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Afghanistan: Slicing Up a Traditional Buffer State: Regional Repercussions of the Mujahideen Takeover in Kabul
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20067 |
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Section : |
MODERN THOUGHT
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| Issue
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12 / 1992 |
5,781 Words |
| Author
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Khalid Duran
Khalid Duran, a Muslim of Moroccan-Spanish heritage, has
taught Islamic studies, sociology, and anthropology at
universities in Pakistan, Austria, Germany, Scandinavia, and
the United States. A profile of him, entitled "Religion
Bridger," appeared in the February 2002 issue of The World &
I. |
After the Soviet invasion in 1979, Afghanistan witnessed a war of liberation that led not only to the withdrawal of the Red Army but to the collapse of the Soviet empire as a whole. Nevertheless, the disappearance of the Soviet-installed regime, with the Soviet withdrawal in 1988, did not bring peace to this Muslim nation; on the contrary, it ushered in a process of ravaging dissolution and complex war that may well lead to the disappearance of the state of Afghanistan, analogous to the breaking asunder of Yugoslavia in the middle of a multidimensional civil war.
In April 1978, a successful coup by pro-Soviet army offices unleashed a multitude of centrifugal forces. Accompanied by much bloodshed and a total disruption of traditional values, this tragic event destroyed the delicate balance of power that had kept this nation of many nationalities together.
The fall of Kabul to an alliance of mujahideen from northern Afghanistan in April 1992 was brought about chiefly by General Dostam, a warlord of Afghanistan's small Uzbek minority. He commands an efficient tribal militia said to number ten thousand men.
In January 1992, Dostam and his elite troops were the central pillar of Dr. Sayid Mohammed Najibullah's communist regime. After switching sides, they became the pillar holding up the fractious mujahideen government, headed by the powerless mullah Sibghatullah Mojadidi. For the time being at least, Dostam eclipsed his partner in power, Ahmad Shah Massoud, the guerrilla leader idolized in some two dozen books and innumerable press reports.
Rival Cousins: Tajiks And Pashtuns
The fall of Kabul symbolizes, more than anything else, the ascendance of the Tajiks, long regarded as a minority under the heel of a majority of Pashtuns.
Both Tajiks and Pashtuns are branches of the Iranian family of nations, along with the Baluch in the south and the Kurds in the west. In their vast majority, all of these Iranian cousins are Sunni Muslims, which distinguishes them from the Shiite Persians. The Tajiks are said to have evolved as a separate nation, due to heavy racial mixing with Arabs who settled there after the Muslim invasions in the seventh and eighth centuries.
The Pashtuns, who speak a different language (though related to Persian), call themselves
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