Afghanistan Society and Politics

Le 15 août dernier, le monde a assisté impuissant à la reprise du pouvoir par les Taliban à Kaboul. Après vingt ans d’occupation, les puissances étrangères se sont retirées de ce pays, laissant derrière elles une société fragmentée et un pays détruit. Si le retour en force des Taliban a surpris l’opinion publique occidentale, les experts du pays s’y attendaient depuis la signature de l’accord de Doha en février 2020 entre l’administration Trump et le régime des Taliban. La question qui demeure pourtant – et à laquelle cet ouvrage tente de livrer des réponses – c’est comment ont-ils fait pour l’emporter si vite ? Comment, les Taliban, aux capacités militaires et technologiques bien inférieures à celles des armées occidentales, ont pu gagner cette guerre ?

The Iraq War’s enduring conflict has proven resilient in its on-and-off relationship with the US and international forces occupying.  Streamlining a more sustainable counterinsurgency plan remains a critical link to securing stability designed to promote Iraqi nation-rebuilding efforts.  While the smart power approach to foreign policy has yet to realize its potential full effect, recruitment of younger generations into recurrent violence via Islamist co-optation persists with threat to bleed across the region.  Military, diplomatic and politically weighed strategies struggle to contain the violence by advancing innovative methods to counter and disengage while supporting Iraqi democracy, not altogether unlike US operations in Afghanistan.  COIN directive requires in-depth analysis of the socialization of teenage youth as they undertake transnational violence into adulthood.  Nation building through better concerted and inclusive effort of relief, intelligence, military and policymaking drive is the key to tapping the potential of next generation Iraqis as immediate and future leaders.  Youth at risk raised with a history of violence will otherwise require constant intervention.  Policy transition moving towards internal stability and an exit strategy has the resources to launch effective social programming for political infrastructure and business strategy to guide better negotiation in resource and conflict management.  Media’s role in promoting proactive social networks promises to be a game-changer for ground game where youth are enabled to access it.  International support and inter-alia networking then remain to be fully realized if Iraq and the US are to emerge from the war in two pieces.

Il 1979 è una data che per le popolazioni dell’Afghanistan rappresenta lo spartiacque tra la loro storia millenaria e un presente molto problematico.
Aerei ed elicotteri invadevano i cieli dell’Afghanistan, stravolgendo radicalmente il panorama immutato da secoli di quel paese e la vita economica e sociale di quelle popolazioni fino ad allora vissute quasi come mille anni fa: iniziava l’invasione sovietica.
Carri armati e blindati percorrevano le strade, moderni fucili mitragliatori e altri armamenti equipaggiavano i soldati, nei cieli gli elicotteri a doppia elica sganciavano razzi… nuovi rumori, nuovi oggetti, nuovi mezzi mai visti.
Un’inedita e traumatizzante realtà sconvolgeva la vita quotidiana e minava le ataviche certezze delle popolazioni locali, imponendo radicali cambiamenti nelle attività e nello stile di vita, ma innescando anche uno dei fenomeni più straordinari e imprevedibili nella storia del tappeto orientale:
i nomadi Baluci iniziavano a integrare le tradizionali decorazioni dei loro manufatti con la raffigurazione di armi moderne, del tutto sconosciute per chi da sempre tesseva e annodava.
Nascevano i tappeti delle guerre afghane, meglio conosciuti come war rugs.
Gli eventi che negli ultimi quarant’anni hanno ininterrottamente accompagnato la vita delle popolazioni dell’Afghanistan, hanno determinato un’evoluzione della rappresentazione bellica nei tappeti, ma anche involuzioni stilistiche legate alle contingenze che si susseguivano.
Questo libro se da un lato intende delineare una storia esaustiva dei war rugs afghani, ancora oggi connotata da aspetti misteriosi e irrisolti, al tempo stesso fa in modo che il lettore possa, partendo da una sintesi storica dell’Afghanistan, “percorrere” la nascita, crescita e sviluppo di questi meravigliosi tappeti.
Una storia fatta per immagini e per informazioni essenziali a comprenderne l’evoluzione, presentando un fatto artistico quasi unico al mondo: l’utilizzo di antichissime tecniche di realizzazione dei tappeti applicate alla “realtà”, al quotidiano, nato e concluso in un arco di tempo storicamente brevissimo, tale da determinare per i posteri la possibilità di studiare una fase “completa” dell’arte millenaria dei fabbricanti di tappeti.

