The marvellous Afghanistan
Whenever we think we can no longer be surprised, we are always joked by our own self-conceit. And we must learn that painful lesson, there’s no room for arrogance in interpreting history. Plenty of illusions collapsed with the arrival of the third decade of the third millennium, be it the Brexit, a pandemic or Afghanistan. These are all events we can’t even imagine shortly before.
When I traveled through the country at years of 2009-2010 that was safe enough to travel. I have seen extreme poverty, but wherever I went warm hospitality waited me. Wherever I went, I never felt in danger. I did not experience hostility. I have been to eleven Afghan provinces, that is, more than most Afghans visit in their entire lives. Everything was very cheap. I was able to stay overnight in the tea houses almost for free, and sleep there. I was impressed with the country’s fascinating cultural, ethnic, denominational, geographical diversity. I fell in love with Afghanistan and I hope I’ll be back someday. However it seems unlikely in the near future or ever. Afghanistan looks like a new Somalia, another lost country to where foreigner will never venture to visit with very good chance.
What is happening in Afghanistan now is a nightmare. Although I have never had illusions about Afghanistan, I am still shocked by recent events. Everything happened at such a speed that I am still dizzy with. Walking the old town of Herat, the Shahr-e Naw park and the Chicken street of Kabul, passing the mountain trails of Badakhshan, visiting a very remote village of Ghor and Bamyan, the sight of the Afghan national tricolor burned into my mind. This became inseparable from the landscape. It’s very surreal feeling.
It is shocking to see the black and white flags of Islamists in the news and imagining them in these epic places. The flag, which doesn’t even contain colors, is just a black writing on a white background. It is a purely ideological symbol that is foreign to the soul of the Afghan people. Although it’s a deeply religious archaic society, I have seen a very different Afghanistan than I see in news. I hope the videos I made are representing something from this.
Well, I don’t want to reinvent the wheel with bothering you with information you can find on Wikipedia or somewhere else, but I think knowing some basic historical and geographical stuffs is necessary to understand the reality of this country.
There’s no such nation as Afghan at least not in such terms like German or French nation. Everyone there belongs to his or her own tribe, valley, and sects, rather than to state or nation. Occupying Paris or Berlin meant losing war for those nations, but occupying Kabul like occupying a valley, left the rest of the country totally intact. The Afghans don’t even notice that their country is invaded. If someone wants to occupy this country and keep it occupied, has to occupy every single entity, tribe, valley individually, one after another, which is an absolutely hopeless undertaking given the Afghan infrastructure. Since the passes are impassable in winter and will remain so until the end of spring snowmelt. But this is exactly what Taliban had done. Afghanistan can be conquered only by Afghans. As long as this lesson is ignored Afghanistan remains the graveyard of superpowers.
I’m gonna illustrate what I’m talking about on maps. You can find similar ones with using Google, but I made my own versions:
It is worth examining the last two illustrations and the difference between them, what the West achieved at war.
As surprising as it may be, the Americans had a chance to win the war with not ignoring the tribal structure and ethnic diversity of the country. No country can be changed by war especially Afghanistan. Military solutions alone will not work in a country where raw military dominance doesn’t matter. Each entity should have been allowed to walk its own path instead of being forced into a national unity government. The U.S. missed an opportunity that was given in 2002 and received no more. The Afghans fed up with Taliban reign of terror, that’s why the U.S. was able to overthrow the Taliban regime so quickly. But after twenty years at war everything had changed. And the Americans lost the war at the field of propaganda either. The western backed puppet government which was one of the most corrupt by the way collapsed even before the U.S. withdrawal. Afghanistan does not give anyone a second chance, except the Taliban.
Both in 1979, the Soviets and in 2001, the Americans occupied a country where military dominance was totally worthless. Unlike the Soviet Union, the US did not collapse, but its international prestige was certainly battered. And Afghanistan earned the title of graveyard of empires. Unlike the American panic-like escape, the Soviet troop withdrawal took place in an orderly and disciplined manner during a year. After that, the communist government lasted for another three years in Kabul. This country has been at war with mostly itself for more than four decades, if at least we are really talking about a country. With the withdrawal of the Soviets, a bloody civil war began, which Afghanistan did never recover from. This is an extremely traumatized country with peoples who have nothing to gain in a common country.
The real losers of the war are the Afghan people.
There are two types of civil war in the modern age, the political-ideological and sectarian-ethnic. The previous lasts for a while until one or another political fraction prevails over another. Such was the Russian or Spanish Civil War. The other type of civil war never ends, it just freezes for a while at most because the causes of the conflict are given and eternal. Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic nation, and this carries in itself the seeds of constant conflict, at least as long as she tries to define herself as one nation.
