NOTE: In this text, the word "Parsiwân" is used to refer to the Persian-speaking population, as this term is common to all people in Afghanistan for this group. Accordingly, "Afghan" is to be understood as "Pashtun".

Minions…

The peoples of Afghanistan were always seen as minions by their rulers (and even by themselves) and were addressed and treated as such.

Amanollah Khan first used the term "nation" to refer to the population in 1919, but the term "Afghan" was only applied by law to all citizens in the constitution in 1964. 

Nonetheless, most non-Pashtun people continue to this day to distinguish between "Afghans" (Pashtuns) and themselves in daily life – to the great annoyance of pro-government citizens; only abroad, do they say they are "Afghan" – by force, of course.

All attempts to coerce the majority of the non-Pashtun population into accepting an "Afghan" identity have failed so far. But coercion was not the real reason for this failure. Coercion was and remains simply a consequence and symptom of other underlying factors. Some of these factors belong to the distant past, but some are still present and relevant. Apart from the Pashtuns' claim to be the sole legitimate ethnic rulers of the country, there are two main "stumbling blocks" in their Pashtunisation agenda: 

1. the heterogeneous ethnic composition of the society, along with the internal political nature and geographical configuration of the country

2. the Persian language as the lingua franca of the region, along with the inseparable historical and civilisational consciousness of a people inhabiting the sphere of influence of this language, which had spanned a vast geographical area for centuries

These two stumbling blocks are in some ways closely linked.

The 1st stumbling block in the Pashtunisation agenda: the society, the geography and the social structure of Afghanistan

Afghanistan is a historical and geographical entity consisting of a multitude of peoples and ethnic groups with different languages, local histories, traditions, cultures, religions and denominations.

In the past, this entity was always an integral part of a great imperial territory -such as the empires of the Achaemenids, Kushans, Sassanids and Greeks (Alexander, Seleucids) in ancient times; the Umayyads, Abbasids, Mongols, Turks (from Central Asia) in medieval times; the Mughals (descendants of the Mongols in India), Safavids and Afghans in modern times – just to mention the largest ones.

At the same time, the inhabitants of these empires were citizens or subjects of smaller kingdoms, sultanates, emirates and other local dominions, whose borders frequently shifted in the aftermath of wars and the founding of new empires, growing smaller or larger as the case would be. And yet, throughout these times, in addition to their local identity, one overriding feature remained constant amongst the peoples: the "Iranian identity" that was associated with the Persian language.

The 2nd stumbling block in the Pashtunisation agenda: the Persian language

The British colonialists quite correctly realised that in order to succeed in subjugating and occupying a country or in bringing it under their influence, they would always need allies amongst the local elites. In Afghanistan, these were the tribal leaders of the Dorranis (one of the largest Pashtun tribes who formed the aristocracy amongst the Pashtuns), who in turn allied themselves with the local leaders of the non-Pashtun population.

This practice served nothing other than the old-established preservation of class interests for the ruling élite. This is also the reason why the population might be winners on the military battlefield, but they were always losers on the political field, because on this field, they always ceded their "struggle" to their elites, whose priority was to preserve and fortify their own positions and interests.

For the Dorranis, the "state" and the country called Afghanistan was "God-given" – as Amir Abdollrahman was wont to say. Their aspirations were limited to establishing and consolidating their rule, firstly over their Pashtun rival tribes, and secondly over the leaders of the rest of the population. As long as the Pashtuns took into account the interests of the non-Pashtuns, their rule was acceptable to the latter. That is how it always used to be.

The non-Pashtuns, especially the Parsiwâns (Persian-speaking citizens), always managed to come to terms with the more powerful foreign invaders and rulers, knowing that, in order for these rulers to preserve their rule, they needed the Parsiwâns to administer their conquered empire. The Parsiwâns expected from this arrangement not only their cultural and linguistic sovereignty, but also the (administrative) sovereignty over their territories, which was usually granted to them.

Thus it was that ethnically foreign rulers handed over the reins of politics and administration of their empire to the Parsiwâns, and were content with what was due to them: the privilege of getting their share of material wealth and the right to be rulers.

