Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
PP: If one group has such a strong rigid concept of what is a pakistani ..I would imagine that automatically makes that group attached to the country.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
So, its not about culture, its about ethnicity. Punjabis have a huge influence from India, ethinically and culturally, but that doesnt mean we are Indian. We also have genetic lines from Central Asia and Iran and Middle East. Even Indian culture you know is influenced by Iran and Central Asia. The Mughals were Central Asian you might recall. Akbar spoke Farsi!
Pasthuns to have alot of cultural influnces from India to. Afghanistan was once the center of Buddhism. This whole region, from India to Iran to Afghanistan have always been cuturally integrated, influencing each other heavily. You cant be so close to India without getting burned by it. And by the way, what wrong with having Indian culture?
You wrong if you think that Pashtuns are not influenced by India or vice versa. Pashtuns may not have been influneced as strongly, but that more due to the fact that they were always so independant and always at the edge of India instead of at the heart of it as Punjab was.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
No, they dont. Go talk to Punjabis, ask them what Pakistan.. You think they will tel its Punjab? That a load of crap bro. Punjab might dominate the country but its more due to their population, not some stated intent to Punjabify Pakistan. Punjabis do not associate themselves with Pakistan in the same way as Pashtuns associate themselves with Afghanistan. Its almost like Afghanistan is the Pashtun Mecca…
Pashtuns are far more possesive of Afghainstan, and not in a good way..
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
I am sorry PP but Pakistan is very much under the influence of Punjab..anti Indianism is very Much a Punjabi issue as is Kashmir..almost all the political and economic development of Pakistan since 1973 has been lopsided towards the Punjab. This does not mean all Punjabis have benefitted from Pakistan obviously but anyone who thinks Punjab does not define Pakistan is obviously in denial..
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
There is nothing wrong with Indian culture. We Pashtun and Baluch are culturally Afghan and therefore we think different than the people who are culturally Indians. It is just a bad marriage.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Dude, in Afghanistan, Uzbeks are culturaly Uzbek, Hazara are ethnically Hazara. Same thing in India, Punjbis are ethinically Punjabi, Gujrati are Gujrati. This is called diversity. Afghanstan isnt a very good marriage of cultures either. You have had a entire civil war for god sakes! And I dont think you are that distict from Indians as you claim.
And your forgeting basic human psychology. People even iff they were all homogenous, would find a reason to distiniguish themselves.
If you had only Pashtuns for example, those Pasthuns would seperate themselves along tribes, and sub tribes, and clans, and families, and then cliques etc. Point is, people just need a reason to isolate themselves from the majority.
Point is, its not a bad marriage, its just that Pathans dont want to live with us for their own reasons...
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
I dont agree with you on the Punjab is only one to have a problem with India statement. Musharaf is not Punjabi. Ayub Khan was not Punjabi, neither was Yahya Khan I believe. I personally know a good number of Pathans who are very negative towards India. I will give you another ancedote from my own life as an example. We once had two guests over to our house. One was this Pathan and the other a Hindu Indian. No the Pathan person assumed the Indian was actually Pakistani, and when somehow we got to the topic of India, the Pathan person said quote “Lets not talk about India, I hate them.”
Ofcourse this was really quite embarrasing for us and our Indian guest but then what could we do.
Now you can say that this is an individual thing, and I agree with you. But then not all Pashtuns have a problem with India, but then some do. Same with Punjabis. I know some Punabis who could care less. I personally do care because I just do, not because im Punjabi, but because Im a patriotic Pakistani who see’s Kashmir as a horrible injustice.
And I still dont think you get the point here. Maybe Punjab has benefited most economically for the past 20 years but your being over simplistic and perhaos naive. Punjab is the base of the Army which has ruled supreme in Pak. So due to lack of democracy, the army being in power has made the biggest impact on Punjabs economy. Many soldiers from my area for exampe used their money to educate their kids and develop their towns etc.
Also, NWFP has had to deal the fallout of Afghan war first hand that had something to do with it. Also, Punjab was historically more deveopled even before Partition then the rest excpet for Karachi. We had a head start in industry and agriculture. Also, I think the fact that in the long term, punjab being less conservative, less tribal etc also helped. All this coupled with overwhelming majority that Punjabis helped put Punjab is the position it is.
But this still doesnt meean that Punjabis equate Pakistan with Punjab.