Even the geographical features of the country are unique and not uniform at any means. Western Afghanistan is lying on the Iranian plateau and starting to elevate gradually to East. Finally it culminates in the peaks of Hindu Kush, and reaches the little Pamir. To the south of mountain range is a desert all the way to the Indian Ocean, through Pakistani Balochistan. From the mountain range north of the Central Asian steppe runs north to the Siberian taiga. To the northwest of the country, the Karakum Desert is replaced by extensive grasslands. This geographical division may contribute to the fragmentation of the country in other senses. The country is also linguistically closer to its neighbors than to itself.
Let me show an illustration on a map below:
Afghanistan is even more ethnically diverse than linguistically. The following ethnic groups: Tajik, Hazara, Noristani, Uzbek, Turkmen, Wakhi, Pashto, Balochi. The Pashto ethnic group has two dominant tribes who generally do not like each other, but both follow Pashtunwali code of conduct.
Neighbors of Afghanistan: Iran, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, China. The borders of the country were artificially demarcated regardless of the linguistic, ethnic, cultural boundaries between British India and the Russian Empire in the 19th century during the Great Game. The country acted as a buffer zone between the two empires, and these artificial and arbitrary demarcated boundaries determine the future conflict of the country.
So this is the basic geographical and historical background in nutshell which is worth to be aware of.
The early 90s were a special period in many ways. At that time, the Eastern Bloc collapsed but the new world order had not yet solidified. It was a transition period that affected most countries in the world. In the years when the two American travelers traversed the path of the iconic Italian adventurer Marco Polo of the 13th century, I was just starting high school. It had a big impact on me at the time and I dreamt about following one time this path as well. The time came fifteen years later, in the second half of the 2000s. Before I used to be too young to travel, so later I couldn’t see Asia that way the two Americans saw it at the early 90s. I missed it forever. But as the amateour but ardent scholar as I consider myself used to go beyond their comfort zone to explore something new, with heated by a similar desire, I travelet through the ancient Silk Road. I’ve always been interested in Afghanistan and its very unique role to play in history.
Originally this is not a travel blog, but by describing my own experiences, I always like to take the opportunity to get closer to my audience. If you enter the country from the west, from Iran, as I did, you will arrive in Herat, the third largest city in Afghanistan. Buses depart daily from Mashhad but the border crossing itself can take up to five hours. I didn’t use this service for this reason, Instead, I took a morning domestic bus to Taybad, took a shared taxi to the border, crossed it on foot, caught another taxi on Afghan side (Islām Qala) to Herat. Sounds easy, but in reality it can be very complicated for westerners. At the Iranian side everything is pretty straightforward, but Afghanistan is a totally different world. The taxi drivers hit a jackpot with western traveler, and they often fight with each other for catching a top prize. A foreign is usually taken for a multiple of the tariff charged to locals, which is still very cheap for an average traveler.
When I got there, the city was completely cut off from the rest of the country, with which there was only an air connection. The old town of Herat was built in the Timurian era and was an important part of the great Khorasan, but the town was founded under Persian Achaemenid Empire. Alexander the Great rebuilt it and named after himself, true to his good habit. Herat is traditionally Persian city and you can feel there a very strong Iranian influence even now. I spent a full week in the city, enjoying the peculiar atmosphere of the place and the hospitality of the locals before continuing on my way to the interior of the country.
Religions and cults in the pre-Islamic period
Prior to the Achaemenid era, the Iranian religion was characterized by polytheism. The cult was in the hands of Median mages who strictly rejected idolatry. The teachings of Bactrian magus, Zarathustra (559/598?-522/521? BC) may have been known from the beginning of the Achaemenid era. The main idea of this doctrine is that there is only one god, Ahura Mazda, and the cosmic struggle between “justice” and “lies.” Because it is man’s right to change these moral principles, he or she can participate in deciding his or her destiny. After the death of the acting person, of course, there is a reward or punishment accordingly. The essence of the cult was respect for the fire, mostly on a high altar of fire. The doctrines of Zarathustra were explained in 17 gathas, the oldest part of the Avesta text.
The members of a priestly caste of ancient Persia adopted this teaching with changes. Thus monotheism was eliminated, the worship of the god of light, defender of all Iranians, Mithras, became significant. This version of Zoroastrianism became increasingly important and was elevated to the state religion during the Sassanid times.
Mani (216-277 AD) advertised a new Iranian doctrine that found many followers even in China in the twelfth century, but was considered a heresy by Sassanid magicians. According to the Manicheans, “evil” is the creator and lord of the visible world, the soul, like good as part of the God that is enclosed in the body. It is possible to free the soul from darkness, and this knowledge can lead to self-knowledge and it guarantees salvation for all. In Persia, however, Nestorian Christianity appeared in the second century AD. Most sources suggest that Herat as the seat of Aria district was predominantly Zoroastrian, In around 430, the town is also listed as having a Christian community, with a Nestorian bishop.