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Luca Emilio Brancati, storico dell’arte torinese e noto studioso di antichi tappeti orientali, nel 1988 è stato il primo al mondo a organizzare esposizioni della propria collezione di war rugs afghani, raccolti nel solo periodo di presenza sovietica.
Amedeo Vittorio Bedini, chirurgo milanese, avvia la sua raccolta nel 2005. Due anni dopo ne pubblica il catalogo in occasione di una mostra allestita nella propria città.

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Questo lavoro sui tappeti delle guerre afghane è la sintesi dei risultati degli studi e delle ricerche individuali che gli autori condividono da oltre quindici anni, in virtù della sentita amicizia che li lega e della comune passione.

This book is now available in paperback and has been revised, updated along with a few minor corrections. It is available from all the usual outlets or from Reaktion Books website. In Australasia it is distributed by New South Wales Books, in the USA from Chicago UP.

The book is now available in Simple Chinese.

It is also in the process of being published in Persian (Afghanistan Dari) and should appear early 2024.

The book challenges colonial and Afghan nationalist preconceptions of the rise of the Durrani monarchy; its claim to Pushtun identity; colonial policy Afghanistan's internal and external relations. The work is aimed at both undergraduate and postgraduate students; as well as aid workers; diplomats and those wishing to dig deeper into the history of Afghanistan. It has over 100 illustration and includes maps and genealogical charts and index.

A deeply touching and painfully thoughtful expose on the plight of women in Afghanistan, analyzed through the creative lens of Maryam Mahboob's writing. While any political analysis that utilizes literature as its chief source has to be by default analysis through microcosm-anecdotal and intensively minute in everyday life detail-this book is also organized across very important macro-themes, like politics, women's issues, war, radicalization, exile, and identity. Utilizing this structure allows the words at the micro-level to easily connect to the macro-level of international affairs, conflict, and peacebuilding. There is no doubt the true purpose of the work is to bring the reader deep into the psychological conflict and personal turmoil suffered by women throughout the horrific tumult that describes Afghani life and politics for nearly four decades that is seen in Mahboob's works. But it also serves as a powerful launching point for readers who want to pursue the bigger issues that the work takes on, including diaspora dilemmas, gender studies, and religious radicalization's impact on civil society. The chapters could be better organized to maximize that impact but this is a minor quibble. Since its founding as a monthly collection of recommended titles more than 50 years ago, Choice has become the go-to source for librarians seeking worthwhile new titles for their collection. Our publication offers approximately 600 reviews every month, identifying the best new books and digital content in academia. With more than 2,400 institutions served worldwide, Choice is the premier review journal of new academic titles. Choice is the publishing branch of the Association of College & Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association. Together, Choice and the ACRL provide professional development tools for librarianship. Our webinars, bibliographic essays, and digital publications help librarians strengthen their skills, and further their careers.

The World Bank is a significant financial institution that helps countries to overcome poverty challenges and assist institutions in the implementation of development initiatives. This presentation briefs students of International Relations to understand how the World Bank functions.

This study aims to analyze the ethnic dilemma in the Pamir region, or Badakh Mountains of the Badakhshan region, that became the reason for the call of independence of Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region from Tajikistan. This paper also examines the socio-political linkages among the various Pamiri groups in Badakhshan Region. Likewise, the impact of a declaration of independence by Gorno-Badakhshann region on Pamiri ethnic groups in other geographically linked countries, especially in Gilgit- Baltistan is also highlighted in this study.

This policy brief informs on the situation on the ground in Afghanistan and what the future holds for the war-torn country under a Taliban regime. The brief discusses recent developments in the country, Taliban’s PR campaign and the (grim) situation for gender and media rights under the Taliban regime in the country. In its concluding section, the brief proposes short, medium and long-term recommendations that could be considered by the international community, particularly the western bloc, when dealing with Taliban regime. These recommendations focus on ensuring gender and media rights, evacuation of under-threat Afghan and foreign nationals, clear messaging on Taliban from the western bloc, a possible working relationship with a Taliban regime and reviving Afghanistan’s economy.

