“Afghan” is one of the most contested concepts. For several decades, it has held hostage the power, imagination, and collective memory of millions of people from Afghanistan. It is a century-old taboo, one that has been planted in the collective mind through repression, force, media, and education, and that continues to deny the identity diversity of the people of Afghanistan.
From the reign of Amanullah Khan until today, people have, consciously or unconsciously, shed blood in defense of the construct of “Afghan,” and their dreams have taken shape under its umbrella. For this reason, severing ties with the “Afghan” identity is not simple. For many people, it is sometimes even much harder than cutting their ties with religion. Therefore, just as the summary trial of people for declaring themselves Afghan reinforces exclusivism, failing to challenge the form of the “Afghan” identity, which has been imposed layer upon layer on the people living in Afghanistan, will bring even more identity hostage-taking. There is a thin line between understanding these two things.
Nevertheless, the reality is that this century-old taboo has now been shaken, and we can no longer regard the “Afghan” identity as a natural, ready-made reality. On the contrary, it must be understood as a product of rival discourses that have recently become problematic. These are discourses that see identity as a historical process rather than a sacred and natural matter. As Stuart Hall says: “Identity is not transparent or unproblematic, but a production that is never complete, is always in process, and takes shape within representation.”
Therefore, choosing to be Afghan or not as one’s political identity, apart from being the natural right of millions of people, has no fixed essence and is instead a site of struggle over discourses. Many discourses about the “Afghan” identity can be outlined at various levels: ethnic, civic, and diasporic. On this occasion, however, I will try to explain two important readings of the “Afghan” identity.
1) The Dominant Discourse: “Afghan” as a National Identity
The reality is that the prevailing understanding of the “Afghan” identity is a state-driven, nation-building discourse. This discourse transforms “Afghan” from an ethno-historical name into an all-encompassing political identity and asks people to remain loyal to being Afghan without any distinction. This loyalty comes with obedience. In the experience of our political relations, it even determines the line between life and death for people. Whether one wants it or not, the “Afghan” identity is imposed on individuals who live within the framework of Afghanistan. Every possible means has been used to put it into practice.
Thus, thousands of poems, texts, and songs, school and university textbooks, television and radio programs, and other means of communication have been produced in such a way that they have tied the sense of pride and belonging of the people of Afghanistan to the concept of “Afghan.” In effect, a kind of idealized belonging, contrary to reality, has been formed in the minds of the people. This is, of course, a process that takes place in all countries to foster people’s attachment to their national identity. But the main problem with the “Afghan” discourse, unlike the experience of other countries, is its forced homogenization. Political and state power has arranged language, history, symbols, and even the sense of pride in such a way that “being Afghan” is regarded as the same as accepting the existing hierarchy.
In this discourse, the wisdom of the people has been replaced by the wisdom of the state. Rather than being regarded as thinking subjects with multi-layered identities, people function as summoned audiences. That is, they must align themselves with a definition that has been presented to them from above and is made to appear natural through various instruments.
The result of this process is that many individuals know their identity not through lived experience, mother tongue, local memory, and their social bonds, but through the lens of an official narrative. Therefore, many do not know that their national identity has been articulated with hegemony. Many cannot even imagine distancing themselves from this identity in which they have lived for years, because their interests and sense of belonging have been made dependent on this discourse. On the other hand, the people of Afghanistan have always been poor and, instead of worrying about identity, think about finding food. At the same time, many are consciously seeking to promote this identity among everyone. Separating all of these levels requires reflection.
A notable point about this discourse is that it does not include the ethnic and linguistic identities of all people, and millions of people now feel alienated from it. For this reason, the flawed construct of our national identity within the framework of the “Afghan” identity is regarded as one of the fundamental obstacles to cultural and political development.
2) The Protest Discourse: Negotiating Identity
For years, a “protest discourse” has been taking shape against the dominant understanding and discourse. The main goal of this discourse is to emerge from the shadow of the dominant discourse, so that individuals can understand identity as an inner experience and make it a substitute for the imposed socio-political construct of national identity.
The concept of protest in this discourse breaks the boundaries of the dominant discourse and seeks to prevent the top-down imposition of national identity. In effect, the protest discourse is the product of several serious questions: Who has the right to determine who is “Afghan”? How can we redefine our political identity through dialogue? Why should some languages, ethnic groups, and historical memories be eliminated or marginalized in the official definition of national identity?
Each person’s answer to these questions depends on the degree of their understanding of reality and on how they can grasp their relationship with lived experience and with the constructed form of identity.
In his article “The Politics of Recognition” (1992), Charles Taylor defends the human right to question identity: “Our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining, demeaning, or contemptible picture of themselves.”
The most important point in Taylor’s thought in this article is that a human being is defined by another, an other who does not recognize that person’s existence and substitutes an artificial reality for the person’s true definition. It is a definition on the basis of which a person may be harmed and presented to others as something they are not.
We can understand this claim better when we experience migration with an “Afghan” identity. The accounts of many citizens of Afghanistan about migration point to an experience of humiliation in relation to the “Afghan” identity. Here, I am not addressing any particular individual or group. Rather, I am criticizing, more broadly, an undesirable construct of identity, one in which not all migrants from Afghanistan can find themselves. Worse still, the image that exists of the Afghan outside the country has deprived the people of Afghanistan of relationships, recognition, and the possibility of a better life.
For this reason, the present-day person’s view of national identity has changed. Not only outside Afghanistan but also inside it, if people are not put on trial and killed for demanding their identity, they hold a deep aversion toward this identity. Therefore, thinking about and engaging with the protest discourse against the dominant discourse on the concept of Afghan is a serious need for all those who wish to be defined by their own awareness and lived experience.
Although the protest discourse is very weak compared with the dominant discourse and has not yet managed to shake the imposed loyalty of the people to the “Afghan” identity, in the past two decades it has succeeded in transforming the perception of many people about national identity. In particular, the five-year experience of Taliban rule, and the group’s open hostility toward pushing people out of public life because of cultural and ethnic differences, has increasingly awakened the people.
In this growing view, a Hazara, Uzbek, Pashtun, Turkmen, Tajik, Baloch, Nuristani, or any other person, before being melted under a single label, is the bearer of an independent and rightful experience, and is not a stranger to the homeland.
For this reason, the protest discourse does not seek to negate the homeland (which is how advocates of the “Afghan” identity try to portray this discourse, as anti-homeland), but rather seeks to democratize the meaning of the homeland and the meaning of a person’s belonging to national identity. In effect, the protest discourse tries to turn an imposed identity into a site for a negotiable identity.
Nevertheless, if the protest discourse, like the dominant discourse, seeks to monopolize the right to determine people’s choices, it will fall into the trap of the same logic it protests against. Perhaps the fundamental task of the protest discourse is to transform the “Afghan” identity from a rigid form and unchangeable decree into an open contract that allows for dialogue, so that national identity changes in nature from a state discourse into a popular one.
You can read the Persian version of this article here:
