Afghanistan’s Ethnic Groups

Now that the bombing is over and Osama and Omar have evacuated themselves, Afghanistan will once again recede from our mindset. But we still do not know Afghanistan. In an attempt to keep Afghanistan in focus and to understand it better, Himal presents a checklist of Afghan's ethnic groups. Adapted from the report Afghanistan: Minorities, Conflict and the Search for Peace  by Peter Marsden, published in November 2001

by Minority Rights Group International.

Pashtuns

The Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, occupy a belt of mountains that extends for much of the border with Pakistan, which has benefited their crossborder smuggling operations. In addition to occupying territory in the Registan Desert and around Kandahar, the Pashtuns also have a significant presence in the Helmand River valley, the Kabul River valley, and other scattered parts of Afghanistan's southeast. Pashtuns also own land in northern areas such as Kunduz, following a colonising process begun in the nineteenth century. By being able to draw primarily on irrigated wheat for their survival, they are at an advantage vis-avis other ethnic groups, which have to depend on a combination of rain-fed and irrigated wheat. The nomadic population of Afghanistan is predominantly Pashtun and there has been competition, historically, between these nomads and the Hazaras of central Afghanistan for control of pasturelands. Struggles for this land in the past two decades have alternated control between the nomads and the Hazaras. The Pashtuns organise their affairs through tribal and clan structures called Pushtunzvali, which puts a strong emphasis on tribal honour and revenge and places great restrictions on female mobility, including the institution of purdah.