Holmes said, “Secessionist insurgencies seek to separate from their current state and establish new states based upon their political, ethnic, religious or whatever other feature they feel sets them apart from their current political peers. Some of the more notable insurgencies in history have been secessionist, to include our own American Revolution, the 1999 war in Kosovo, and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka.
| Editor’s Pick |
“Given this definition, one might say that the Taliban could not possibly be secessionist. Everything it advocates speaks to a traditionalist mindset. It has actively advocated the unity of the Islamic umma; it does not wish to separate from Afghanistan, but to unite it under its banner, and nowhere in its creed does it advocate power for one group over another, but rather passionately it struggles for the greater Jihad and the unity of all under the banner of Mohammed. All of this is true, but it ignores the greater and deeper sources of discontent that fuel the Pashtun people’s support for this jihad; the transnational make up of the Taliban, and the dimension of their exclusion from the Pakistani elite. To understand this, one must view central Asia from a tribal, ethnic and historical perspective, without the artificiality of political boundaries.”
“”¦treating the Taliban as a Pashtun ethnic insurgency, composed largely of Jihadist Muslims.”
What is to be noted in this context is that the Pashtuns define themselves not by language but by adherence to an ancient code of conduct dating back to the pre-Islamic era. To anyone having dealt with Albanians and familiar with their Kanun of Lek Dukagjin, this Pashtunwali, or “Way of the Pashtuns,” is strikingly familiar. Like the Albanian Kanun, it might be described as the glue that binds these disparate people together as an ethnic group and the beginnings of an insight into the ethnic dimension of our war in Afghanistan.
This high point of Afghan–Pashtun power was short-lived as it ran headlong into the birth of the British Empire in India. For the next 190 years, the Afghans, and virtually everyone else in South Asia, began losing ground to first the British East India Company and then the British Empire proper. As the British expanded north and west, following the western rim of the Himalayan Mountains, they began having difficulties with the Muslim tribes of the “Northwest Frontier.” The people they called the “Pathans” and often subcategorised as Afridis, Yousafzai or a host of other names (most, by the way, Pashtun clan names) proved a constant source of instability.
In an effort to stabilise the frontier and prevent Russia from expanding and threatening India, Britain invaded Afghanistan three times. None of these expeditions ended well. By 1893, Britain gave up hope of controlling these tribal people. General Roberts (the hero of Kipling’s cynical poem on Bobs Bahadur) himself called the region “ungovernable” and commissioned a survey of that land which they could control and that which they could not. The resultant Durand Line more or less describes the southern boundary of Afghanistan today.
“¦there is an indigenous urge for independence and for a state that is strong within the tribal culture of the Pashtuns. This urge drove them to found Afghanistan in 1747 and is now drives some to seek a new country to be carved out of Pakistan.
The Durand Line was drawn by Westerners to the demands of Western governments with no regard to the facts or rights of the indigenous peoples. It cut across the heart of Pashtun tribal areas and while it allowed for a majority Pashtun ethnicity in Afghanistan, it created a minority Pashtun area in that part of India which would later become Pakistan. This gave rise to the problem of secession.
While the Pashtuns in Afghanistan have long been a major political power if not a clear majority, their kin in Pakistan have been excluded from power by the largely Urdu- and Punjabi-speaking city dwellers in Karachi and Islamabad. Although given a large degree of autonomy within the boundaries of the NWFP, some Pakistani Pashtuns have reacted to their minority status by demanding their own state—Pashtunistan.30
So, there is an indigenous urge for independence and for a state that is strong within the tribal culture of the Pashtuns. This urge drove them to found Afghanistan in 1747 and is now drives some to seek a new country to be carved out of Pakistan. But how did this become translated into an Islamic jihadist call for religious reform? There seems too large a gap between the impulse for secession and the call for jihad. But, not really.
Viewed from the context of tribal culture and a strong desire to be seen as a separate people, the turn to religion was an almost natural response. Tribal societies do not have strong leadership models, they exist in a “headless” state, and the Pashtuns are no exception to this.
As a tool to unite the Pashtun people, religion worked well.31 But it also had perhaps the unintended (there is no evidence to the contrary) consequence of covering the real reason behind the discontent—the urge for separatism—and spilling over into the larger non-Pashtun but religiously observant Muslim population in the region. This was further confused and muddled by historical events in Afghanistan which allowed the discontent of the Pakistani Pashtuns to spill over the border and helped unite the greater Pashtun tribe even further.
Taliban activity is now largely restricted to the Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, and particularly the border region with Pakistans NWFP, from which it can stage and train for missions and operations inside Afghanistan.
While the Pakistani Pashtuns struggled with their minority status following partition in 1947, their cousins in Afghanistan had grown accustomed to being the ruling elite. Since the founding of the kingdom in 1747, Pashtuns had filled virtually all Afghan leadership positions. But in 1973, Shah Mohammed Zahir, a Pashtun, was overthrown and Afghanistan began its spiral downward to its current failed status, with a series of increasingly leftist and socialist governments. On the way downward, the Pashtuns were replaced as the power elite by Tajiks and other northern tribes eager for their turn at the helm. This climaxed with the 1979 Soviet invasion and the imposition of the Communist regime.