La guerre par le droit Les tribunaux Taliban en Afghanistan E t si les Taliban, aux capacités militaires et technologiques bien inférieures à celles des armées occidentales, avaient gagné la guerre par le droit ? Tandis que la coalition internationale a mis sur pied un système juridique inadapté et miné par la corruption, les Taliban ont installé des centaines de tribunaux dans les campagnes : en insistant sur le respect des procédures, l'impartialité des juges et l'application des verdicts, ce système de justice s'est imposé comme une des rares sources de prévisibilité dans le quotidien des Afghans. « Le tribunal des Taliban est pour tous, mais le tribunal du gouvernement est seulement pour les gens riches », confie un habitant de la province du Wardak. De quelles manières les Taliban ont-ils gagné la confiance de la population ? Comment sont-ils parvenus à se mettre en position de réguler les rapports sociaux ? Et avec quelles conséquences pour la société afghane ? Nourrie par un travail de terrain au long cours dans différentes provinces en Afghanistan, cette enquête offre de nouvelles perspectives sur un pays en guerre depuis quatre décennies et propose une réflexion novatrice sur la place du droit dans les guerres civiles.

This article examines power dynamics in political groupings during
the 2014 Afghanistan presidential election and assesses the impact on
political stability and order. The focus is the power dynamics of local
political-economic and identity networks that have come to underpin
and constitute the state in post-2001 international state-building.
The article first seeks to understand how the complex relationships
between the two leading presidential candidates, Ashraf Ghani and
Abdullah Abdullah, and key powerbrokers were negotiated and
subsequently influenced electoral outcomes. Second, focusing on
negotiations over the appointment of the Cabinet ministers, advisers
and staff, and governors, the study maps the restructuring of political
networks within the Afghan state. The analysis reveals the impact of
the election on the redistribution of power and resources, and the
consequences for political order and state stability in the post-2014
period.

Primordialism and Constructivism are two theoretical approaches that can explain ethnic identities in Afghanistan. The Primordialism theory argues that ethnic identity is a natural identity that population of a particular country affiliate themselves with. The Constructivism theory, on the other hand, explains that ethnicity has been politicized and that it has become a means for securing political and economic interests. Applying the two theories to the context of Afghanistan, this paper argues that perceiving ethnicity as a natural source of identity and exploitation of ethnicity by politician and citizens to secure interests have led to perseverance of ethnic identities in the country.

The question of legality of the Durand Line is not much of an interest for the international political and academic community. Most of the Global Powers readily buy Pakistan’s legal argument and agree that the Durand Line is a sacrosanct international boundary separating Afghanistan and Pakistan and that it has existed as it is for more than a century now.They also assert that Afghanistan had no legal rights to repudiate any agreement pertaining to their border unilaterally. However, there is a new line of scholarly investigation on the legality of the Durand Line as an international border and it questions the nature of the agreement and treaties pertaining to the Line. This paper intends to pursue the investigation further and challenge the legality of the Durand Line. For the purpose, all the original treaties and agreements signed between the Amirs of Afghanistan and the Government of India, and since 1919 between the two Governments have been studied in the paper.

MOHAMMAD HUSSAIN thesis

These are thesis submitted by author to Institute of Islamic Studies Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research McGill University as requirement for his degree of Master of Arts. Thesis. We don’t have much more information about his ethnicity but guessing from his stand and argument he belong to Hazara ethnicity. In this thesis he tired to present different theories regarding their origin and then support one theory by backing it by quoting different scholars. This thesis is basically extracted from literature already present.  Thesis tell us Hazara struggle in Afghanistan during different times, from a Hazara point of view.

En 1989, las últimas tropas soviéticas cruzaron, sin muchos honores, la frontera entre Afganistán y la URSS, de vuelta a sus hogares. Esta es la historia de cómo vivieron y murieron, de cómo lucharon, y de cómo lucharon sus oponentes. Esta, en suma, es la turbia y polvorienta historia de "Afgán".

this chapter assesses the enduring structural features of Afghanistan's chronic instability. Many of Afghanistan's problems are deeply rooted in the country's history such as its underdevelopment, weak ability to raise
revenue and perennial vulnerability co predatory near and far neighbors. At different times in the country's modern history, its leadership has pursued centralized modernization policies which have inevitably resulted in an armed uprising against the state. For this reason, this chapter next recounts significant historical events that undergird the path dependency of the state 's myriad challenges. [n the third section, the chapter draws out from the historical discussion several enduring sources of instability that bode ill for the country's future ability to achieve peace, including perennial economic dependence, sustained and deepened military dependence, and inability to sustain a stable and sovereign role within the comity of nations due in part to predatory near and far neighbors.
This chapter concludes with a discussion of the current security challenges and the dim prospects for future stability.

Sandy Gall’s biography of Ahmad Shah Massoud arrived in bookshops just as the humiliating events of August 2021 unfolded. It was Massoud’s assassination by Al Qa'ida just two days before 9/11which deprived Afghanistan of its most skilful military commander. What, one wonders, would have happened if NATO had had an Afghan strategist of his calibre to work with during these past 20 years?