Herat suffered serious casualties during Soviet intervention which the Mujahideen revolution at 1992 didn’t help much. It was around this time that two of the city’s famous seven minarets were collapsed. The city fell to Taliban at 1995, and Ismail Khan the governor of the city had fled to Iran. Soon after, the borders were closed. The city was liberated in 2001, but fell again in August of this year but this time permanently. Ismail Khan joined Taliban.
The city as transport hub is located on ring road which runs around the country as the most important transport network. The ring road was under construction in the name of heroic effort of rebuilding the country. At some parts of the country it operates well indeed, while on other sections the road is completely abandoned due to constant threats of bandits, criminal and terrorist groups. Herat lies on the wrong section. The city itself is safe for Afghanistan, but there was no route safe enough to leave the city except those what lead to the Turkmen and Iranian borders back. Otherwise, three roads connect the city with the capital, the central via Awbeh, Chesht-e Sharif, Minaret Jam, Chagcharan, Lal, the southern via Kandahar, and the northern via Qala-e Naw, Bala Morgab, Maymana, Andkhoy, Sheberghan, Mazar-i Sharif, the last two are parts of the mentioned ring road. Only the central road was proven secure enough to travel through, but only from Ghor Province. And even that section was safe enough for Afghanistan only. For security concerns I flew to Chagcharan, and I contnued my journey overland to East from it.
The Kam Air operates flights between Herat and Chagcharan twice a week from 2010, before that the Pamir Airways did. I flew a small Soviet-made plane that carried only twenty-five passengers and was only half full. The plane flew low following the line of Herey River. The tiny villages and homesteads below were clearly visible in the barren landscape. Arian, the land of Aryans. The origins of the light-skinned shepherd people from which Iran got its name, who call themselves Aryans (nobles) are still unclear. The Aryans could speak an ancient form of Indo-European Sanskrit. Around 1500 B.C., a significant part of northern India was conquered by them. Their merchants also arrived in the south, however, they could not profoundly influence the Dravidian culture. The territory of Iran and present-day Afghanistan was reached during the great Indo-European migration.
After an hour and a half or two flight, the plane lands at the airport of Chagcharan, which is nothing like an airport. There are about a hundred airports in Afghanistan and they are used a lot as football fields except for flight days. As in the whole province of Ghor, no road is covered with asphalt, the airport isn’t paved either. At least this was the case at 2010. Lithuanian soldiers maintained peace in the city in those times, but the large portion of the province was out of government control altogether. The central road leads through uncertain territories of warlords and so many unnamed militant groups. The road is impassable in winter until the end of spring snowmelt. But what a road? The central road counts as a road only in a figurative sense. There’s no road at all. Toyota minibus travels through trails, parched riverbeds, plagues, remote villages, but not on road at any means. The journey takes half a day from Chaghcharan to Lal and another half day from Lal to Panjab. This might have been the most intense and amazing trip that traveller can experience. The trip is breathtakingly scenic, but painfully slow and uncomfortable.
When the minibus rolls into a village and finds itself facing a truck, it has to roll back to the edge of the village to let the truck make its way. To make matters worse, this maneuver has to be performed in the middle of a flock of sheep, which the child looking no more than five tries to divert from the road. Only this takes at least half an hour. The province is of mixed ethnicity, with Tajik peasants in the west and Hazara nomads in the east, which is no accident. Ahmad Shah Durrani the founder of the modern state of Afghanistan, following the principle of divide and rule, divided the land of the Hazaras into three administrative units. The Hazaras were in a minority in all of them. We enter the land of the Hazaras unnoticed. Only the Mongoloid traits of a little girl staring us at the edge of a village are a reminder that this is already a different kind of Afghanistan, Hazaristan. Hazara means thousand in Persian. The land of Hazaras is the land of a thousand mountains. They are descendants of Genghis Khan, Persian-speaking Mongols who have converted to the Shiite line of Islam. The hazara militia had been supported by Iran at the 90s, because they are Shias, and for this reason they were the target entity of Taliban.
The minibus originally goes to the capital, but I have to get off at Panjab village, since I am foreigner. For me, traveling further through Maidan Wardak Province to Kabul would be too risky. That section is under Taliban control. Their regime has issued visas for travelers in the past, but that time I would have classified invader like all foreigners. Hence, I had to get away somehow to Yakawlang, which was challenging due to having lack of organised transport to that direction. The only option is to ask a local who has a car or motorbike to take you there, for money of course. And better to never run out of cash, because there are ATMs only in largest cities and international airports. The first Western Union branch is located at Bamyan, which is still far away from there. In most parts of Afghanistan you have to rely on solely cash. Arriving at Yakawlang you’ll still need to hitchhike to Bamyan, and from there you can use organised transport to Kabul, crossing the more secure Parwan Province. The Bamiyan valley offers relaxing atmosphere for travelers before traveling onward the chaotic capital.
