The duplicitous British

[RAENORTH]

In our previous piece, we looked at the influence of Afghan history on the current conflict. We concluded that there were three elements which were relevant. Firstly, the war is a continuation of the tribal rivalry between the two major tribal groups, the Ghilzai and the Durrani/Barakzai, which effectively started in 1709 when the first Ghilzai dynasty was founded. Secondly, the movement of the capital from Kandahar to Kabul in 1775 positions that city as the seat of the oppressor (certainly to the Ghilzai). Thirdly, give the historic support for the Durrani, against the Ghilzai tribes, British and by association all coalition operations are seen as partisan players.

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[english hostage]

So, the liberals have been screwing up the world for hundreds of years, Gladstone would have liked president Hussain.

[DP111]

RAENORTH
Are you sure it was Arthur or Joseph and not Neville Chamberlaine. Neville would have been much too young for making policy decisions in 1878.

[RAENORTH]

RAENORTH
Are you sure it was Arthur or Joseph and not Neville Chamberlaine. Neville would have been much too young for making policy decisions in 1878.

Different man ... same name. This was General Sir Neville ...

[mikgen]

Great stuff! Looking forward to the next installment. Kaiser Wilhelm & Greenmantle?

(I'm just re-reading Peter Hopkirk's "On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Great Game and the Great War".)

[Watchet]

The Syrians are the same re oral history. They sit in cafes & listen to stories being read to them. A regular favourite is about Richard 1 (the Lionheart), & his slaughter of about 3000 Saracen (& therefore Moslem) prisoners after capturing them - to prevent them taking up arms against him again if he set them free. When did that occur? In the 1190s. And it's still being read out to listeners as if it was yesterday! Unfortunately, reason does not always win out against ignorance.

By the way, which is the nomad tribe which is quite numerous, camps out by the roadside, whose women don't wear burkhas but instead wear quite colourful shawls & show their faces, & whose members are strongly distrusted by townspeople - especially in Western Afghanistan? Anyone know?

Watchet

[RAENORTH]

The Syrians are the same re oral history. They sit in cafes & listen to stories being read to them. A regular favourite is about Richard 1 (the Lionheart), & his slaughter of about 3000 Saracen (& therefore Moslem) prisoners after capturing them - to prevent them taking up arms against him again if he set them free. When did that occur? In the 1190s. And it's still being read out to listeners as if it was yesterday! Unfortunately, reason does not always win out against ignorance.

By the way, which is the nomad tribe which is quite numerous, camps out by the roadside, whose women don't wear burkhas but instead wear quite colourful shawls & show their faces, & whose members are strongly distrusted by townspeople - especially in Western Afghanistan? Anyone know?

Watchet

Generic ... probably Kuchis: mixed ethnic origin, but primarily of Persian stock. Regarded as Taliban sympathisers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuchi_people

[therewaslight]

He then set about a massive resettlement programme, dispersing their tribes into non-Pashtun areas, mixing them with other ethnic group and diluting their power and influence. He exiled over 10,000 Ghilzai families to areas north of the Hindu Kush, forcing them into areas with predominantly non-Pashtun populations, crushing more than 40 revolts in the process. He also restricted the movement of the nomadic tribes, requiring them to seek government permission before they could relocate.

That's how they got here.

Click here for much large image at the original source.

In a culture where, as we have remarked before, literacy rates are low, the tradition of oral history exerts a powerful effect. To many of the Ghilzai tribes, these events are as of yesterday. They remember a cruel, despotic leader, imposed on them by the British by the force of arms, who proceeded to crush their tribes and engage in what amounted to ethnic cleansing, then splitting their tribal heartlands and handing a huge area to the British.

I consider it important that the American's distinguish themselves from the British Empire.

The British Empire was responsible for splitting the Pashtuns in more ways than the Durand line, and this is contributing to the instability which third party groups like terrorists and regional powers can exploit for their own ends.

The challenge the American's face is therefore not to put the Afghan humpty-dumpty back together again - all the kings horses and all the kings men won't put it back together again - but return to a situation of more mono-ethnic states, including a Pashtun one.

This suggests the road the Americans should go down is two or three state solutions, peacekeeping/security to allow for relocation of peoples to new states.

[DP111]

RAENORTH
Are you sure it was Arthur or Joseph and not Neville Chamberlaine. Neville would have been much too young for making policy decisions in 1878.

Different man ... same name. This was General Sir Neville ...

I think it would be appropriate to insert the rank of General befor Sir Neville, to avoid confusion.

[RAENORTH]

RAENORTH
Are you sure it was Arthur or Joseph and not Neville Chamberlaine. Neville would have been much too young for making policy decisions in 1878.

Different man ... same name. This was General Sir Neville ...

I think it would be appropriate to insert the rank of General befor Sir Neville, to avoid confusion.

Done. My original source was British Library documents, which did not mention his rank - hence my omission. Other references confirm that he was a General ... to be pedantic, a Brigadier General, in the days before the title/rank was abbreviated to Brigadier.

[RAENORTH]

I consider it important that the American's distinguish themselves from the British Empire.

The British Empire was responsible for splitting the Pashtuns in more ways than the Durand line, and this is contributing to the instability which third party groups like terrorists and regional powers can exploit for their own ends.