In January 2021, Deash (Islamic State) marked the new year by murdering eleven Hazara coal miners in Quetta, Pakistan. The world press covered the story ruminating that the murders sprout from the Shia-Sunni schism because the Hazaras are Shia and Daesh is Sunni. However, the persecution of Hazaras, the original inhabitants of Khorasan, the historical name of a region including Afghanistan, is much older and complicated. Daesh, the newest slayers of the Hazaras, adores the name Khorasan as it resonates with the nostalgia of converting the people of this region to Islam in the 7 th century. As explained below, atrocities against the Hazaras of Khorasan, comprised of killings, ethnic cleansing, land confiscation, enslavement, underdevelopment, and forced exile, are not new. The Hazaras have been suffering persecution for centuries. Presently, there are more than 8 million Hazaras, but only half of them live in Afghanistan. To escape persecution, the other half migrated to other countries, including Pakistan, Iran, Europe, and Australia. In Pakistan and Iran, the Hazaras face degrading treatment as a refugee ethnic group while Daesh and Taliban slaughter them in Quetta and other parts of Baluchistan, Pakistan. Almost always, the persecutors rely on perception (caricature) rather than reality. Sometimes perception is mightier than reality, and sometimes there is no reality but perception. Ethnic groups perceived as outsiders within a country are rarely trusted and frequently accused of being traitors in times of war. (The internment of the Japanese Americans during World War II was an act of perception, not reality.) There has been a persistent perception in Afghanistan that the Hazaras are not loyal to the nation, and that they facilitate the enemies. Accordingly, this article focuses on how the rulers of Afghanistan and the Pashtuns, the largest tribe, perceive and persecute the Hazaras.

Abstract This study aims to deepen understanding of the phenomenon of temporary marriage (TM) and its role in promoting early child marriage (ECM) in Iran. The research reveals that traditional families wish to control the sexual behavior of boys
and girls and avoid the social pressure on them at mixed gatherings, by making them mahram (In Islam, a mahram is a member of one’s family with whom marriage would be considered haram (illegal in Islam); from whom purdah, or concealment of the body with hijab, is not obligatory; and who may serve as a legal escort of a woman during journeys longer than three days) to one another through temporary marriage. It demonstrates that while temporary marriage has a role in legalizing
illicit relationships, it also facilitates the ECM narrative in Iran. ECM, however, is not the only by-product of the temporary marriage but contributes to stigmatizing the younger generation in various ways. Moreover, religion is only one contributor to the popularity of temporary marriages, which is more about the control and power exerted by Iran’s patriarchal society and male-dominated culture over the most vulnerable
segment of the population: the women.
Keywords Temporary marriage
#Sigheh #Child marriage #Iran #Culture #Religion

This article aims to present a political analysis of the relationship between the Shiʿa community in Afghanistan and the new political system that emerged after the US military intervention of 2001. In light of the sectarian conflicts in the greater Middle East and the connection between South West Asia and the Syrian war since 2011, this article illustrates the limits of the social empowerment of the Shiʿa communities in Afghanistan. The article outlines the internal religious scene and the connections between āyatollāhs (marājeʿ), mainly from Iran or Iraq, and Afghan Shiʿite believers. It also examines how the Afghan Shiʿite community differs from those of Iran and Iraq.

The partition of British India in 1947 ruptured India’s geographical contiguity with Afghanistan but not the warmth that characterized their relations; this stood in sharp contrast to Pakistan which in spite of its geographical contiguity as well as religious and ethnic congruity has seen its relations with Kabul for most of its history being clouded by bitterness and a deep sense of distrust. India’s role in Afghanistan has re-emerged into importance not just for Afghanistan and the region, but also as “a test case for a rising power” – India.  Afghanistan’s importance for India and others is largely geopolitical, Afghanistan faces southwards down from the Hindu Kush into the Indian subcontinent, India’s immediate neighbourhood. Yet it also looks northwards down from the Hindu Kush into India’s extended neighbourhood; in which “Afghanistan is the fractious gateway to and from Central Asia, which defines the way other powers grapple and circumvent the complexities of the region”, as well as being part of what has been called the “Greater Middle East”.

