The Hazaras and the Afghan State

The Hazaras and the Afghan State PDF

Author: Niamatullah Ibrahimi

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2017-10-01

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 1849049815

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The Hazaras of Afghanistan have borne the brunt of many of the destructive forces unleashed by the establishment of the Afghan monarchy in 1747. The history of their relationship with the Afghan state has been punctuated by frequent episodes of ethnic cleansing, mass dispossession, forced displacement, enslavement and social and economic exclusion. Mostly Shia in a country dominated by Sunni Muslims, and identifiable because of their Asian features, the Hazaras became Afghanistan's internal 'Other'. They look different and practice a different school of Islam in a country that is prone to internal conflict and the machinations of external powers. The history of the Hazaras therefore offers a unique perspective into the deep contradictions of Afghanistan as a modern state, and how its ethnic and religious dynamics continue to undermine the post-2001 political process. This volume provides a fresh account of both the strategies and tactics of the Afghan state and how the Hazaras have responded to them, focusing on three key phenomena: Hazara rebellion and resistance to the intrusion of the Afghan state in the nineteenth century; the incorporation of the Hazara homeland into Afghanistan in the 1890s and their subsequent marginalization and exclusion; and the Hazaras' ethnic mobilization and struggle for recognition in recent decades.

State Formation in Afghanistan

State Formation in Afghanistan PDF

Author: Mujib Rahman Rahimi

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-08-17

Total Pages: 376

ISBN-13: 1786722062

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The creation of Afghanistan in 1880, following the Second Anglo-Afghan War, gave an empowering voice to the Pashtun people, the largest ethnic group in a diverse country. In order to distil the narrative of the state's formation and early years, a Pashtun-centric version of history dominated Afghan history and the political process from 1880 to the 1970s. Alternative discourses made no appearance in the fledgling state which lacked the scholarly institutions and any sense of recognition for history, thus providing no alternatives to the narratives produced by the British, whose quasi-colonial influence in the region was supreme. Since 1970, the ongoing crises in Afghanistan have opened the space for non-Pashtuns, including Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks, to form new definitions of identity, challenge the official discourse and call for the re-writing of the long-established narrative. At the same time, the Pashtun camp, through their privileged position in the political settlements of 2001, have attempted to confront the desire for change in historical perceptions by re-emphasising the Pashtun domination of Afghan history. This crisis of hegemony has led to a deep antagonism between the Pashtun and non-Pashtun perspectives of Afghan history and threatens the stability of political process in the country.

The Hazaras of Afghanistan

The Hazaras of Afghanistan PDF

Author: Sayed Askar Mousavi

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 9780700706303

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This is a study of the second largest but least well-known ethnic group in Afghanistan. Largely Shi'a by religion and Farsi-speaking, the Hazaras traditionally inhabited Central Afghanistan although because of the war they are now scattered in large numbers across the country and in neighbouring countries as well. The Hazaras have recently come into a more influential position within the country's social fabric because its tribally based pyramidal structure has been disrupted. This book, therefore, makes a unique contribution in Afghanistan studies. It also directly confronts the taboo subject of an Afghan sense of national identity, a concept crucial to the resolution of Afghanistan's current crisis.

Hazara Nation

Hazara Nation PDF

Author: Ghulamreza Jamili

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2019-07-03

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9781077918696

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In Hazera Nation, Nadera Jamili and Ghulamreza Jamili's unique combination of research and personal experience clarify the importance of the Hazara Nation's history, language, and culture within the larger global framework. Their writing illuminates the little-known political, social, and cultural history of the Hazara Nation as an ancient social and political entity within the country's multicultural landscape. Scholars of the region, students, tourists, and any reader wishing to understand the situation in the region will find this book to be full of useful and pertinent information. Ghulamreza Jamili, a former United Nation (UN) official, served during a critical time, supporting the UN mission in Afghanistan. Mr. Jamili also worked as a United States Department of Defense (DOD) contractor, supporting the U.S. military and diplomatic efforts as an advisor against terrorism in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2014. His diverse work for both agencies gave him an abundance of experience, helping him develop an intimate understanding of the UN's and the United States' mission in Afghanistan. His experiences, as told in Hazara Nation, are alternately astonishing and sobering. Nadera Jamili has a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Balkh University in Mazari Sharif, Afghanistan. Mrs. Jamili's childhood and teenage life in Afghanistan were filled with harrowing experiences of war and internal conflict. Her eyewitness accounts of the civil wars between the Mujahedeen and local tribal groups, exacerbated by the presence of the Taliban, are skillfully interspersed in Hazara Nation with information about geography, history, and culture.

Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan

Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan PDF

Author: Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-04-21

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 131657170X

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Despite vast efforts to build the state, profound political order in rural Afghanistan is maintained by self-governing, customary organizations. Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan explores the rules governing these organizations to explain why they can provide public goods. Instead of withering during decades of conflict, customary authority adapted to become more responsive and deliberative. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and observations from dozens of villages across Afghanistan, and statistical analysis of nationally representative surveys, Jennifer Brick Murtazashvili demonstrates that such authority enhances citizen support for democracy, enabling the rule of law by providing citizens with a bulwark of defence against predatory state officials. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it shows that 'traditional' order does not impede the development of the state because even the most independent-minded communities see a need for a central government - but question its effectiveness when it attempts to rule them directly and without substantive consultation.

Homo Itinerans

Homo Itinerans PDF

Author: Alessandro Monsutti

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2020-11-01

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1805393960

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Afghan society has been marked in a lasting way by war and the exodus of part of its population. While many have emigrated to countries across the world, they have been matched by the flow of experts who arrive in Afghanistan after having been in other war-torn countries such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Palestine or East Timor. This book builds on more than two decades of ethnographic travels in some twenty countries, bringing the readers from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Europe, North America and Australia. It describes the everyday life and transnational circulations of Afghan refugees and expatriates.

Afghanistan's Endless War

Afghanistan's Endless War PDF

Author: Larry P. Goodson

Publisher: University of Washington Press

Published: 2011-07-01

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 0295801581

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Going beyond the stereotypes of Kalashnikov-wielding Afghan mujahideen and black-turbaned Taliban fundamentalists, Larry Goodson explains in this concise analysis of the Afghan war what has really been happening in Afghanistan in the last twenty years. Beginning with the reasons behind Afghanistan’s inability to forge a strong state -- its myriad cleavages along ethnic, religious, social, and geographical fault lines -- Goodson then examines the devastating course of the war itself. He charts its utter destruction of the country, from the deaths of more than 2 million Afghans and the dispersal of some six million others as refugees to the complete collapse of its economy, which today has been replaced by monoagriculture in opium poppies and heroin production. The Taliban, some of whose leaders Goodson interviewed as recently as 1997, have controlled roughly 80 percent of the country but themselves have shown increasing discord along ethnic and political lines.

A State Built on Sand

A State Built on Sand PDF

Author: David Mansfield

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-05-01

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 0190694602

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Oscillations in opium poppy production in Afghanistan have long been associated with how the state was perceived, such as after the Taliban imposed a cultivation ban in 2000-1. The international community's subsequent attempts to regulate opium poppy became intimately linked with its own state-building project, and rising levels of cultivation were cited as evidence of failure by those international donors who spearheaded development in poppy-growing provinces like Helmand, Nangarhar and Kandahar. Mansfield's book examines why drug control - particularly opium bans - have been imposed in Afghanistan; he documents the actors involved; and he scrutinizes how prohibition served divergent and competing interests. Drawing on almost two decades of fieldwork in rural areas, he explains how these bans affected farming communities, and how prohibition endured in some areas while in others opium production bans undermined livelihoods and destabilized the political order, fuelling violence and rural rebellion. Above all this book challenges how we have come to understand political power in rural Afghanistan. Far from being the passive recipients of violence by state and non-state actors, Mansfield highlights the role that rural communities have played in shaping the political terrain, including establishing the conditions under which they could persist with opium production.

Afghan Women

Afghan Women PDF

Author: Elaheh Rostami-Povey

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-07-04

Total Pages: 146

ISBN-13: 1848135998

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Through years of Taliban oppression, during the US-led invasion and the current insurgency, women in Afghanistan have played a hugely symbolic role. This book looks at how women have fought repression and challenged stereotypes, both within Afghanistan and in diasporas in Iran, Pakistan, the US and the UK. Looking at issues from violence under the Taliban and the impact of 9/11 to the role of NGOs and the growth in the opium economy, Rostami-Povey gets behind the media hype and presents a vibrant and diverse picture of these women's lives. The future of women's rights in Afghanistan, she argues, depends not only on overcoming local male domination, but also on challenging imperial domination and blurring the growing divide between the West and the Muslim world. Ultimately, these global dynamics may pose a greater threat to the freedom and autonomy of women in Afghanistan and throughout the world.