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The Western forces that have been battling the Taliban in Afghanistan for nearly ten years are engaging not only with an insurgency but with a tribe. Taliban and Pashtun are one and the same, for it is this all-powerful Afghan tribe that gave birth to the movement and it's their tribesmen who fill its ranks.
'Westerners forget the historical context in which the Taliban emerged in 1994, although no Afghan ever will,' says British author James Fergusson. 'The Taliban's first purpose was to bring law and order to a country that had been devastated by five years of vicious civil war (following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989) and in those areas that came under their control, they succeeded brilliantly.'
One could argue that peace and stability imposed by a ruthless dictatorship isn't an acceptable state of affairs. Moreover, history has shown that once tyrannies become institutionalised, they often have a long life expectancy. But it's beyond doubt that only the Pashtuns could have brought Afghanistan--with the exception of a small pocket of resistance in the north--under its thumb so quickly and successfully.
LOCAL DOMINANCE
Throughout history, the Pashtuns, who constitute around half of Afghanistan's population, have dominated every aspect of Afghan life, more often than not to the detriment of Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks and other ethnic minorities.
The Pashtuns are the world's largest tribal society, with some 42 million living mainly in the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal belt in the North-West Frontier Province (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). The fact that most Taliban fighters operate within ten kilometres of their homes reflects a crucial reality: that rather than defending a nation, the insurgents are fighting to safeguard a perceived threat to their society and tribal customs.
Thanks to a handful of British soldier-scholars who campaigned in Afghanistan during the 19th century and on the North-West Frontier under the Raj, a great deal of knowledge has been passed down to us about the reclusive Pashtuns, their tribal code of honour, Pashtunwali, their culture and poetry--even their sense of humour. When a British political officer in the 1930s asked a malik, or village elder, whose side his people would take in the event of war between Britain and the Soviet Union, the old greybeard replied: 'I shall tell you the truth, sahib. We would just sit here watching you fight until one side was utterly defeated. Then we could come down and loot the vanquished to the last mule. God be praised!'
Pashtun society can perhaps best be understood as a complex hierarchy. A British Army manual published in 1910 catalogues every bit of data that military researchers had gathered on the Pashtuns. The book classifies them first by tribe, then by clan, division of the clan, sub-division of the division, section of the sub-division and so on. In all, there are nearly 5,000 entries.
Afghanistan's Pashtuns are made up of two main tribal groupings: the Abdalis, or Durranis as they later became, and the Ghilzais. The spiritual and cultural centre of the Abdalis has traditionally been Herat, while the Ghilzai stronghold is Kandahar. The Frontier Pashtuns' contacts were primarily with the Mughal Empire, which ruled Peshawar and Kabul from Delhi.
OBSCURE ORIGINS
We know who the Pashtuns are, but where they came from remains an ethnographic enigma. They have inhabited what is today Afghanistan for at least 3,500 years. One theory is that they migrated from Central Asia around 1500 BC, but this and other hypotheses are difficult to substantiate, for the earliest Pashtun texts date only from the 16th century.
However, the Pashtuns themselves are in no doubt about their tribal roots. At some point in history, they began to weave a nexus of tales to explain their genealogy. They call themselves Ben-i-Israel, or Sons of Israel, and have created an elaborate biblical folk tale that links their origins to the Lost Tribes of Israel.
The Pashtuns believe that Saul, the first king of the Israelites, had a grandson named Afghana, who was brought up by King David following the death of Saul and his own son in battle. Afghana eventually rose to take command of the armies of Israel. Somewhere between the seventh and sixth centuries BC, ten of the 12 dispersed tribes found refuge in Ghor, in central Afghanistan. The Pashtuns acknowledge Qais, a direct descendant of Afghana, as the founder of their race. Qais was the first convert to Islam, and by the tenth century, the last of the Pashtun tribes had embraced the faith.
There has always existed a degree of mistrust and hostility between the two principal Pashtun tribes. During the 18th century, the Afghan Empire came into being through a complex set of circumstances perhaps best understood by an Afghan mind.
The Ghilzais forced the Abdali Pashtuns to submit to them. The Ghilzais, in turn, suffered defeat at the hands of a Persian adventurer named Nadir Shah, an outsider who also took Delhi from the Mughals and installed himself as the Shah of Persia. Shah was murdered in 1747, and the Abdalis saw an opportunity to exploit the weakened state of the Ghilzais.
The Abdalis were now in the ascendant. They were composed of two principal sub-tribes, the Popalzai and the Barakzai. Ahmad Shah Saddozai of the Popalzai faction was chosen as leader and crowned with the title Durrani, which translates as 'Pearl of Pearls'. From that day, the Abdalis were known as the Durranis, and the Pashtun Empire had come into being.
