Afghan Culture Quotes

When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it’s not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It’s not about the burqa. It’s about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems.

even if Noam Chomsky were right about everything, the Islamic doctrines related to martyrdom, jihad, blasphemy, apostasy, the rights of women and homosexuals, etc. would still present huge problems for the emergence of a global civil society (and these are problems quite unlike those presented by similar tenets in other faiths, for reasons that I have explained at length elsewhere and touch on only briefly here). And any way in which I might be biased or blinded by “the religion of the state,” or any other form of cultural indoctrination, has absolutely no relevance to the plight of Shiites who have their mosques, weddings, and funerals bombed by Sunni extremists, or to victims of rape who are beaten, imprisoned, or even killed as “adulteresses” throughout the Muslim world. I hope it goes without saying that the Afghan girls who even now are risking their lives by merely learning to read would not be best compensated for their struggles by being handed copies of Chomsky’s books enumerating the sins of the West

No one is born with the Warrior Ethos, though many of its tenets appear naturally in young men and women of all cultures. The Warrior Ethos is taught. On the football field in Topeka, in the mountains of the Hindu Kush, on the lion-infested plains of Kenya and Tanzania. Courage is modeled for the youth by fathers and older brothers, by mentors and elders. It is inculcated, in almost all cultures, by a regimen of training and discipline. This discipline frequently culminates in an ordeal of initiation. The Spartan youth receives his shield, the paratrooper is awarded his wings, the Afghan boy is handed his AK-47.

Still, almost seven years since this notion of democracy was thrust into Afghanistan, many Afghans, especially the young ones, saw it as a veneer for "anything goes," for sex, drugs, and booze, and music about sex, drugs, and booze. Freedom was just another word for losing yourself in excess. I tried to do stories on this culture clash whenever I could, seeing it as a way to write about how Afghans lived, not just how they died.

The Afghans whom Yousaf trained uniformly denounced suicide attack proposals as against their religion. It was only the Arab volunteers—from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Algeria, and other countries, who had been raised in an entirely different culture, spoke their own language, and preached their own interpretations of Islam while fighting far from their homes and families—who later advocated suicide attacks. Afghan jihadists, tightly woven into family, clan, and regional social networks, never embraced suicide tactics in significant numbers.18

It is also interesting to note that the greatest grammarian in Sanskrit (indeed possibly in any language), namely Pāṇini, who systematized and transformed Sanskrit grammar and phonetics around the fourth century BCE, was of Afghan origin (he describes his village on the banks of the river Kabul).

If Beirut was the supermarket of the left in the 1970s, where Marxists, communists, Egyptians, Iraqis, and all the Palestinian factions debated and theorized, published and drank in bars arguing over ideas and the fought in the streets, Peshawar was the supermarket of the Islamists in the 1980s without drinking: there the discussions were about Islamic law, fatwas, the war of the believers, the unity of the Muslim nation, and the humanitarian needs of Afghan refugees.

The only thing I can’t figure out is why you still eat the food your captors fed you. Why don’t you hate it as much as you hate them?” Fila glanced down at her plate. It contained a strange mixture of Afghan and Mexican dishes. She held up a flatbread. “This isn’t Taliban food—it’s Afghan food. It’s my mother’s food. I grew up eating it before I was ever captured. To me it means love and tenderness, not hate and violence.” “Taliban, Afghan—it’s all the same.” She waved the bread. “No, it’s not. Not one bit. Afghan culture is over two thousand years old. And it’s a conservative culture—it’s had to be—but it’s not a culture of monsters. Afghans are people like you, Holt. They’re born, they grow up, they live and love and they die just like we do. I didn’t study much history before I was taken, but I know this much. America’s story is that of the frontier—of always having room to grow. Afghanistan’s story is that of occupation. By the Russians, the British, the Mongols—even the ancient Greeks. On and on for century after century. Imagine all those wars being fought in Montana. Foreign armies living among us, taking over your ranch, stealing everything you own, killing your wife and children, over and over and over again.” She paused to catch her breath. “Death is right around the corner for them—all the time. Is it any wonder that a movement that turns men into warriors and codes everything else into rigid rules might seem like the answer?” She still wasn’t sure if Holt was following her. What analogy would make sense to him? She wracked her brain. “If a bunch of Californians overran Chance Creek and forced everyone to eat tofu, would you refuse to ever eat steak again?” He made a face. “Of course not!” “Then imagine the Taliban are the Californians, forcing everyone to eat tofu. And everyone does it because they don’t know what else to do. They still love steak, but they will be severely punished if they eat it—so will their families. That’s what it’s like for many Afghans living under Taliban control. It’s not their choice. They still love their country. They still love their heritage. That doesn’t mean they love the group of extremists who have taken over.” “Even if those Taliban people went away, they still wouldn’t be anything like you and me.” Holt crossed his arms. Fila suppressed a smile at his inclusion of her. That was a step in the right direction even if the greater message was lost on him. “They’re more like you than you think. Defensive. Angry. Always on the lookout for trouble.” Holt straightened. “I have four sons. Of course I’m on the lookout for trouble.” “They have sons, too.” She waited to see if he understood. Holt shook his head. “We’re going to see different on this one. But I understand about the food. Everyone likes their mother’s cooking best.” He surveyed her plate. “You got any more of that bread?” She’d take that as a victory.

