Putting Two and Two Together...

Everyone has heard a lot about Afghanistan in recent years. I am amazed, however, at a couple of things that we have heard little or nothing about. During the course of my readings, beginning with Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics, I came to understand much more about this country that has been roped backwards so many times that today it is tied up in knots. I didn't begin this effort in hopes of delivering a history lesson with each post, but here goes, because I think this is really important to understanding Afghan pride and persuasions.

We all know that before the rise of the diabolical Taliban, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and effectively buried the country. The biggest thing I don't remember ever reading about in the newspaper or hearing on TV is that prior to the Soviets, the British invaded Afghanistan. More than once. Three times, actually. These incursions and their ensuing casualties were significant enough to warrant names: the First, Second, and Third Anglo-Afghan Wars. All were fought between about 1839-1919, and the Afghans effectively ousted the British each time.

Let me say that again: in three successive wars, the people of Afghanistan defeated the mighty British military three times. At the time, the British were the most formidable force in the world. Imagine the pride and the ferocity of spirit that Afghans must have felt after driving out those powerful white colonialists three times!

The media only seems to discuss the Soviet invasion, which makes sense in many ways. The Soviet occupation was the most recent "outside" involvement in Afghanistan; it was devastating; and as Americans we readily subscribe to any example of communist failure. Discussing the British failure in Afghanistan, on the other hand, is an entirely different story. Nobody is eager to reminisce about the Brits, those good old chaps, our partners in the War on Terror and Allied friends for a century, going home with their coattails between their knobby knees. Like it or not, that did happen; and it is critical to understanding the state of Afghanistan as it is today!

One of the greatest problems facing coalition forces in Afghanistan is the fact that so many members of al-Qaeda, including Osama himself, have gone into hiding. We know that many terrorists are harbored in neighboring Pakistan. We blame this on Pakistani military and government duplicity, and to some degree this is certainly true.

What we fail to realize, however, is that crossing the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan has been a shady yet common excursion for decades, and in large part it is due to nineteenth-century British policy. The border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is called the Durand Line, and it was drawn in 1893 before Pakistan was even a country (at the time, the line separated Afghanistan and what was then India). The British drew the line, and it completely divided the largest demographic ethnicity in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns. Speculation states that the British divided the Pashtuns intentionally to thwart any potential uprising from this large ethnic nation.

Afghanistan notes that when British India achieved independence and was broken up into two countries (India and Pakistan), the British offered the Pashtuns on the Indian side of the Durand Line “the sole choice of joining one of the successor powers, India or Pakistan, and rejected that there also should be the choice of…union with Afghanistan…The Afghans protested vigorously and, when their protests went unheeded, achieved the distinction of being the only country to vote against Pakistan’s admission to the United Nations (p. 147).” There actually was (and presumably still is, although it is clear today which state is more powerful) great animosity between Afghanistan and Pakistan, contrary to our perception that they work together so collusively.

What does all of this mean to us, as Americans, today? Well, for a fiercely independent people like the Afghans, the mere presence of a line drawn on a map wasn’t going to deter them from visiting their fellow Pashtuns in Pakistan or vice versa. They crossed over regardless of the British line of demarcation, and it seems that neither government really enforced its boundaries. Over the years, the local people grew intimately familiar with the mountain passes and tunnels across the so-called border. Afghanistan’s endless state of war and oppression in recent decades hasn’t helped, either; even as Pakistan sought to guard the border more readily, thousands upon thousands of Afghan refugees desperately sought refuge with Pashtun friends and family on the other side, and risked their lives to learn more intimately the most remote and secret paths across.

It has been really frustrating to many Americans that we cannot seem to catch Osama bin Laden and more of the Taliban, who are largely Pashtun; but when you look at it in a historical context, it’s easy to understand why. In large part, the Western world (our dear Brits) had a lot to do with creating this disastrous web of communication and cartography; the Soviets exacerbated it; and now we must work to untangle what we can.