With this in mind, it is not surprising that all foreign invaders – after conquering the region and incorporating it into their empire – not only recognised the sovereignty of Iranian high culture and the Persian language associated with it, but also even became zealous and substantial promoters of this culture and language. The epochs of the Greeks, the Mongols, the Turkic Ghaznavids, the Seljuks, the Timurids and the Mughals all bear witness to this.

Whenever any rulers violated or even sought to eliminate this sovereignty, then resistance and struggle became the order of the day – as it did under the 200-year rule of the Arab Umayyads. The Umayyads ultimately had to relinquish their plan to Arabise Iran (and with it Khorasan) due to unremitting fierce fighting and the founding of sovereign Iranian-Persian kingdoms.

In other words: the Parsiwâns never had much of a problem with foreign domination, as long as they were allowed to enjoy and indulge in the cultivation of their cultural and linguistic heritage throughout their history. 

With the Pashtuns – who shared the same geography and more or less the same history for centuries – it was no different… that is, until Amanollah Dorrani came along in 1919 to declare the region a sovereign state and himself king. By designating the state as the "Afghan nation", he tried to enforce the Pashtuns' claim to all the land by law and the sovereignty of their tribal language, Pashto. This initiated the first – initially successful, then brutally suppressed – Tajik uprising against "Afghan" rule.

Since then, an ever-deepening and broadening climate of mistrust and hostility, even open enmity, between Afghans and non-Afghans, especially amongst the educated classes, began to permeate the entire country. The civil war and devastating battles between the Tajiks led by Rabbani and Massoud against the Pashtuns led by Hekmatyar in the 1990s and the ensuing formation and emergence of the Taleban must also be seen in this context.

The "nationalist"-minded Pashtun elites saw the Persian language as the greatest obstacle in the formation of their desired "Afghan nation" and their Pashtunisation of society. At the same time, they were aware of the fact that the Pashto language was an undeveloped, regional language that was only relevant to Pashtun tribes, and therefore could barely even begin to compete with the Persian language. 

Nevertheless, the Pashtun elites managed – in less than a hundred years – to wreak considerable damage on the Persian language, and thus on the Parsiwâns in Afghanistan. The invading Greeks, Mongols and Arabs were known for burning books, destroying buildings and monuments, plundering extensively and committing horrific massacres, but the Persian language and associated civilisational identity survived all these horrors – thanks in no small part to the devotion these invaders later showed for the language and its culture.

Under the Pashtunisation agenda, many old, historically charged names of certain localities were changed to improvised Pashto names. Many Persian words and terms used in the fields of administration, education, culture and economy were banned and hastily replaced by either arbitrary Pashto words or equivalents in other languages. Words and phrases commonly used in Iran were particularly targeted. State employees, who had little or no command of the Pashto language, were obliged to attend Pashto courses or be penalised.

"Dari" – a determining term that has a historical and linguistic function – was suddenly declared an independent language with the aim of destroying the "Persian identity" and creating a historical and cultural division between Parsiwâns and both historical and contemporary Iran: Dari and Persian were now seen as two different, separate languages. But the fact is that "Dari" is simply a linguistic term for the latest stage in the evolution of the Persian language! Accordingly, the common language spoken and written in Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Iran is the very same "Dari Persian" that has been the widely used vernacular, official, cultural and educational language in this region for over 1000 years.

The chauvinist attitude of the Pashtun elites can also be seen as a reaction to the equally chauvinist attitude of the Iranian elites during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi (1941-1979). The widespread chauvinism in Iran influenced the population and the elites in Afghanistan in both camps (Afghans and Parsiwâns) equally – albeit with varying and sometimes contrasting, sometimes complementary attitudes. Likewise, Iranian chauvinism – expressed in Arabophobia and Afghanophobia, amongst other things – contributed to a dysfunctional relationship between the Parsiwâns in Afghanistan and Iran. (The topic of Iranian chauvinism is complex and deserves a separate study and analysis.)

Part 3 of this essay will follow soon.