What is soft power? It is the ability to get what you want through attraction rather than coercion or payments. It arises from the attractiveness of a country’s culture, political ideals, and policies. When our policies are seen as legitimate in the eyes of others, our soft power is enhanced. America has long had a great deal of soft power. Think of the impact of Franklin Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms in Europe at the end of World War II; of young people behind the Iron Curtain listening to American music and news on Radio Free Europe; of Chinese students symbolizing their protests in Tiananmen Square by creating a replica of the Statue of Liberty; of newly liberated Afghans in 2001 asking for a copy of the Bill of Rights; of young Iranians today surreptitiously watching banned American videos and satellite television broadcasts in the privacy of their homes. These are all examples of America’s soft power. When you can get others to admire your ideals and to want what you want, you do not have to spend as much on sticks and carrots to move them in your direction. Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive. As General Wesley Clark put it, soft power “gave us an influence far beyond the hard edge of traditional balance-of-power politics.” But attraction can turn to repulsion if we act in an arrogant manner and destroy the real message of our deeper values.

Why were the Jews so restless? It was not because they were a difficult, warlike, tribal and essentially backward society, like the Parthians, who gave the Romans constant trouble on the eastern fringe, rather as the Pathans and Afghans worried the British on the North-West Frontier of India. On the contrary: the real trouble with the Jews was that they were too advanced, too intellectually conscious to find alien rule acceptable. The Greeks had faced the same problem with Rome. They had solved it by submitting physically and taking the Romans over intellectually. Culturally, the Roman empire was Greek, especially in the East. Educated people spoke and thought in Greek, and Greek modes set the standards in art and architecture, drama, music and literature. So the Greeks never had any sense of cultural submission to Rome.

Over the next 300 years, the Afro-Asian giant swallowed up all the other worlds. It consumed the Mesoamerican World in 1521, when the Spanish conquered the Aztec Empire. It took its first bite out of the Oceanic World at the same time, during Ferdinand Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, and soon after that completed its conquest. The Andean World collapsed in 1532, when Spanish conquistadors crushed the Inca Empire. The first European landed on the Australian continent in 1606, and that pristine world came to an end when British colonisation began in earnest in 1788. Fifteen years later the Britons established their first settlement in Tasmania, thus bringing the last autonomous human world into the Afro-Asian sphere of influence. It took the Afro-Asian giant several centuries to digest all that it had swallowed, but the process was irreversible. Today almost all humans share the same geopolitical system (the entire planet is divided into internationally recognised states); the same economic system (capitalist market forces shape even the remotest corners of the globe); the same legal system (human rights and international law are valid everywhere, at least theoretically); and the same scientific system (experts in Iran, Israel, Australia and Argentina have exactly the same views about the structure of atoms or the treatment of tuberculosis). The single global culture is not homogeneous. Just as a single organic body contains many different kinds of organs and cells, so our single global culture contains many different types of lifestyles and people, from New York stockbrokers to Afghan shepherds. Yet they are all closely connected and they influence one another in myriad ways. They still argue and fight, but they argue using the same concepts and fight using the same weapons. A real ‘clash of civilisations’ is like the proverbial dialogue of the deaf. Nobody can grasp what the other is saying. Today when Iran and the United States rattle swords at one another, they both speak the language of nation states, capitalist economies, international rights and nuclear physics.

