Afghan ethnic groups at Taliban’s mercy

Mahmoud al-Batakoushi

A state of fear and anticipation is being experienced by the ethnic minorities and components of Afghan society after the Taliban took control of the country, as those minorities suffered scourges during the movement’s first mandate, when they came to power in 1996 until they were removed by the international coalition forces in 2001.

These fears were reinforced by the fact that the movement, according to Amnesty International, tortured and killed a number of ethnic minorities after the recent invasion of their villages, especially in the village of Mundarakht in Ghazni province, where six Hazara people were killed, while three were tortured to death, which confirms that the Afghan people are facing difficult days and that the Taliban has not learned from its previous failure.

Afghans fear a return to the Taliban rule of the late 1990s, when the movement largely forced women to stay in their homes, banned television and music, cut off the hands of suspected thieves, and carried out public executions.

Afghan society, with its various sects and ethnic components, also fears that the Taliban will focus on its ethnic Pashtuns as the most numerous in forming the government and gaining various privileges, ignoring the rest of the ethnic, national, religious and sectarian minorities in Afghanistan, including the Tajiks, Hazaras, Uzbeks, Baluchis and others.

Despite the Taliban’s control of the country and the departure of the American forces, the matter will not settle for the movement as long as it ignores the national and sectarian pluralism, as the policy of exclusion will lead the country to unrest, conflicts and countless internal and external wars, as if this country was destined to always be an arena for settling accounts and open disputes regionally and internationally, just as happened during the Taliban’s first emirate.

It is noteworthy that last year, Afghanistan ranked fourth as the most dangerous country in the world in the Peoples Under Threat index prepared by Minority Rights Group International, which stated that all ethnic groups in the country are at risk of systematic violent persecution and mass killing.

Most prominent components of Afghan society

Pashtuns: They are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and make up more than 42% of the population, to which the Taliban belong. This predominantly Sunni and Pashto-speaking group has dominated Afghan political institutions since the eighteenth century, and over the years many Pashtun leaders have stressed their right to rule Afghanistan, which has angered other ethnic groups, particularly in the south and east of the country, due to their political, economic and cultural marginalization.

Tajiks: They are the second largest ethnic group in the country and make up more than a quarter of the population. The main language used by the Tajiks is a branch of the Persian language called Dari, which is also a lingua franca in Afghanistan. The group is distributed mainly in the north and west of the country and has strongholds in the Panjshir Valley, Herat city and some northern provinces.

The Panjshir Valley is famous for its resistance not only to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, but also against the former Taliban regime, which it still fiercely resists. The area was recently resorted to by former Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh, accompanied by Ahmad Masoud, the son of Ahmad Shah Massoud, known as the Lion of Panjshir. They called on the Afghans to rise up and resist the Taliban in case the negotiations fail. Massoud hopes that negotiations will provide for “the adoption of decentralization of governance to achieve a system that guarantees social justice, equality, rights and freedom for all.”

Hazara: This community constitutes 10% of the population of Afghanistan and is concentrated in the center of the country. They speak Dari, and the majority of them are Shiite Muslims. This group has faced violent persecution and discrimination on the basis of religion and ethnicity for more than a century, and massacres have been carried out under various Afghan governments in recent decades, especially under the rule of the Taliban, who are extremist Sunni Muslims who have branded Shiites as infidels.

Afghan Uzbeks: They make up 10% of the population and are concentrated mainly in the north of the country near the border with Uzbekistan. They are among the Turkic-speaking peoples, most of whom are Sunni Muslims.

It is noteworthy that Afghanistan includes 12 other ethnic groups, including the Bedouin Aimaq, the Turkmen and the Baluch, as well as the Nuristani people in northeastern Afghanistan.