Taliban criminal identy of the Pashtun, Pathan or Afghan.
( This transcript may contain the paradigm for converting Taliban to Pakistanis and Afghanis.)
I was reading an excellent article on Informed Comment: Global Affairs
a remarkable Blog.
The article "Do Taliban Represent Pashtun Identity? A Letter from Kurram"
was very good and prompted my comment, "THEN WHY IS THE PAKISTAN ARMY TREATING THE TALIBAN WITH KID GLOVES?"
The following comments from Indigenous Pakis are educational and a view point I had been missing.
Transcript follows:
Anonymous said...
Hi,
I am absolutely certain that Taliban are Pashtons and they are truly and representing Pashtons identity. This thoroughly factual and no need for justification.
Amin
Scotland
January 10, 2008 6:00 AM
Mohammad Fahim Khairy said...
Maybe Taliban doesn't t representing Pashtun, Pathan or Afghan but whatsoever they do is based on Pashtonwali's law. After Taliban captured the capital, Kabul, in just a few months. The first thing they did was to kill Dr. Najibullah. Then they invited their Pakistani, Arab, and Pashtun brothers to Kabul and gave these foreigners the most luxurious houses of Kabul located in Wazir Akbar Khan.
When the Taliban started invading the North in 1996, they burnt down houses, they raped women and girls, they killed men and boys, and they were planning to move Pashtuns from the South into the North so as to replace the original inhabitants of the North. The Taliban also attacked the Hazarajaat and they massacred thousands of Hazaras.
Instead of not hurting any Pashtun in north and central Afghanistan they gave them power, weapons, lands and money.
Gargaray Khan a Pashtun rebel, thief, and drug dealer who was a member of Junbish Mili Gen Dustom became the Taliban top commander in Mazar-I-sharif.
Gargaray with his bloodshed and robbery history started to rule the areas as an educated Islamic Clergy ''Mullah''.
Gargaray never went to school in his whole life even cannot read the Quran. There are other hundreds of illiterate and criminal Pashtuns whom gave power by the Taliban even former communists after they captured north cities and Kabul.
The world already understood who the Taliban is and what they want. They just started Sunni and Shia war in Pakistan to make a motive for transferring of thousands Pashtuns from Pakistan to Afghanistan because of the next election. So they can make more votes for the Pashtun future president of Afghanistan.
Why do they not go to Peshawar, Quetta and Islamabad etc, those cities are more peaceful than Afghanistan?
Now if they don't representing Pashtun why do they always supporting other Pashtuns with any politic ideologies? Shah Nawaz Tanai Ex Defense Minster of Communist regime is now on Taliban side.
Osama Ben Ladin use Islam as tools to empower Pan Arabism so do the Taliban, they empower Pan Pashtunism.
January 10, 2008 6:50 AM
Anonymous said...
Pashtons are dreaming and working hard to Afghanize(Pashtonize) all Afghanistan and the neibours accordingly ,but they hav been failed for decades.Now people of Afghanistan fed up and saden by the work of Pashtons(Afghans)People are struggling to find a new Afghanistan with a new vision of democracy and civil society.Not tribal kindgom!
January 10, 2008 6:57 AM
Daniel said...
I'm sorry I missed this post, as it was my question to Dr. Rubin that prompted the entry. I defer to Dr. Rubin of course, but note that Vali Nasr described the "Talibanization" as the "Islamization of Pathan nationalism. Selig Harrison has written about this as well http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/01/opinion/edharrison.php and quotes Afghan Ambassador Mahmud Ali Durrani as worrying publicly that "I hope the Taliban and Pashtun nationalism don't merge. If that happens, we've had it, and we're on the verge of that."
January 16, 2008 11:09 AM
gerald said...
Excellent posts.
Lot of food for thought.
Thanks
Gerald
January 16, 2008 11:21 AM
Anonymous said...
For the sake of argument…let us assume for a moment that there is a religious ideology behind the Taleban movement.. which sustains them. Then the question arises where does the motivation for that ideology comes from? ... Deobandi School of Thought? many others of the type, Paki state-funded mufties, and Paki State sponsored Mullahs? Where this religious ideology comes from? Do you know that all these things are not indigenous to the Pashtuns at all? Pashtuns being a proud nation with history going back thousand of years do not need a religious identity. In other words the use of religion as a means for acquiring political power either in Afghanistan or in Pakistan. In fact the crisis of identity is with the Panjabi state Pakistan..which needs religion to bind it together in the absence of any meaningful contract between the various groups for a collective well being of all its citizens. You remove that religious motivation and preach secularism for a while...and the phenomena of Talebanisation will recede automatically ..because it is superfluous, imposed and not indigenous to the Pashtun culture which offers a much better alternative identity.
The fact of matter is that Taleban were not a force/movement until they were given a political agenda, to control Afghanistan and marginalize the Pasthon nationalists in the context of Pak-Afghan relations. Which means that there is nothing religious about the Taleban, its the political agenda behind that facade which needs to be addressed / neutralized if there has to be a long lasting solution to the problem. The moment that political agenda is addressed, the Taleban phenomena will recede.
Regards,
a concern Pakhtun.
January 21, 2008 4:28 PM
gerald said...
First read: wow, excellent points, thank you.
One caveat, you must replace what ever it is they are getting from the Taliban, before they can shift.
Then they are trading for a know wanted quantity, not an un-known quantity.
Offering them an alternative isn't enough,
In Iraq once enough got to experience the new quantity, it became self converting, pro-Islam, anti-Terror.
Very insightful analysis.
Gerald
This transcript contains the paradigm for converting Taliban to Pakistanis and Afghanis.
After you feel you have a good grasp of the above concepts see " THE GREAT GAME"
Macro view of Taliban/Poshtoon Situation.
Omar fired who? B.M.
Taliban as Tribe
What next in South Waziristan?
Internet Anthropologist Team, Cyber warrior station..
.
Originally published at https://warintel.blogspot.com/2008/01/taliban-criminal-identy-of-pashtun.html on January 22, 2008.