The main purpose of this work is to provide a cartographic representation of the process of Islamization of the vast area of “Kafir” cultures and Indo-European languages here styled “Peristan”. This area once extended from present-day Nuristan to the borders of Kashmir over a surface of some 80.000 square km. The Kalasha of lower Chitral are now the last surviving heirs of this area. Only recently scientific research has produced new elements to reconstruct the history of this process, which had so far remained obscure. After a brief analysis of the different forms of perception of ethnic and religious identities in the area, the paper deals with the relationship between the process of Islamization and that of subjection to the authority of states from ca. 1500 CE to this day. Then the sources on which the cartography is based are discussed. The result is a somewhat unexpected image of what was once “Kafiristan”, perhaps the most remote and tenacious barbaricum of the Asian continent, and one of the largest.

This article investigates the implications of two competing modes of gover-nance, those of the US Army and the Taliban, through the lens of the relations between property, citizenship and political authority in Kunar, Afghanistan, between 2001 and 2013. To account for the political struggle in the province, the author outlines two models of governance: a political one based on mediation and conciliation, which the US Army applied; and a legal one promoting direct relations between the rulers and the ruled, upheld by the Taliban. After looking at the political dynamics in Kunar since the nineteenth century and since 2001, I argue that it is paradoxically the Taliban that placed itself in continuity with the state, while the US Army played tribal politics and undermined the legitimacy of the regime it had helped to install in Kabul. Kunar is a case of an armed confrontation in which different militarized groups compete to impose their rule by controlling space and access to landed property.

The political reality of many countries in the Muslim World is untenable and reforms and change is absolutely necessary. This article argues that use of force and violence for political change is making things worse as one can witness in Syria and Iraq. The article advances a Qur'ānic perspective on the desirability of peace as a goal and peaceful means as instruments of change. The article acknowledges that the Qur'ānic sanction for use of force to defend religious freedom prcludes the advocacy of pacifism but nevertheless the article does make a strong case for privileging peace over use of force.

Since the establishment of Afghanistan State, Dari (dialect of Persian) has remained its dominant and official language. However, in twentieth century, some measures were taken for the development of Pashto language followed by declaration of Pashto as official language in 1936. For the first time a dialect of Persian spoken in Afghanistan was officially renamed as Dari in the 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan. In this constitution as well as in the current constitution of 2004 both of the languages were declared as official languages. Since the emergence of Pashto as official language, a rivalry and linguistic divergence created between the two languages and their respective ethnic groups. As a result of this rivalry an ethnic and linguistic consciousness emerged which led to discussions about language planning policies. This research article discovers historical evolution and reasons for this linguistic divergence and its implications on future nation building in Afghanistan. It also explores historical development of status, planning and policies regarding these two languages for better understanding of the linguistic divergence and rivalry. Furthermore, the study proposes options for accommodation of different languages through cultural harmonization and multiculturalism.

How do we understand links between Sufism and pro-egalitarian revolutionary activism in the early twentieth century; and how did upland compositions of self and community help constitute revolutionary activism in South Asia more broadly? Using Pashto poetry as my archive, I integrate a history of radical egalitarian thought and political practice into a holistic study of self-making, of imperial spatiality, and of shifting gradients of power in the regions between Kabul and Punjab. Amid a chaotic rise of new practices of imperial and monarchic hegemony around the turn of the twentieth century, I argue, older sedimentations of ‘devotee selfhood’ in the high valleys of eastern Afghanistan gave rise, in social spaces preserved by self-reflexive poetic practice and circulation, to conscious desires for avoidance of all forms of hierarchy or sovereignty, in favour of a horizontal politics of reciprocity. Such inchoate drives for freedom later played a role in constituting anti-statist revolutionary subjectivities across great geographical and social distance. From upland Sufi roots, they rippled outwards to intersect with the work of transnational socialist and anti-imperialist militants in Indian nationalist circles too and even influenced scholars at the heart of the nascent Afghan nation state.

Marcel Bohnert hat von Juni 2011 bis Januar 2012 eine verstärkte Infanterieeinheit der Task Force Kunduz III in Afghanistan geführt. Als Hauptmann und Kompaniechef war er mit seinen Frauen und Männern für die Sicherheit im Unruhedistrikt Chahar Darreh verantwortlich. Die Erfahrungen seiner Einheit in der Einsatzvorbereitung, während der Einsatzzeit und in der Phase der Einsatznachbereitung wurden durch zahlreiche Publikationen begleitet. In diesem Vortrag vor dem Lions Club in Berlin im Januar 2022 beschreibt er seine #200TageKunduz und zieht Lehren aus dem Scheitern der Mission.