Why is it for example, that Punjabis are only allowed to speak Urdu, the national language in school? They do this without complaining, even though many of them would perfer to speak Punjabi? Why is that educated Punjabis speak English or Urdu if Punjabis were so adamant of equating Pakistan with Punjab? You have no case here my friend!
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
im glad the politicians are thinkin' this through and they show rename not just NWFP but they should also work with tribal leaders for finding a name for FATA as well. Since the majority of the people in that province are Pashtuns/pathans.
Afghania sounds nice :)
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
One day my grandmother and 2 of my aunts came home with a bunch of stuff. They were so excited and happy that they called on the neighbor. When the neighbor women heard my grandmother’s calls they appeared from behind the wall and asked what was going on. Grandmother to our neighbor: “What are you doing home? Go.. go fast to the girls school. There people are giving away free pressure cooker, juicer, cooler…all you have to do is place your finger prints on some papers and they give you house hold appliance…go now before your men find out that you didn’t go…you’ll be in trouble”. My grandmother and my aunts didn’t know, they just voted for a local politician without even knowing that they did.
That is how you get the women in our areas to vote. For the men, it’s even easier: DRUM DRUM DRUM ALLAH IS CALLING YOU! DRUM DRUM DRUM ALLAH IS TESTING YOU! DRUM DRUM DRUM VOTE FOR MULANA HABIB JAAN AND YOU ARE VOTING FOR ALLAAAAH! DRUM DRUM DRUM! PAKISTAN KA MATLAB KYA LAILLAHAILLAH! DRUM DRUM DRUM! VOTE FOR ISLAM VOTE FOR PAKISTAN!
When they were creating Pakistan, the Pashtuns were told by our mullahs, ON ONE HAND YOU HAVE QURAN (PAKISTAN) AND ON THE OTHER YOU HAVE GITA (INDIA)! CAST YOUR VOTE!
Illiteracy amongst the people of NWFP is somewhere between 85 to 95%; religious zeal is something like over 200%. Yeah, that speaks volumes about how much they know about who and what they are voting for.
After recent events you can’t use Islam any more so no more DRUM DRUM DRUM ALLAH IS CALLING YOU this is why we see non-Pashtuns on this thread trying to greed Pashtuns in sticking with Pakistan…whats there in Afghanistan? All educated Pashtun knows what is there for them in Afghanistan. This is why some Pashtuns in the Pakistani army are investing in Afghanistan at the moment.
The Great Game OVER.
done with this thread.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
All Afghanis should run away from this website...& go to their Afghania website...Pakistani Pashtuns are "Pakistanis"...Rest is all crap...& No we don't like "Afghanistanis" in Pakistan ,not even as refugess,only & only if they want to live as Pakistanis...Pakistan is for Pakistanis & not for the people who don't want to accept themselves as Pakistanis...Refugees to a certain extent is alright...but 30 years & now claiming to be Afghanistani is ruthless...
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Pashtuns have nothing to do with Buddhism, just because there was a massive buddha in bamiyan, that doesnt mean 'pashtuns' were buddhists...read history and see that who were those who were buddhists, they had nothing to do with afghans/pashtuns. there is little if any indian culture within pashtun culture. maybe nowadays with westernisation and so on, pashtuns in the cities may be adopting some BS culture of indians like jehez, and other un-islamic cultures...but as for the rest most of what is practiced is totally different than indians. it is more similar to islamic culture, such as extreme hospitality, revenge, protection of a fellow muslim, struggling on the path of islam, not allowing women to be too exposed or mixing with non-mahrams, etc...of course pashtuns are not perfect, and they have bad in them also..
NWFP should become more conservative and islamic than it currently is, that will be better for the people..as we should not adopt western and un-islamic ways, but keep our ways. Our way of life is written for us in the Quran and Sunnah, we dont need to follow other ways. we dont need others to tell us not to follow islam, be a bit less conservative, who are you to say that? why you objecting to those following islam...if they tell their women to cover, that is an obligation. if they tell their people to fight for justice, that is extremism...if they tell their children and people to pray 5 times a day, what crime have they done? why do people force their children to read and write??? yet they cant make them pray and do good....for the worldly life people force, yet when it comes to islam NO, its totally extreme and all these excuses. role of those in authority is to ENFORCE laws. in the west, that is why they are successful. when somebody speeds, he pays a fine. its not he can choose to not pay, they FORCE him to pay...yet if somebody were to put a fine on illicit behaviours, people yell and say what is going on..