Ahmad Shah carved out a vast realm that stretched from Persia to Kashmir and Delhi, and he brought the Ghilzais, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmen under his rule. He is revered today by the Pashtuns and represents the embodiment of their proud, warlike culture. He died in 1772, and almost immediately, his empire began to disintegrate, illustrating how only strong, and indeed ruthless, Pashtun leadership has held Afghanistan together.
HISTORY OF CONFLICT
The Pashtun character has been forged in relentless warfare in defence of their homeland--the crossroads between Central Asia and India--against waves of foreign invaders. Alexander the Great marched through during the fourth century BC; Ashoka came a century later and propagated Buddhism; and the Huns followed in the fifth century AD. Then came Mahmud, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Babur, the British, the Soviets and now NATO.
Given this history of conflict, as well as the poverty of great tracts of land in Afghanistan and on the North-West Frontier, and the extremes of climate (temperatures can soar to 50[degrees]C in summer and plunge to well below freezing in winter), it's no wonder that the Pashtuns have been moulded into what General Sir Andrew Skeen, who served on the Frontier during the 193Os, acknowledges to be the world's toughest fighting men. 'Their ability to stalk an enemy with the stealth and cunning of a panther is legendary,' he says. 'Their power of moving concealed is astounding, not only in moving from cover to cover, but in slipping from light to shadow, and background to background. It has to be seen to be believed.'
Unity isn't a distinguishing feature of the Pashtun clans, but the threat of intrusion has always provided a cause to rally under a single standard. The Pashtuns simply won't tolerate outside interference, a position summed up in a proverb that became common coin when British troops first set foot in their land in 1849: 'First comes one Englishman for shikar (hunting), then come two Englishmen to draw a map, and then comes an army to take your land. So it is best to kill the first Englishman.'
However, it would be wrong to assume that the Pashtun tribes make up a homogenous people. Historically, much depends on environment, which in turn determines to what extreme a tribe is forced to prey on its neighbours for survival.
The Pashtuns look upon themselves as Pashtuns first and Muslims second. 'Contrary to popular perception, the mullah does not enjoy high status in Pashtun society,' says Dr Humayun Khan, a Pashtun and Pakistan's former high commissioner to Britain. 'His role is confined to rituals such as weddings, funerals and leading congregational prayers. He lives on the charity of the tribal elders.'
What the Pashtuns seek to preserve is their Pashtunwali code of honour, which enjoins on them certain obligations. 'These include hospitality to strangers, asylum to fugitives who seek refuge with him, forgiveness to enemies who ask for it, honouring his word to provide safe passage through his territory, but most important of all, to uphold his and his family's honour by avenging any harm inflicted on them,' says Khan. 'This concept of revenge, or badal, is central to his life and vendettas can continue for generations. However, the tribal structure provides a forum for reconciliation through a jirga or council of elders. Through this, blood money can be paid and a truce can be arranged.'
Khan attributes the tribesmen's truculent behaviour to inhospitable surroundings that offer little scope for livelihood. 'At most they might find modest pastures for their goats,' he says. 'Not surprisingly, therefore, they have had to resort to predatory ways, such as robbing travellers, raiding adjacent territories or kidnapping.'
POOR AND ISOLATED
A Pashtun tribe's belligerence is generally directly linked to its economic welfare. Accordingly, the impoverished Waziristan agencies of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas are home to the most intransigent of the Pashtuns, the Wazirs of North Waziristan (where Osama bin Laden is believed to be holed up) and, even more so, the Mahsuds to the south.
However, the key to the Mahsuds' warlike nature is the fact that they are the most physically isolated of the Pashtun tribes. The Mahsuds of South Waziristan find themselves surrounded by the Wazirs and several smaller tribal groupings, and fear of encirclement by hostile neighbours has made them both belligerent and truculent.
But this isn't the only reason why this tribe has earned a reputation as the terror of the Pashtuns. Given their environment, the Mahsuds have never felt compelled to spend their money on anything other than weapons. They are also freer to act independently of any tribal authority. The tribes generally obey the authority of their maliks--at least they did until this system was weakened by the rise of the warlords, the drug trade, smuggling and the presence of foreign militants in their territory. The Mahsuds, on the other hand, don't consider themselves bound by their maliks, and will act in accordance with the strongest voice, or the one that promises the greatest gain.
It's no surprise that tribes with a moderate level of affluence have shown themselves the most willing to integrate into mainstream life, in rural Afghanistan as well as on the Frontier. A young Pashtun banker in Peshawar tells the story of his village, which several years ago benefited from a government development programme. 'In the past, no man would venture from his house without a gun,' he says. 'Today, that same man would be laughed at by children on their way to school.'