In midsummer Cip Jungberg, the second USAID officer for the district, arrived. As Antoine Huss left, the district needed two officers to work there, plus Mohammad Zahir, our local cultural advisor-cum-interpreter. Cip, who was from North Dakota, had worked on a provincial reconstruction team in Iraq, knew plenty about working in war zones, and had good ideas about developing new businesses. With a wiry beard, a wry sense of humor, and midwestern common sense, Cip was an immediate hit with the Afghans, who were impressed by his empathy and willingness to try anything at least once to get results and back them

April 27, 1978 coup that overthrew Mohammad Daoud's government ans led to the onset of the Afghan civil war. The communists cast the war as a fight of liberation against feudalism, armed opposition to powerful landowners (khans) who were exploiting the poor peasant-serfs (dehqan). The latter were, according to that narrative, subdued by religion and could not put up a fight for their rights. There was also a broader story as to how the Afghan communist movement was standing up to the preexisting regime's abuse and predation. .... On the opposing side were the mujahedin. They resisted what they perceived as a movement of forced modernization aiming to undermine Afghanistan's religion, culture, traditions, and family structure. They vehemently opposed a score of reforms the communists had tried to introduce, ranging from policies on land reform to education to family law. People were upset not only with the nature of the changes, but also with the style of their implementation. They joined the opposition willingly and in droves.

​I stood there, on the gatehouse with the floodplain of the Kahan River in front of me and with raindrops softly pocking the stone parapet around my feet, and I looked and I thought.  Pakistan is a complex land, far more complex than its portrayal in the media would suggest, and Rohtas is the perfect example of its convoluted, tangled past.  It was built by a Pashtun hailing from the other side of the subcontinent in order to prevent a deposed fellow Muslim ruler from returning from exile and to keep another Muslim tribe suppressed and docile.  It contains the private residence of a later Moghul Emperor’s Hindu general and an abandoned Hindu temple, all but swallowed up by an encroaching jungle, and was later captured by the Sikhs who ruled over a large swathe of what is now Pakistan from 1799 to 1849; the nearby gurdwara testified to their presence.  Even the style of the fort’s construction told the same story: it contained elements of Persian, Afghan, Hindu and Turkish architectural forms.  The fort is a relic from a previous era, a time before the concept of the nation-state, a time when empires rose and fell, when warlords could carve out kingdoms for themselves which might last for a decade or for three centuries, a time of profound cultural and religious ferment.

Islamism demanded no less of a root-and-branch overhaul of society. But because it was cloaked in religious garb, no one quite knew what to do with it, and people were desperate not to offend. There was confusion over whether to define our activism as a cultural identity, an ideology or a faith. To top it off, Islamism went through a decade of being embraced by both the left and right wings. The default left-leaning liberal position was to embrace the movement as part of multicultural sensitivity: to tell people to stop practising their faith was imperialism in nineties clothing, a colonial hangover bordering on racism. Instead, we were embraced as a new generation of anti-colonial politicised youth. Curiously, the default position on the right was to embrace us too, because it had been the Afghan Mujahideen, backed by the CIA, who fought the Soviet Union. Lest we forget, this was when Hollywood films such as Stallone’s Rambo 3 portrayed the Afghan Mujahideen as heroes.

But what Afghanistan needs is a big dose of Jesus. Western culture will leave Afghans feeling as empty as they were before. Maybe their lifestyle will improve, but without Christ they will still die in their sin and go straight to hell. Jesus' message of real freedom is what is needed—in a hurry. The pure gospel that sets us free from our personal sin is the only thing that will revolutionize Afghanistan. McDonald's won't. Don't get me wrong. I love a Big Mac, but the church is the one with all the answers. Western culture without Jesus Christ in the middle of it will not deliver what it promises. Americans can testify to this.

For the CSTs, who were busy getting used to their unusual new assignment, the ideal “terp” was a female who understood Pashtun culture; spoke American English as well as they did; grasped how special operations functioned; could relate to and connect with Afghan women and children in a hot moment; embraced the women’s mission; was athletic enough to keep up with the Ranger men while wearing body armor; and could speak most dialects of Pashto. Ashley

Rapid attempts at reforming society and culture were met with great resistance and fury aimed at the government for again issuing decrees to ban child marriage and the lucrative trading of women and girls, and for stating that no women should be sold for marriage, or married against her will. Once more tribal men saw the risk of losing both cash and influence. If women were to be educated and work outside the home, they would “dishonor” their families by being seen in public and potentially develop other, even more subversive ideas. And who would care for the children if women took over the tasks of men? Society would undoubtedly fall apart. Worst of all, another proposed decree would allow women to initiate divorce more easily. Clearly, foreign influence brought decadence and subverted Afghan traditions. The reforms were declared un-Islamic by many religious mullahs.