The challenge the American's face is therefore not to put the Afghan humpty-dumpty back together again - all the kings horses and all the kings men won't put it back together again - but return to a situation of more mono-ethnic states, including a Pashtun one.

This suggests the road the Americans should go down is two or three state solutions, peacekeeping/security to allow for relocation of peoples to new states.

I wonder to what extent the tribes are able to distinguish between US and UK personnel, and whether it would make any difference if they can/could ... or whether the US is tarred with the same brush. We hear reports in this context of some tribes mistaking the coalition forces for Russians, so I guess they are not always up to speed.

It would also be interesting to learn whether the enforced Pashtun (Ghilzai) diaspora is undoable - whether the tribal families are settled (and integrated ... mixed marriages, and all that) and whether they even want to return to their homelands. At another level, these tribal fragments - divorced from the traditional tribal structures - would seem exactly the types most amenable to Taliban recruitment.

It certainly has been very messy and very nasty up there, suggesting that the Pashtuns have tended to retain a separate identity, at odds with the other ethnic groups ...

http://www.hazara.net/taliban/genocide/mazar/mazar.html

[therewaslight]

Those are the sort of questions that could be asked.

I think separate states could be of symbolic value allowing the dominant ethnicities in each region to "bind" around a single nationalist cause.

But maybe I am uninformed and we should really ignore this unempirical approach and instead go down the other route out of which unity builds with symbols we gift them: give the Pashtun another Ferris Wheel?

[cause4concern]

I thought they working towards a free Baluchistan anyway...

Perhaps a free Kirdistan too, the Turks will be pleased lol

I really doubt a Pashtun state of any sort is on the cards. I would Imagine that Afghanistan itself will be the Pashtun state (dominated by a Tajik elite) and the new Baluchistan state, currently regionally governed by a Pashtun minority (there is only the one city, the capital) will be... er.. ?liberated?

Karzai may be their figurehead; but it is the Tajiks who have all the positions of power. This was a crap idea to placate a once dominant ethnic group. Funnily enough, the opposition Karzai is yet another Tajic... any prizes for guessing why the election was rigged?? Because the whole bloody country would have gone up in flames if Muhammed had got in, thats why.

Giving the Pashtuns a bit of empty desert to call their own isn't likely to soften the blow of losing control of both Afghanistan and regional governorship of the Boluchistan region... I know it has been said that they have a much lower intelligence than us, and the capacity of reasoning of a 4 year old; but even if that is the case, they still know when they're being screwed from behind.

Howard Hart, New York Times, "The very presence of our forces in the Pashtun areas is the problem. The more troops we put in, the greater the opposition."

Not that I have any especial sympathy for Pashtuns, they only controlled regionally by conquest, as is the way of these things. If anything has been learned from the past 9 years it is that the covert approach of regional domination isn't working. If the big names want the mineral wealth, a hell of a lot more of our youngsters are going to die. Simple as that.
We'll be there and still debating this in 9 more years time if we don't face up to the fact of why we are actually there. As far as democracy is concerned, I believe they were hoping the pashtuns would turn out on mass to vote against the opposition to Karzai. They all know he's a puppet and gives no benefit to them, I think it was perhaps a surprise to those who underestimated the locals intelligence that they decided not to vote for either of them. Forcing plan B. Its just a shame the Tajics are realising that their man was designed to lose...

How do our strategists manage to mess everything up so incredibly badly and on almost every occasion possible?? Its either arrogance, over ambition or something more sinister still. They are not stupid people, I think just too greedy and racially pompous to actually achieve their more 'subtle' projects.

[RAENORTH]

How do our strategists manage to mess everything up so incredibly badly and on almost every occasion possible?? Its either arrogance, over ambition or something more sinister still. They are not stupid people, I think just too greedy and racially pompous to actually achieve their more 'subtle' projects.

They are in their own "bubble", fortified by profound ignorance. I have been reading Gen Roberts' autobiography, looking for references to Abdur Raḥman, and in particular the identity of the troops that Rahman was able to field. We find that Rahman's power base was in the north, where he at one time staged a revolt (in a conflict which has been likened to the English War of the Roses), which suggests that his contingent was of northern extraction ... possibily Tajik? Frustratingly, Roberts (in his superior English way) merely refers to "native troops", with no references to their enthnic or tribal identities. Should they have been Tajiks, then we have the repeat of the paradigm, where a Durrani ruler uses "foreign" troops to beat up the Pashtuns, a scenario which is being repeated in the current campaign.

[permanentexpat]

Aha...perfidious Albion, divide & rule/conquer.
One cannot deny that it was, in its time, a superb strategy which fertilised the growth of an Empire which, when it broke up, left, mainly, a wealth of good things behind it...and yes, a few things not quite so good...the human race doesn't do perfection.

I very much doubt if the average 'Afghan' knows (or cares about) the difference betwen the US, UK, Russian or other intruders...they're all white foreigners & infidels whose main purpose is to provide great target practice.

The power of Oral History is, as our cousins would say, absolutely awesome & transcends the written word in an unbelievable enormity.
When, some while ago & in happier times, I was in that part of the World, I was in a 'café' where on a high chair, a story-teller was reciting history to a spellbound clientele.
My translator told me he was speaking not about the quite recent Richard Löwenherz but about Iskandar, Alexander...300 odd years BC....mind-blowing!