If you arrive at Kabul from north you’ll pass through the capital of Parwan Province, Charikar, as I did when I have been traveling there. Otherwise Charikar is an important transport hub which is impossible to avoid when you arrive and leave the capital overland.
Arriving in the capital evokes mixed feelings from the traveler. It’s gorgeous, at the same time, like any third-world capital, it is chaotic. At the 70s Kabul became a stop on the hippie trail attracting tourists. It was a significant stop on the heroin route from Europe to India, however this trail finished operating by the outbreak of Iranian revolution and following Soviet invasion. Both happened in the same year which meant an end of this golden age. During the Soviet occupation the capital remained intact, while a civil war in the 1990s between various rebel groups destroyed the most part of the city. The airstrike killed ten thousand civilians, and a significant proportion of the survivors were forced to leave the city.
Although the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan seems completely pointless, it had its own logic. The holy grail of Russian foreign policy has been access to the warm seas since the nineteenth century. Besides, this is the country that lost twenty million people in World War II by beating back the Germans besieging Moscow, and even the good heavens know how much they lost in World War I and the Napoleonic Wars. This can never happen again, and therefore the creation of the buffer states has become significant part of Russian paranoia. That year, the Iranian revolution broke out and it was not known how much influence the West would have in the region. Moscow feared that Afghanistan would come under Iranian, Chinese, or possibly American influence, and the southern border of USSR becomes vulnerable. However, the Soviets overthrew a communist government in Afghanistan. This was Amin’s and Taraki’s Stalinist regime. There were two communist parties in Afghanistan, the Halk, and the Parcsam. The Halk means people, and represented the pashto ethnic group, following the Chinese style communism. Since it’s a Pashto dominated country this fraction seized power. The Parcsam on the other hand, means flag, representing a Tajik ethnicity, followed a Soviet style communism. They had to be helped rising to power. Why talking about this is important even now? Because America committed a same mistake with creating a Tajik dominated regime in the Pashto dominated country. But it is important that this happened in the late seventies, when the impotent Cartel weakened the intelligence service, and the called anti-communist Brzezinski saw the ambitious opportunity in Afghanistan to destroy the USSR. And indeed, the Russians eventually achieved with the invasion what they wanted to avoid. Even then, America would not have thought that they’re arming their own enemies with supporting the anti-Soviet jihad. And the decade later they fell in the same trap.
Destroying Kabul at the early 90s was a pragmatic realpolitik tactic from Hekmatyar’s side, however, the suffering of the Kabulians was not over with this. There is a lot of talk in the history books about the blockade of Leningrad and Sarajevo but the blockade of Kabul is rarely mentioned, which meant a food blockade, and famine. Competing militias besieging the city are responsible for these. The Taliban actually captured a pile of rubble with people tormented by hunger and exhaustion during their 1996 offensive. The friend of mine in Kabul talked a lot about these dark times when he was a child only. From 1992, the cars disappeared from the streets. At that time he was living with his mother because his father passed away. During the day, they did not even dare to leave their apartment even for water. No one could be sure of returning home after leaving. When we walked in the Shahr-e Naw park, he told me about his former classmate, who ventured a journey to Europe a year earlier with the assistance of human traffickers. He disappeared a year ago, his parents have not heard of him since. No one knows what happened to him. This was at June 2009, six years before the refugee crisis. If the word can describe the future of young people in Kabul, the hopeless is the most appropriate. There’s no job, no money, no future. From 2001, the city was occupied by a coalition of forces including NATO until August 2021 when Kabul was seized by Taliban fighters.
When I have been there, Kabul could only be left to the north on land due to security concerns. Daily buses ran to the the northern metropolis, Mazar-i Sharif, and to Kunduz, Fayzabad via the Salang. I tried a first option, and I’ve traveled to Mazar at 2009 with no problem, however the second option was no longer completely safe in 2010. At a checkpoint in Bagram I was forced to get off the bus. The soldiers transported me to Kunduz, and took me into a taxi. I arrived around midnight at Fayzabad. From there, an all-day awkward journey awaited me to Eshkashem, the Tajik border, via Baharak. And then I left Afghanistan at that border. Badakhshan is incredibly beautiful at autumn. Badakhshan was called the seventh heaven by Marco Polo seven hundred years ago. The province is also famous today for a large portion of the heroin produced in the country to leave the country here, on illegal trails. The drug from here spreads to the CIS markets, so much so that a significant portion of your neighbor’s population in Tajikistan is heroin addicted. The border between the two countries is large and open, difficult to control.
Let me thank you for being with me, and reading this very unique post with showing a last video about Afghan Badakhshan from Tajikistan.