These events had the effect of pushing the Afghan Pashtuns in much the same way as their cousins across the border. Dispossessed of the power they once held and dominated by people they viewed as godless heathens, the Afghan Pashtuns turned inward to find their identity and unity in religion. Whether this came as a result of, or in parallel with, the natural retreat to Pakistan and their cousins to the south is immaterial to this discussion. What is important is that the war with the Soviets united the Pashtuns as few things had since the British left and gave a physical outlet to their secessionist urges.
As long as there was the common Soviet enemy, there was cooperation. But after the Soviets left, cracks began to appear in the coalition of tribes and ethnic groups as they began to struggle for power. And it was in this maelstrom that the natural advantages of size and the unity that language, culture and the appeal to the common religion began to once again favour the Afghan Pashtuns. Given their secure bases in Pashtun areas across the border and their large ethnic population within Afghanistan, the Taliban (as the Pashtun religious reformers now came to be known), with its agenda of a government inspired and led by the Koran also had great appeal for the non-Pashtun Muslims who, like everyone else, took the religious face of the movement as the truth and ignored the heavily Pashtun composition of the leadership. But as the Taliban swept into power, often hailed as liberators by the non-Pashtuns, cracks began to appear in the heretofore wholly religious façade.
Moreover, Pakistani extremist groups have functioned as umbrella organisations for other international terror groups that sought shelter in Afghanistan.
By the end of the Taliban’s reign, Afghanistan had once again separated along ethnic lines, with the Northern Alliance composed of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other northern ethnic groups opposing the Pashtun Taliban for political control. Taliban activity is now largely restricted to the Pashtun areas of southern Afghanistan, and particularly the border region with Pakistan’s NWFP, from which it can stage and train for missions and operations inside Afghanistan. The Taliban is a transnational Pashtun ethnic group, which uses its bases in safe areas within Pakistan as a sanctuary to continue its fight for a homeland encompassing Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan and essentially to re-establish the empire created by Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1747.
Where are its roots?
The answers to that question can be found in the almost 60-plus years of British rule in that part of the subcontinent, prior to the formation of Pakistan in 1947, and in the continuance of British colonial policy towards that area, by Pakistani leaders.
By pursuing the old colonial policy towards the tribal areas, Pakistani leaders have opened a floodgate to various forces in Britain who would like the area separated from Pakistan to form a buffer between oil- and gas-rich central Asia and to the Saudi-funded Wahabis who were on a rampage recruiting terrorists and setting up Islamic schools (madrassas) to convert moderate Muslims to hard-core Salafism in Pakistan and central Asia, with the plan to set up an Islamic umma (nation) under a caliphate.
Islamic forces of Pakistan have created and nurtured this syndrome in the madrassas where the Taliban from Afghanistan received their education.
The Taliban, by hosting bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, became an integral part of Sunni fundamentalist mythology and its international networks, and Afghanistan became a place where extremists from around the world could meet safely, share ideas, develop strategies and receive training—a physical base of terror. Moreover, Pakistani extremist groups have functioned as umbrella organisations for other international terror groups that sought shelter in Afghanistan.
Ehsan Ahrari, a U.S.-based analyst, called this phenomenon the “Taliban syndrome”—the movement to create an Islamic order in Afghanistan based on a blend of strict observance of Islam from Saudi Arabia’s salafiyya (puritanical) tradition. Islamic forces of Pakistan have created and nurtured this syndrome in the madrassas where the Taliban (“students” in Farsi) from Afghanistan received their education. Since the chief thrust of this education is on Islam and the need for jihad (holy war) to establish an Islamic government, the Taliban members became firm believers and fervent practitioners of this training.32
Britain and the Muslims
The fallout of the Anglo-Muslim relationship during the British imperial era and its linkages to the Whitehall’s grand strategy the “Great Game” continue to linger and shape London’s strategic objectives and policies to date. Nostalgia at the loss of its Empire is replaced by its influencing its Western allies to continue to play the Muslim card, secure the Pamir Knot and secure energy resources for its continued well-being. There has been a distinct continuity of London’s policies during and after the loss of the Empire to date.
Since the chief thrust of this education is on Islam and the need for jihad to establish an Islamic government, the Taliban members became firm believers and fervent practitioners of this training.
The British, after 1842, launched glorified punitive raids against Afghanistan rather than colonising expeditions. In the other two Anglo-Afghan wars, in 1878–1880 and 1919, the British destroyed Afghan armies and terrorised the hapless region, particularly with air power in the latter. They suffered few military setbacks and scored remarkable victories, such as the Battle of Kandahar in 1880 and the brilliant siege of Sherpur. The kill ratio was typically colonial. It is, therefore, something of a perversity that the British should have come to regard Afghanistan as their “graveyard” when the graves they left there were mostly Afghan.33
Please wait...
