Definition of Afghanistan

Definition of Afghanistan

Yaghanistan, as the Amir Abdur Rahman Khan (1900) referred to his country (particularly the tribal belt between British India and Afghanistan), has been variously translated: "Land of the Unruly," "Land of the Free," "Land of Rebels," and "Land of Insolence" (Coon, 1951b).

The insolence of the Afghan, however, is not the frustrated insolence of urbanized, dehumanized man in western society, but insolence without arrogance, the insolence of harsh freedoms set against a backdrop of rough mountains and deserts, the insolence of equality felt and practiced (with an occasional touch of superiority), the insolence of bravery past and bravery anticipated.

The flame Afghanistan simply means "Land of the Afghan." Some non-Afghans profess, at least half-jokingly, to believe that Afghan may have derived from the Persian word "afghan" (spelled the same as Afghan, Afghan), defined as "noisy," "groaning," or "wailing," indicative of the way many Iranians have always felt about their linguistic and cultural cousins to the east.

The patterns of Persian poetry more probably account for the "walling": originally, Faghan meant "wailing." To improve the rhyme and rhythm, Persian poets added the alif or "a" to form the more poetic Afghan. Another example is Farishta (angel), which poets changed to afristeh (Shpoon, personal communication, 1969).

Variations on the word Afghan in reference to people may go back as early as a third century A.D. Sasanian reference to "Abgan" (Caroe, 1965, A. Habibi, 1969). The earliest known reference to the Afghans in a Muslim source probably occurred in A.D. 982 (Caroe, 1965, 112), but tribes related to those of the modern Afghans probably have lived unrecorded in the region for many generations.

For millennia, the land now called Afghanistan sat in the center of the action, the meeting place of four ecological and cultural areas: the Middle East, Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, and even the Far East, for the Pamir Mountains intrude into Chinese Sinkiang.

Palaeolithic man probably lived in the caves of northern Afghanistan as long as 50,000 years ago. North Afghanistan also possibly sits in the zone of the development of the domestication of the wheat/barley, sheep/goat/cattle complex, the Neolithic Revolution which gave man control of his food supply about 11.000 years ago, which led ultimately to the urban civilizations of the Nile Valley, the Tigris—Euphrates Valleys, and the Indus Valley. Post-World War II excavations in south—central Afghanistan point to intimate relationships with the Indus Valley civilization, fourth—second millennia B.C.

Another important event in world history occurred in the Afghan area as a result of Alexander’s passage through the region in the fourth century B.C. Out of a m mixture of the sensuous Indian, humanistic classical, and vigorous Central Asian—Sino-Siberian ideologies rose the Mahayana Buddhism practiced in most of the modern Far Eastern world. As a result of intensive contacts, particularly from the first to the fifth centuries AD., the Mahayana (northern school) ideology and its attendant art styles traveled across Central Asia through the Dzungarian Gates to Mongolia, China, Korea, and eventually to Japan along the luxury trade Silk Route, which connected ancient Cathay with the Mediterranean classical world of the Roman Empire. During the early part of this east—west contact, Buddhist artists first began to depict the Buddha in human form, essentially an orientalized version of the Greek god Apollo.

The great civilizations of early Asia were based on the control and use of water, and great surpluses then created great civilizations and empires (Wittfogel, 1957).

Islam exploded into the region by the mid-seventh century AL., and remains an important element in modern cultural and political patterns. Traditionally an area through which armies passed on their way to somewhere else, Afghanistan nevertheless witnessed the rise of several of its own indigenous empires. The Ghaznavid (tenth—twelfth centuries AL.), probably the most important, was a true renaissance of juxtaposed military conquests and cultural achievements.

Political instability, brought en by the destructive Mongol arid Turco—Mongol invasions of the thirteenth—fourteenth centuries AD., and recurring localized, fratricidal wars broke up the Silk Route trade, and by the fifteenth century European navigators sought new sea routes to the East, which led to the rediscovery, exploitation, and development of a New World.

Asian imperialists (Persian Safavids and Indian Moghuls) fought over the Afghan area in the sixteenth—seventeenth centuries AD, but in 1747 the last great Af8han empire rose under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Durrani, crowned king in Qandahar.

Fratricidal tribal wars and the intrusion of European imperialism into the area characterized nineteenth-century Afghanistan. Twice (1839, 1878) British armies invaded Afghan territories in response to real or imagined threats to India as Tsarist armies moved into the Muslim khanates of Central Asia, including lands claimed by the Afghan amirs.

The creation of modem Afghanistan began during the reign of Abdur Rahman Khan (1 880—1901). While external powers (Britain, Russia) drew the boundaries of Afghanistan, the Amir attempted to spread his influence (if not actual control) over the myriad ethnic groups and tribal kingdoms included inside his boundaries, a. process of "internal imperialism." Indeed, before 1880, the Afghans themselves referred to their area variously as Kabulistan (south of the Hindu Mash to the Indus River), Zabulistah (or Khorasan, including the Hindu Kusb, Qandahar, and Herat), and Turkestan (north of the Hindu Mash and east of Herat) (Kakar, 1968, 1).

Most Afghan historians, followed sheeplike by western scholars, consider 1747 (Ahmad Shah Durrani) the beginning of the. modem Afghan state.

I disagree, for, until 1880, the process of alternating fusion and fission dominated the political scene. By political fusion. and fission. I mean the following pattern of events: A charismatic leader arises in a tribal society and, by military power, intrigue, and judiciously arranged marriages, unites several tribes into a confederation, which spreads Ls far as its accumulated power permits, creating an empire, not a nation-st ate. With (sometimes before) the death of the emperor, fission occurs, and the great empire once again segments into a multiplicity of tribal kingdoms. Later, another charismatic leader arrives and the process is repeated.

Ahmad Shah Durrani, therefore, created a Durrani empire, not a nation-state. Even before his death, the tribal wars and struggles for individual power within the various branches of the ruling family began, and they continued into the twentieth century.

British and Russian imperialism, however, blocked Abdur Rahman Khan, preventing him from spilling Over into India,. Persia, and Central Asia and creating another great Afghan empire. European imperialism had replaced Asian imperialism in the region.

The British, with at least the tacit consent of the Russians, controlled Afghan relations with other countries until 1919, when the Afghans gained the right to conduct their own foreign affairs after the Third Anglo—Afghan War. The Afghans consider 1919 as the year in which they truly became independent of foreign domination.

Three words characterize twentieth-century Afghanistan: non-alignment, independence, development, themes which, in varying degrees of intensity, describe the entire developing world today. The creation of new nations after World War II forced the major powers to realize that no nation, however remote, is unimportant. Post-World War II Afghanistan became an "economic Korea" and the interplay between the Soviet Bloc and the West (mainly the United States and West Germany) found Afghanistan serving as a catalytic agent to force both sides to shift from de lure competition to de facto cooperation, offering lessons in dynamics for the rest of the developing world. Naturally, the specifics of the Afghan experience cannot be transplanted to the heartlands of other developing nations, but a study of Afghanistan's recent history may help others understand the processes involved in changing from a tribal society to a nation-state.

In 1964, Afghanistan launched a new democratic experiment, and today tries to create a constitutional monarchy within a parliamentary framework. The real power, however, remains vested in a liberal king currently backed by a liberal army elite.

Created partly as a result of imperialism, but never a colony, Afghanistan, like all new states, now tries to build a stable nation, but with an overwhelming 90—95% non-literate population, a basically agrarian economy, and a peasant-tribal society with loyalties oriented locally and not nationally. The task of achieving stability may not be impossible, but it is certainly challenging.