This thread is my own thoughts, rather than an article. I’m not sure if it is about Politics or culture since it touches on both.
One thing that I’ve seen certain people on Gupshup constantly try and call out is that Pakhtuns are different to other Pakistani ethnic groups, due to their warrior ethos being contrasted with the merchant, commercial ethos of other Pakistani groups. In fact, some have tried to invent and drive wedges between Pakhtuns and other Pakistani ethnic groups by implying that this makes Pakhtuns a very different people from other Pakistanis.
But as I was looking at the news this week, I noticed a clear contrast between the situation in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In Iraq, urban Arabs, fighting without safe havens, have killed well over 2000 US and white soldiers, (and that’s just thenumber they’ve admitted), and the US is in disarray with calls for withdrawal, military officials sounding anything but optimistic, and everyone in the world aware that the USA is failing spectacularly.
In Afghanistan, however, the US is allied with the non-Pakhtun Afghans and is fighting in the most heavily Pakhtun-dominated regions. Yet the fight there seems to be going nowhere near as badly for the USA. Aside from constantly complaining that Pakistan is doing not enough to help, the USA does not seem to be overly worried abour Afghanistan like it is in Iraq. Not as many white or even Afghan soldiers are dying, attacks are not reported to be happening as frequently as in Iraq, and things are going much more according to the US plan than in Iraq.
In fact, at seems that 30,000 urban Iraqi arabs are putting up a much stiffer fight that the Pakhtun populated regions that the US and its allied are using military force in in Afghanistan.
Which begs the question - are we seeing a revolution in Pakhtun ethos? Is the Warrior ethos reduced to just a minority of Pakhtun society across Pakistan and Afghanistan? Is the Merchant ethos taking route instead … has the exposure to Pakistani society over the past couple of decades been changing the values of rural Pakhtuns such that they are becoming more focused on commercialism and prosperity rather than combat?
I remember in 2001 when the USA was going into Afghanistan, I foretold that they would suffer terrible casualties because the Afghans (and I meant the Pakhtuns) never took being conquered lightly. When there wasn’t a much of a fight put up for more than a couple of months, I initially attributed it to the USA’s technological superiority and thought that no amount of bravery could defeat that technology.
But then Iraq happened. With the USA having even more sophisticated technology at their hands, they still struggled to put down an arab revolt from a people who have no warrior history, and yet seem more committed to fighting occupation than to prospering.
Are Iraq’s Arabs the new Pakhtuns of the 21st century? And are Pakhtuns in Afghanistan and Pakistan being heavily integrated into the values of their surrounding ethnic groups such that in a few more decads the Warrior ethos will be history?