Tajiks are Afghan Persians, who speak the language of culture and education, Dari. Many suspect the Pashtun government is plotting against them, while Pashtuns accuse Karzai of capitulating to the Tajiks.

AMERICA IS DOING OKAY ONCE THESE WHITE RACIST BITCHES WHO ARE DOMESTIC TERRORIST TERRORIZING THE POPULACE THE WORLD THEIR FUCKED HEADS CANT CONTEND WITH ONCE THESE WHITE WOMEN MEN START TO DO SOMETHING SANE THEN YOU KNOW YOURE COMPLETELY FUCKED IN AMERICA UNTIL THEN FIGHT FOR MORE DEMOCRATIC HEALTHIER STANCES. WHEN THEY GO SANE DO AS THE AFGHAN PEOPLE DID AND ITS TIME TO RUN FOR THE EXIT SIGN

The savarnas constructed all sorts of mythologies: of chivalry, of ideals. What was the outcome? A defeated social order in the clutches of hopelessness, poverty, illiteracy, narrow-mindedness, religious inertia, and priestocracy, a social order embroiled in ritualism, which, fragmented, was repeatedly defeated by the Greeks, Shakas, Huns, Afghans, Moghuls, French, and English. Yet in the name of their valor and their greatness, savarnas kept hitting the weak and the helpless. Kept burning homes. Kept insulting women and raping them. To drown in self-praise and turn away from the truth, to not learn from history—what sort of a nation-building are they dreaming of?

This country was built by refugees. And yet look how it has advanced, look how it has developed! ... Here, where people from many cultures, many religions, and many parts of the planet have come together, they have built such an advanced society. It amazes me. ... Why has America done so well?

the Seths had chosen their man well: Aliverdi proved to be a popular and cultured ruler; he was also an extremely capable one. It was his bravery, persistence and military genius which had succeeded in keeping the Maratha invasions at bay, something few other Mughal generals had ever succeeded in doing. He managed this partly by simple military efficiency, but also by ruthless cunning: in 1744, he lured Bhaskar Pandit and his Maratha officers into negotiations, and used the occasion to have his Afghan general, Mustafa Khan, assassinate the entire Maratha leadership in the tent where the peace negotiations were to take place. In Murshidabad,

It took eleven weeks to organize the hunt for Osama bin Laden. When that hunt began in earnest, I was in eastern Afghanistan, in and around Jalalabad, where I had traveled on five trips over the years. An old acquaintance named Haji Abdul Qadir had just reclaimed his post as the provincial governor, two days after the fall of the Taliban. Haji Qadir was an exemplar of Afghan democracy. A well-educated and highly cultured Pathan tribal leader in his early sixties, a wealthy dealer in opium and weapons and other basic staples of the Afghan economy, he had been a CIA-supported commander in the fight against the Soviet occupation, the governor of his province from 1992 to 1996, and a close associate of the Taliban in their time. He personally welcomed Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and helped him establish a compound outside Jalalabad. Now he welcomed the American occupation. Haji Qadir was a good host. We walked in the gardens of the governor’s palace, through swayback palms and feathery tamarisks. He was expecting a visit from his American friends any day now, and he was looking forward to the renewal of old ties and the ritual exchange of cash for information.

On May 12, 2011, Bordin published a seventy-page paper titled “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility.” It provided a raw, highly detailed account of estrangement between American and Afghan allies.

Elphinstone perceived flaws in the Afghan character, such as tendencies toward envy, avarice, discord, and revenge. Nevertheless, he saw much to admire, including their “lofty, martial spirit,” hospitality, and honesty, as well as their fondness for liberty. “They have also a degree of curiosity,” he wrote, “which is a relief to a person habituated to the apathy of the Indians.” He found the Afghans apprehensive of cultural assimilation by the Persians and said their sentiments toward that more advanced, if effete, civilization “greatly resemble those which we discovered some years ago towards the French.” He noted in addition: “I know no people in Asia who have fewer vices, or are less voluptuous or debauched.” But in this initial British examination of the country, Elphinstone summarized its enduring problem: “There is reason to fear that the societies into which the nation is divided, possess within themselves a principle of repulsion and disunion, too strong to be overcome, except by such a force as, while it united the whole into one solid body, would crush and obliterate the features of every one of the parts.

