Source: Mohammad Enam Wak
WAK Foundation
Email: abdaliwak[at]yahoo.com

Mohammad Enam Wak is the author of the "History of Pashto" section. Hence all credit goes to him and if you have any question he will be pleased to answer them through his email.
 

The Third Evolutionary Phase of Afghan Nationalism

It was Pakhtoon “Nationalism”, rather than Islam that served as the basis for the centralization of political power in Afghanistan. Pakhto language, Pakhtoon culture and values, not Islam, became the corner stone of Afghan nationalism 63.

Later two non-adherent and external factors, Islam and the Persian language entered the Afghan culture and contributed in complementing the Afghan nationalism. This alteration came towards the end of the 19 th century and continued until 1964 and even up to 1978.

Common economic interests, shared history, Islam, Pakhto and Persian as national and official languages of Afghanistan, constituted the basis of a political and national unity in the country.

With the second Pakhtoon nationalism that framed the Afghanistan political geography, in addition to Pakhtana, other non-Pakhtana ethnic groups were also mixed in the Afghan context. With the participation of all ethnic groups in loose social, economic and cultural affairs Pakhtoon nationalism developed in to a weak Afghan nationalism.

Based on the political geography, Afghanistan was confined within its natural boundaries in the east by the Indus and in the north by Oxus rivers and took rather a natural geographical shape of the country.

Looking at the ethnic composition and proportion of different clans and tribes in the country, Pakhtana as part of the Aryan race had settled in the north long ago. During the 19 th and 20 th century new settlement of Pakhtana took place by the then governments or voluntarily in nomadic or sedentary forms which improved the ecological balance. This contributed to the growth of Afghan nationalism in the country.

But, Afghan nationalism was yet immature when in 1893 the inherited remaining Afghanistan from the second Pakhtoon nationalism was further divided and more land was cut from it leaving smaller political unit. With the Durand line more than half of the population and land was separated from it and a landlocked artificial country was formed. All its characteristic including language, culture, economy and politics were gravely affected. The different ethnic groups were not yet fused well into the Afghan context when its geography was cut off forming a mini political country. The nationalism and national ideology did not yield appropriate results and every field of the national life was immature.

How every, by the mid-1960s Afghanistan’s principles economic and political regions were linked by a system of all-season road. Regular air service and telecommunications made possible effective supervision of sub provincial agencies. A simultaneous expansion of the education system quickly produced a new generation of officials, which was employed to bring the towns and many villages to the threshold of a largely foreign-supported modernization process.

Furthermore, introduction of Tazkiras (photo-identity card) in the 1940s, tax collection by the government, expanding cultural propaganda programs by Radio Afghanistan, reinforcement of linkage between the government and population by the holing of generally open election for parliament in 1965 and 1969 64, and many other developmental projects implemented in different sectors, as steps for state building in Afghanistan, made various ethnic groups closer to one another and relatively stabled the Afghan nationalism.

As the third attempt for the evolution of the Afghan nationalism, Pakhtoonwali entered a significant era, this requires a separate study.