'Westerners forget the historical context in which the Taliban emerged in 1994, although no Afghan ever will,' says British author James Fergusson. 'The Taliban's first purpose was to bring law and order to a country that had been devastated by five years of vicious civil war (following the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989) and in those areas that came under their control, they succeeded brilliantly.'
One could argue that peace and stability imposed by a ruthless dictatorship isn't an acceptable state of affairs. Moreover, history has shown that once tyrannies become institutionalised, they often have a long life expectancy. But it's beyond doubt that only the Pashtuns could have brought Afghanistan--with the exception of a small pocket of resistance in the north--under its thumb so quickly and successfully.
LOCAL DOMINANCE
Throughout history, the Pashtuns, who constitute around half of Afghanistan's population, have dominated every aspect of Afghan life, more often than not to the detriment of Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks and other ethnic minorities.
The Pashtuns are the world's largest tribal society, with some 42 million living mainly in the southern and eastern regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal belt in the North-West Frontier Province (now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa). The fact that most Taliban fighters operate within ten kilometres of their homes reflects a crucial reality: that rather than defending a nation, the insurgents are fighting to safeguard a perceived threat to their society and tribal customs.
Thanks to a handful of British soldier-scholars who campaigned in Afghanistan during the 19th century and on the North-West Frontier under the Raj, a great deal of knowledge has been passed down to us about the reclusive Pashtuns, their tribal code of honour, Pashtunwali, their culture and poetry--even their sense of humour. When a British political officer in the 1930s asked a malik, or village elder, whose side his people would take in the event of war between Britain and the Soviet Union, the old greybeard replied: 'I shall tell you the truth, sahib. We would just sit here watching you fight until one side was utterly defeated. Then we could come down and loot the vanquished to the last mule. God be praised!'
Pashtun society can perhaps best be understood as a complex hierarchy. A British Army manual published in 1910 catalogues every bit of data that military researchers had gathered on the Pashtuns. The book classifies them first by tribe, then by clan, division of the clan, sub-division of the division, section of the sub-division and so on. In all, there are nearly 5,000 entries.
Afghanistan's Pashtuns are made up of two main tribal groupings: the Abdalis, or Durranis as they later became, and the Ghilzais. The spiritual and cultural centre of the Abdalis has traditionally been Herat, while the Ghilzai stronghold is Kandahar. The Frontier Pashtuns' contacts were primarily with the Mughal Empire, which ruled Peshawar and Kabul from Delhi.
OBSCURE ORIGINS
We know who the Pashtuns are, but where they came from remains an ethnographic enigma. They have inhabited what is today Afghanistan for at least 3,500 years. One theory is that they migrated from Central Asia around 1500 BC, but this and other hypotheses are difficult to substantiate, for the earliest Pashtun texts date only from the 16th century.
However, the Pashtuns themselves are in no doubt about their tribal roots. At some point in history, they began to weave a nexus of tales to explain their genealogy. They call themselves Ben-i-Israel, or Sons of Israel, and have created an elaborate biblical folk tale that links their origins to the Lost Tribes of Israel.
The Pashtuns believe that Saul, the first king of the Israelites, had a grandson named Afghana, who was brought up by King David following the death of Saul and his own son in battle. Afghana eventually rose to take command of the armies of Israel. Somewhere between the seventh and sixth centuries BC, ten of the 12 dispersed tribes found refuge in Ghor, in central Afghanistan. The Pashtuns acknowledge Qais, a direct descendant of Afghana, as the founder of their race. Qais was the first convert to Islam, and by the tenth century, the last of the Pashtun tribes had embraced the faith.
There has always existed a degree of mistrust and hostility between the two principal Pashtun tribes. During the 18th century, the Afghan Empire came into being through a complex set of circumstances perhaps best understood by an Afghan mind.
The Ghilzais forced the Abdali Pashtuns to submit to them. The Ghilzais, in turn, suffered defeat at the hands of a Persian adventurer named Nadir Shah, an outsider who also took Delhi from the Mughals and installed himself as the Shah of Persia. Shah was murdered in 1747, and the Abdalis saw an opportunity to exploit the weakened state of the Ghilzais.
The Abdalis were now in the ascendant. They were composed of two principal sub-tribes, the Popalzai and the Barakzai. Ahmad Shah Saddozai of the Popalzai faction was chosen as leader and crowned with the title Durrani, which translates as 'Pearl of Pearls'. From that day, the Abdalis were known as the Durranis, and the Pashtun Empire had come into being.
