guy is alot lower than one who has. that is a very general example.
i said most girls misuse that privilege not all of them. kabul is a mess in that sense right now because for a very long time women were not allowed to leave the house on their own and now that all of a sudden they do have that choice, they are misusing it.
besides, if a sister was up to no good, her brother would be almost the last person to know of it.
of course this doesn't mean women should be confined to the walls of their houses and deprived of proper education to an equal level (metric level only or at least doesn't impress me) as men if not further but formal education only doesn't fix the problem of an oppressed society.

[Khostai]

^I don't think so, DaZahroJaam I don't know if you are a man or a woman but belive me our cultural indoctrination is really strong, I leave in the west but steel a lot of things what westerners do I can't do, for exmaple drinking, going late out to the nightclubs and having a girlfriend, its becuase our culture is telling that those things are wrong. Even if the girl gets the chance to go outside mojority won't abuse it, only a small minority but those girls belogs to familys who are like that for generation who don't have shame. And about Kabul, the girls there that do this things are mostly Hazara or Tajik that grew up in Iran or Pakistan.

[Soldat_Amir]

Just reading some of the comments of the members and finding them quite ignorant in some parts especially when someone wrote that the divorce rate amongst Pashtuns is low. The reason why its low is because in most cases a Pashtun women cant divorce her husband, maybe due to Islamic values but most women are just a item for the man to misuse and in many cases, the husband ventures out with other women while the wife spends her life in misery.

The Pashtun women is the most oppressed element of Pashtun society, the Pashtun man being the most ignorant of them all, have settled disputes, tribal alliances and war with their own women, which is shameful and disgraceful.

Just look at the child bride problem in our region, people like to brush this problem under the carpet and ignore it but its wide spread and accepted, girls marry without their consent to men way way way over 50 years old, and people never question this because the poor Pashtun woman is locked in her compound and prevented to go outside.

Look at Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries, the women take part in government, schools and many other activities while the Pashtun women just sweeps the floor with a "Raybaz" and gets slapped now and then for no reason.

No wonder there is such a high suicide rate amongst Pashtun women especially in Afghanistan where they burn themselves to death, drink poison etc

[یاسمینه]

I think that "inability" to divorce affects also men. Imagine, there is a couple. Both are Pashtuns, well educated, they live in Kabul, have kids. Both feel unhappy in their arranged marriage and would like to divorce. But there is no socially acceptable reason to divorce. None of them is mentally incompetent, they can have kids. They are distant cousins. And they both know, that if after divorce she married again, he would be called "talaqi", the one whose wife sleeps with another man. In fact all his family would be stigmatized. And he has younger siblings who will soon be ready for marriage. Social consequences makes them stop from divorce. They both can't imagine further life on the margins of family and society.

[emkhan]

I think that "inability" to divorce affects also men. Imagine, there is a couple. Both are Pashtuns, well educated, they live in Kabul, have kids. Both feel unhappy in their arranged marriage and would like to divorce. But there is no socially acceptable reason to divorce. None of them is mentally incompetent, they can have kids. They are distant cousins. And they both know, that if after divorce she married again, he would be called "talaqi", the one whose wife sleeps with another man. In fact all his family would be stigmatized. And he has younger siblings who will soon be ready for marriage. Social consequences makes them stop from divorce. They both can't imagine further life on the margins of family and society.

It should not be a big issue. If they are Muslim they should believe in Qadar or taqdeer. If they got married by taqdeer and they don't have understanding or whatever so they should create understanding among themselves if they are educated. Education does not mean to get away with the problems and do whatever he or she likes, I think education should be used here as a tool to solve the problem if any. If we call ourselves as Pashtuns we should never talk of "divorce" otherwise we should stop calling ourselves as Pashtuns.
I think our women and men are great at patience and compromise. It is something to be appreciated and not discouraged.

[یاسمینه]

I only told the story of my Pashtun friends. I can't judge them or say if it's proper or not...

[Amir al Ghaznavi]

Just reading some of the comments of the members and finding them quite ignorant in some parts especially when someone wrote that the divorce rate amongst Pashtuns is low. The reason why its low is because in most cases a Pashtun women cant divorce her husband, maybe due to Islamic values but most women are just a item for the man to misuse and in many cases, the husband ventures out with other women while the wife spends her life in misery.

The Pashtun women is the most oppressed element of Pashtun society, the Pashtun man being the most ignorant of them all, have settled disputes, tribal alliances and war with their own women, which is shameful and disgraceful.

Just look at the child bride problem in our region, people like to brush this problem under the carpet and ignore it but its wide spread and accepted, girls marry without their consent to men way way way over 50 years old, and people never question this because the poor Pashtun woman is locked in her compound and prevented to go outside.

Look at Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries, the women take part in government, schools and many other activities while the Pashtun women just sweeps the floor with a "Raybaz" and gets slapped now and then for no reason.

No wonder there is such a high suicide rate amongst Pashtun women especially in Afghanistan where they burn themselves to death, drink poison etc

ahahahahahaha

[AfghanResistance]

NON PAKHTUNS COMMENTING ON THIS SECTION and telling us how controversial some elements of our customs are should first tell us what ethnicity they come from and how controversial elements in their own customs are before commenting on others.

SOLDAT_AMIR You have never had anything good to say about pakhtuns, so why bother even coming on here?? you said and i quote

Pashtun women just sweeps the floor with a "Raybaz" and gets slapped now and then for no reason.

I find that very offensive if it came out the mouth of a pakhtun let alone the mouth of a non pakhtun like your self. Keep your stereotypical comments to your self. in fact racist.

Pakhtun men sacrifice their lives for their women. This is our culture, this is our way. can you say the same for yours??.