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Wake up, it’s over now..
Except for the Hazara people, the other ethnic groups of Afghanistan and NWFP-Baluchistan all have racial, cultural and linguistic similarities, they are far removed from most people on the eastern side of the river Indus in so many ways, they are related but it was so far back it’s negligible and now they are pretty different racially, culturally and linguistically.
Years ago the partailly Aryan descended ethnic groups of eastern Pakistan and northern Indian did come from Central Asia but they mixed with the natives and it was too long ago to matter.
Today the eastern side of Pakistan is Indian (which is a broad umbrella of different ethnicities), the western side of the Pakistan is more Central Asian, they go under the umbrella of Iranian (not specifically the present-day Persian country Iran)… Oh and by the way can we extend the border a few miles east of the Indus pleez? 
Oh and Mughals??? 
They treated Punjabis like crap, they didn’t even acknowledge them. They recruited Turks, Pukhtoons and Persians into their army and gave them goverment posts but not Punjabis..
About 5% of the genes in Punjabi people might be different from on Indian side but overall they’re the same. In fact we often mistake Sikhs for Muslims. Punjabi, Gujurati, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi are all related a lot more closely then they are to ethnicities on the western side of the Indus…
Quaid-e-‘Azam’ must have had some ulterior motives when creating Pakistan, most Pakis are no different from Indians, he contrasted Urdu culture (pretending it was Muslim culture) with Hindi culture (pretending it was synonomous to Hindu culture) and said we’re different when even in these two cultures the similarities are greater than differences.. In other ethnic groups the differences are even less my Gujarati friends always talk to Hindus in their own language, they have similar Garba (sp?) and food at parties, I know a migrant Indian Hindu Sindhi who still loves his language and goes to events arranged by Paki Muslims, Punjabis from Pak are suddenly feeling this affinity with their ethnic group across the border..
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Obviously, the bonds of ethnicity are stronger then the bonds of religion. Pakistan's dilema should be a great example to the khialafah, ummah type of people. Even the Taliban could never shake of their Pashtun origins in the name of Islam.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
^
It is Pakistan who has tarnished the concept of Islamic brotherhood, nobody else is to blame. Pakistan used and abused people (including the Pukhtoons and Taliban) in the name of Islamic brotherhood for its own vested interests and then did away with them like used condoms. Pakistan is a shame to the Islamic World first it was the genocide of innocent Bengalis and now Pukhtoons and nobody hears a thing about Pukhtoon genocide in the media, are they not human? Do they not have children, wives, parents and pets to go back home to?? Do not they bleed the same blood as the rest of us? Upto now I've been taking Pukhtoon hatred of Pakistan too personally but now that I think of it their greviances are genuine.
Another 1971 will happen Insha’Allah and Pukhtoons and Baluchis will be doing the right thing because Islamic brotherhood doesn’t mean letting your brothers treat you like a cum rag.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Fahad well there is nothing wrong with tribes and so on. People can live with eachother in harmony when they treat eachother equally, and follow islam. you see look at Pakistan, NWFP wants to be more islamic than others...yet they are not allowed, so why should a person in NWFP if he is not given rights and oppressed (like in waziristan) want to be part of Pakistan? Allah didnt say anything about being part of Pakistan.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
what sort of high quality crap is this…?
i you cant share any words of wisdom kindly refrain from sharing word of idiocy too.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Ok… Now the fact is that even I have some Pashtun or Central Asian and Persian in me. How much I have of India is probably about the same. Culturally we may be very similar to India because our Part of Pakistan was always part of India proper. The Mughals ruled from Delhi but they also controled Lahore. To equate cultural similarity to ethnic relation is stupid.
The Aryans came from Central Asia, but then so did other ethinc groups including Mughals. You also have people like the White Huns and a plethera of other tribal groups. So no, the mixing of Central Asians was not that long ago..
You can push the indus as far east as you want, point is, that Punjabis and Sindhis also have ethnic Persian in them to, so your point is still irelevent. 