Ahmad Shah carved out a vast realm that stretched from Persia to Kashmir and Delhi, and he brought the Ghilzais, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Turkmen under his rule. He is revered today by the Pashtuns and represents the embodiment of their proud, warlike culture. He died in 1772, and almost immediately, his empire began to disintegrate, illustrating how only strong, and indeed ruthless, Pashtun leadership has held Afghanistan together.
HISTORY OF CONFLICT
The Pashtun character has been forged in relentless warfare in defence of their homeland--the crossroads between Central Asia and India--against waves of foreign invaders. Alexander the Great marched through during the fourth century BC; Ashoka came a century later and propagated Buddhism; and the Huns followed in the fifth century AD. Then came Mahmud, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Babur, the British, the Soviets and now NATO.
Given this history of conflict, as well as the poverty of great tracts of land in Afghanistan and on the North-West Frontier, and the extremes of climate (temperatures can soar to 50[degrees]C in summer and plunge to well below freezing in winter), it's no wonder that the Pashtuns have been moulded into what General Sir Andrew Skeen, who served on the Frontier during the 193Os, acknowledges to be the world's toughest fighting men. 'Their ability to stalk an enemy with the stealth and cunning of a panther is legendary,' he says. 'Their power of moving concealed is astounding, not only in moving from cover to cover, but in slipping from light to shadow, and background to background. It has to be seen to be believed.'
Unity isn't a distinguishing feature of the Pashtun clans, but the threat of intrusion has always provided a cause to rally under a single standard. The Pashtuns simply won't tolerate outside interference, a position summed up in a proverb that became common coin when British troops first set foot in their land in 1849: 'First comes one Englishman for shikar (hunting), then come two Englishmen to draw a map, and then comes an army to take your land. So it is best to kill the first Englishman.'
However, it would be wrong to assume that the Pashtun tribes make up a homogenous people. Historically, much depends on environment, which in turn determines to what extreme a tribe is forced to prey on its neighbours for survival.
The Pashtuns look upon themselves as Pashtuns first and Muslims second. 'Contrary to popular perception, the mullah does not enjoy high status in Pashtun society,' says Dr Humayun Khan, a Pashtun and Pakistan's former high commissioner to Britain. 'His role is confined to rituals such as weddings, funerals and leading congregational prayers. He lives on the charity of the tribal elders.'
What the Pashtuns seek to preserve is their Pashtunwali code of honour, which enjoins on them certain obligations. 'These include hospitality to strangers, asylum to fugitives who seek refuge with him, forgiveness to enemies who ask for it, honouring his word to provide safe passage through his territory, but most important of all, to uphold his and his family's honour by avenging any harm inflicted on them,' says Khan. 'This concept of revenge, or badal, is central to his life and vendettas can continue for generations. However, the tribal structure provides a forum for reconciliation through a jirga or council of elders. Through this, blood money can be paid and a truce can be arranged.'
Khan attributes the tribesmen's truculent behaviour to inhospitable surroundings that offer little scope for livelihood. 'At most they might find modest pastures for their goats,' he says. 'Not surprisingly, therefore, they have had to resort to predatory ways, such as robbing travellers, raiding adjacent territories or kidnapping.'
POOR AND ISOLATED
A Pashtun tribe's belligerence is generally directly linked to its economic welfare. Accordingly, the impoverished Waziristan agencies of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas are home to the most intransigent of the Pashtuns, the Wazirs of North Waziristan (where Osama bin Laden is believed to be holed up) and, even more so, the Mahsuds to the south.
However, the key to the Mahsuds' warlike nature is the fact that they are the most physically isolated of the Pashtun tribes. The Mahsuds of South Waziristan find themselves surrounded by the Wazirs and several smaller tribal groupings, and fear of encirclement by hostile neighbours has made them both belligerent and truculent.
But this isn't the only reason why this tribe has earned a reputation as the terror of the Pashtuns. Given their environment, the Mahsuds have never felt compelled to spend their money on anything other than weapons. They are also freer to act independently of any tribal authority. The tribes generally obey the authority of their maliks--at least they did until this system was weakened by the rise of the warlords, the drug trade, smuggling and the presence of foreign militants in their territory. The Mahsuds, on the other hand, don't consider themselves bound by their maliks, and will act in accordance with the strongest voice, or the one that promises the greatest gain.
It's no surprise that tribes with a moderate level of affluence have shown themselves the most willing to integrate into mainstream life, in rural Afghanistan as well as on the Frontier. A young Pashtun banker in Peshawar tells the story of his village, which several years ago benefited from a government development programme. 'In the past, no man would venture from his house without a gun,' he says. 'Today, that same man would be laughed at by children on their way to school.'
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