In c. 1700 BC, another group of Indie speakers settled in south Afghanistan and took to the composition of the Ṛgvedic hymns in the region between the Helmand and the Arghandab. We have shown that the description of Sarasvatī and Sarayu in the Ṛgveda, and even sūtra literature, fits the Afghan rivers Helmand and Hari-rud better than any river in India. In c. 1400 BC, the Ṛgvedic people moved eastwards to the middle Indus. Eventually, they absorbed the Cemetery H people to found the Painted Grey Ware culture in c. 850 BC in Punjab and on the upper Ghaggar. The Vedic people remained to the west of the Yamuna-Ganga doab until c. 850 BC. The large-scale settlement of the Ganga Plain took place only when the use of iron became widespread and, perhaps, when population increased. During their migrations, the Indo-Aryans carried with them not only their poetry and religious beliefs, but also place and river names which they selectively reused. (Table 15)

One Life: An Afghan Remembers is a fascinating memoir... offers insight into the history, culture, religion, education, and language that help to explain why contemporary Afghanistan is so complex.

Even before the first Soviet tanks crossed into Afghanistan in 1979, a movement of Islamists had sprung up nationwide in opposition to the Communist state. They were, at first, city-bound intellectuals, university students and professors with limited countryside appeal. But under unrelenting Soviet brutality they began to forge alliances with rural tribal leaders and clerics. The resulting Islamist insurgents—the mujahedeen—became proxies in a Cold War battle, with the Soviet Union on one side and the United States, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia on the other. As the Soviets propped up the Afghan government, the CIA and other intelligence agencies funneled millions of dollars in aid to the mujahedeen, along with crate after crate of weaponry. In the process, traditional hierarchies came radically undone. When the Communists killed hundreds of tribal leaders and landlords, young men of more humble backgrounds used CIA money and arms to form a new warrior elite in their place. In the West, we would call such men “warlords.” In Afghanistan they are usually labeled “commanders.” Whatever the term, they represented a phenomenon previously unknown in Afghan history. Now, each valley and district had its own mujahedeen commanders, all fighting to free the country from Soviet rule but ultimately subservient to the CIA’s guns and money. The war revolutionized the very core of rural culture. With Afghan schools destroyed, millions of boys were instead educated across the border in Pakistani madrassas, or religious seminaries, where they were fed an extreme, violence-laden version of Islam. Looking to keep the war fueled, Washington—where the prevailing ethos was to bleed the Russians until the last Afghan—financed textbooks for schoolchildren in refugee camps festooned with illustrations of Kalashnikovs, swords, and overturned tanks. One edition declared: Jihad is a kind of war that Muslims fight in the name of God to free Muslims.… If infidels invade, jihad is the obligation of every Muslim. An American text designed to teach children Farsi: Tey [is for] Tofang (rifle); Javed obtains rifles for the mujahedeen Jeem [is for] Jihad; Jihad is an obligation. My mom went to the jihad. The cult of martyrdom, the veneration of jihad, the casting of music and cinema as sinful—once heard only from the pulpits of a few zealots—now became the common vocabulary of resistance nationwide. The US-backed mujahedeen branded those supporting the Communist government, or even simply refusing to pick sides, as “infidels,” and justified the killing of civilians by labeling them apostates. They waged assassination campaigns against professors and civil servants, bombed movie theaters, and kidnapped humanitarian workers. They sabotaged basic infrastructure and even razed schools and clinics. With foreign backing, the Afghan resistance eventually proved too much for the Russians. The last Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, leaving a battered nation, a tottering government that was Communist in name only, and a countryside in the sway of the commanders. For three long years following the withdrawal, the CIA kept the weapons and money flowing to the mujahedeen, while working to block any peace deal between them and the Soviet-funded government. The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency pushed the rebels to shell Afghan cities still under government control, including a major assault on the eastern city of Jalalabad that flattened whole neighborhoods. As long as Soviet patronage continued though, the government withstood the onslaught. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, however, Moscow and Washington agreed to cease all aid to their respective proxies. Within months, the Afghan government crumbled. The question of who would fill the vacuum, who would build a new state, has not been fully resolved to this day.