As for Mughals, im not talking about how they treated Punjabis, your just useing that to cover up the fact that your to slow to come up with anything relevent to counter this point. Let me repeat, since the Mughals were of Central Asian descent, and they ruled all of India, their influence was over all of India including the NWFP, so thus the Afghans and Pasthns have something in comman through them and other conquerers with the rest of India including Pakistanis.
Still lets assume for a second that you do have a point, and we are too different, then how is Afghanistan a better choice? How much is similar between Pasthuns and the rest of the Afghan minority groups? Not much snce all they do is fight amongst each other. Perhaps that is the only similarity.. The tendancy to start shooting at the drop of a hat…
Honestly, I dont give a flying Sh1t about whether the Pashtuns want to be Pakistani or not. Your useing useless irrrelevent historical knowldge, and I use that word losely, to back something that wasnt even the point to begin with. Point is that the entire region is connected through the Mughals and the rest. Through them and other rulers, the entire region is connected. If your to stupid to see that then you need to go to a real school instead of your madrassa for a proper education 
. I gave my oppinion the rest is up to you. To be honest, if the Pasthuns want to join Afghanistan I suport them. I could care less where they go.
Im proud to be Pakistan, the rest of you can go to hell.. Thats all I have to say.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Let me give correct the figures.
Pashtun population of NWFP= 16 Millions
FATA=4 Millions
Karachi=1.1 Millions
Punjab=0.7 Millions
Interior Sindh=0.1 Millions
Baluchistan= 2.3 Millions
Moreover, the largest Pashtun City is Peshawar, where Pashtun Culture
prevails and which is home to about 1.2 Million Pashtuns. Moreover,
presenting Karachi as a proof of Pashtuns intergration into Pakistan is
holds no ground because, in Karachi they are a minority with no
economic, cultural, or political significance. Calling Karachi the
largest Pashtun is either non-sensical or aimed at misleading. Further,
these are not diasporas that decide the fate of nations but the
mainland people.
There are also more Muslim in Hindustan than in Pakistan.
Hindku-speakers are our brothers linked to us by ethnicity, culture,
geography, and shared interests. A lot of intermarriages are occuring
between them and Pashtuns and they are fastly being integrated into
Pashtun Culture, especially those of Kohat, Peshawar, and D.I. Khan. A
friend who recently visited India in a "Pakistan wafad" told me that
there was a special sense of affinity and shared identity among
Pashtuns and Hindku-speakers in India. And most of the Hindku speakers
are now either Pashto speakers or bi-lingual. Similarly, the Kohistani
speakers are also being fastly assimilated by Pashtuns. In the same way
people of Chitral and Pashtuns have a shared destiny because we
Pashtuns are their ONLY OUTLET to the south and they are our outlet to
the north.
This doesn't mean that I don't have respect for the culture and
languages of these communities. Their cultures must be preserved at all
costs but my point is, we have a shared destiney and they are as much
Pashtuns as others.
As for Afghanistan I cannot comment about Hazars and Uzbaks but Tajiks
and Pashtuns have lived together for millinia intermarrying and
accepting cultural influences from each other. Interestingly there are
more Tajiks in Afghanistan (about 7 millions) than in Tajakistan (5.3
millions). Today the biggest city of Tajiks is not Dushambe (pop. about
0.45 millions) north of Hindukush but Kabul (1.5 millions) south of
Hindkush, where Dari is prevalent and where they live together with
Pashtuns. There is a strong desire amongst Tajiks of Tajakistan to
look more towards the south than the north and to throw the yalk of
Russian domination off their necks.
There are a large number of Tajaks now Pashto speakers or bilingual and
there are a large number of Pashtuns that now Dari speakers or
bilingual. So is also true of Pashai and Nuristani people of
Afghanistan who are fastly becoming integrated with Pashtun people. In
short, the northerners ( the Dardic Pashais, Nuristanis, Chitralis, and
Hindku speakers) and north-westerners (Tajaks, Pashtuns) have a lot of
common ground to feel to be associated with each other.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Islamic brother hood is bullsh1t. You know as well as anyone else that given the choice between their Muslims brothers and a Pasthun tribesmen, a Pashtun would choose the tribesmen.
Re: Another attempt at NWFP name change..
Why are you people argueing.. If the Pastuns are truly in need of independance and they are the Warriors they claim to be, then why not fight for it? Im tired of all this we are supperior we are Afghan garbage. Lets see what you got!