Feb
16
2009
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200 Years In The Kingdom of Kabul |
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 16 February 2009 |
On March 5th of 1809, the the British diplomat Mountstuart Elphinstone met with Shah Suja in Peshawar.
Shah Suja was the King of the Pathan tribes and Elphinstone's mission was the first official diplomatic meeting between the British and the Pathans.
After reading Elphinstone's vast survey of the Pathan tribes and the Shah's kingdom, one will be amazed at how little has changed.
Swords, pikes and matchlocks have been replaced with AK-47's and RPG's. Camels and horses have been replaced with pickup trucks and rickity buses.
But very little else has changed.
The nature of how little things have changed became starkly apparant to me a few months ago when young man from Peshawar, via Qatar, bought the corner gas station near where I live.
At first I chatted him up in Arabic, after seeing some script on a jacket he was wearing. I could tell he was not an Arab. And he confirmed that he was from Pakistan.
But, he went further. He was an Afghan, a Peshawar Pathan.
At the time Elphinstone met with Shah Suja, the Afghan/Pathan kingdom ran roughly from the Indus river in the east to the the plains south and west of Kabul.
This has historically been the domain of the Pathan peoples, the real Afghanistan. On a modern map it would cover the western parts of Pakistan, the tribal areas, the rugged mountains and west across most of modern Afghanistan.
The residents of those areas, even those living in the midwest of the United States, still think of themselves as the real Afghans. Historically, an Afghan was a member of the Pathan people.
As we move toward the official 200-year mark of western involvement in the region, it would behoove the Obama administration to read Elphinstone and understand that compared to the deeply ingrained identity and traits of the Pathans, the 200 years of varying adventures by British, Russians, Soviets and now the U.S. are just another in a long series of attempts that have usually failed and at best marginally succeeded.
The Kyhber is almost a rite of passage for the great empires. The only great empire that didn't make it to the Kyber was the Roman.
And most just passed through, very few stayed for long and none, none controlled the mountains. Not even the greatest of the Afghan kings really controlled the mountains.
The acknowledged truth is that but for a handful of brigands living in the mountains who harbor visions of being the vanguard of a new, unique Koranic generation bent on global jihad, no one would care about what happens in those mountains. The tribes would go about life as they have since before the time of Alexander.
The essential element of that life is the Pashtoonwali, the code of the Pathans, which all but mandates an eye for an eye type of fueding and defense of guests seeking asylum.
The code preceeded Islam and has withstood every attempt at modern corruption.
Understanding the code is how a few British officers were able to temporarily tame parts of the frontier and is the best hope for success in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yes, Pakistan. Because the terrain is human, Pathan, and not demarcated by an imaginary line.
And that is what Elphinstone understood 200 years ago that we need to understand today.
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