Come i bombardamenti USA stanno radicalizzando i Pashtun nel Pakistan

[Paola Lucchesi <paola.lucchesi at mail.inet.it> (by way of Carlo Gubitosa <c.gubitosa at peacelink.it>)]

C'era da attenderselo: la violenza dall'Occidente sta trasformando in
supporters dei Taleban anche i Pashtun "laici" (secular, nell'originale
inglese) nel Pakistan. Nell'articolo ci sono anche alcune informazioni
storiche molto interessanti, ad esempio su come proprio la terra dei
Pashtun fu spaccata in due, creando due stati come Afghanistan e Pakistan
che in realta' erano cuscinetti nel gioco di opposizione fra due grandi
imperi, quello russo e quello britannico. Assomiglia molto alla storia
degli Armeni, dei Curdi, degli Albanesi.... Chi vuole, prosegua l'elenco.

paola
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Pashtuns Defecting to Taleban

Pashtun nationalists warn the US bombing campaign is driving many of their
people into the ranks of the Taleban.

By Shiraz Paracha in London (RCA No. 81, 9-Nov-01)

As the US bombing of Afghanistan intensifies, secular Pashtun nationalists
in Pakistan are losing support in their strongholds, for the first time
since the partition of India over fifty years ago.

"The situation is getting worse. If the bombing doesn't stop, soon we will
lose all control of our people," warned Latif Afridi, secretary general of
the National Awami Party, NAP, and the first liberal Pashtun leader to be
elected to Pakistan's national assembly from a tribal constituency in the
north of the country.

Afghanistan's largest ethnic group dominates the Pakistan border region and
makes up a significant proportion of the population of North West Frontier
Province, NWFP, and parts of Baluchistan - traditionally Pashtun
nationalist, secular areas.

Only a small proportion - roughly 10 to 15 per cent - of people living in
these northern tribals areas supported the Taleban, but Pashtun
intellectuals says the US bombings of Afghanistan have changed that.

"Thousands of Pashtuns have already crossed into Afghanistan," said Islam
Khan, a young lawyer from the tribal area of Malakand to the north of
Peshawar. Until recently, the administrative division of Malakand was a
stronghold of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistani Peoples Party and the Pashtun
leader Ghafar Khan. It has since fallen to Tahrik Nafaz Sharia Movement,
TNSM, a violent tribal Islamist movement that emerged in 1994.

"Pashtuns may be conservative and tribal but, under the Pashtun code of
ethics, no one can be punished until proven guilty," said Professor Iqbal
Tajik, a teacher of political science in Peshawar. "The Pashtuns feel angry
because, in their view, the US did not fulfil the requirements necessary for
justice."

Amin Jan, a former socialist activist, was also a staunch opponent of the
Taleban, but he thinks the US has attacked his nation. "Even the British and
the Soviets did not destroy our homes and kill our children in the way the
US has been doing," he said, referring to Pashtun bombing victims across the
border in Afghanistan.

Growing Pashtun support for the fundamentalist Muslim Taleban is extremely
significant. Their ethnic cousins in Afghanistan, the largest tribe in the
country, will have to form part of a post-war government in Kabul, if it is
to have any legitimacy The fear is that if they become to bound up with the
Taleban, it will be hard to find a role for them in a future administration.

That increasing numbers of Pashtuns are prepared to start backing the
Taleban is remarkable given their secular and nationalist tendencies, the
latter being a particularly strong feature of the group's political life.

The Durand Line, as the border between Paskistan and Afghanistan is called,
carved the ancient homeland of Pashtunistan in half when it was established
by the British in 1893 to create a buffer state in Afghanistan separating
imperial Russia from its empire in India.

As a result, when Britain withdrew from the sub-continent in 1947, Pashtun
activists saw it as an opportunity to agitate for a united Pashtunistan,
independent of the Muslim state envisaged by Pakistan's founding fathers.

The majority of Pashtuns sided with the All India Congress during the Indian
liberation movement. Even religious parties like Jamiat Ulama-i-Islami, JUI,
now the main supporter of the Taleban, opposed the creation of Pakistan.

JUI instead supported the Pashtun nationalist Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan, who
was labelled as "Serhadi Gandhi" (Pashtun Gandhi) by his pro-Pakistan Muslim
opponents. Since the 1950s, successive military regimes in Islamabad were
sceptical of Pashtun loyalty to a state, largely ruled by ethnic Punjabi and
Urdu-speaking elite.

In spite of state repression, Pashtun nationalists and the JUI won a
majority in NWFP and Baluchistan in the country's first parliamentary
elections in 1970. But the army did not respect the result and both of the
new provincial governments were forced to leave office.

Throughout the 1980s, Latif Afridi and his fellow politicians successfully
opposed the US war in Afghanistan against the Soviets. The US-sponsored
Afghan jihad and fundamentalist mujahedin (holy warrior) groups had no
following among the Pashtuns on either sides of the Durand Line.

Pashtuns voted for liberal and nationalist parties in the 1988, 1990, 1993
and the 1997 elections. Nationalists and liberal parties formed governments
in NWFP after each ballot. In Baluchistan, where the pro-Taleban JUI has
substantial following, it could never form its own government there.

Pashtun society, however, is still ultra-conservative and even secular
Pashtuns have to reflect that orthodoxy. But the community's Islam is quite
different from Arab Islam or Islam in any other culture. The Pashtuns have
incorporated selective Islamic rituals and traditions into the famous
Pashtun code of culture, which is highly tribalised.

The "Khan" or feudal lord is the main authority figure in Pashtun culture
while the mullah, or religious cleric, is just one among many other
servants.

In the 1980s, the creation of Afghan mujahedin posed a threat to the
traditional set-up of Pashtun society. Pashtuns opposed them and their
foreign sponsors: the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The Taleban, when they
emerged, were considered ever lower than mujahedin, since Pashtuns could not
accept religious student as leaders.

It was Osama bin Laden and his associates who brought the Wahabbi brand of
Islam to the Pashtuns. But they rejected it. And in 1994, tribal gunmen
attacked comrades of bin Laden in the Khyber agency area, forcing them to
flee to the mountains.

"They (Arabs) were outsiders, not even Muslims," said Hussain Afridi, whose
tribe had forced the Arabs to leave. "They did many things which were
against Islam. For example, they openly practiced polygamy. How could we
allow them to stay in our area?"

Shiraz Paracha is South and Central Asia editor for a London-based news
service. Between 1987-1998 he reported from Peshawar on Afghanistan, North
West Frontier Province and the Tribal Areas of Pakistan.