Ethnicization in Afghanistan and the Endless Reproduction of Domination

When a person is imprisoned within the confines of a single ethnic identity, even the struggle for freedom can turn into a competition among ethnic groups to seize power.

Afghanistan’s crisis is not merely about one ethnic group dominating others. The greater danger is that ethnicity becomes the criterion for the legitimacy of the state. If opponents of monopoly also regard government as the right of their own ethnic group, a change of rulers will not mean the end of domination; only its heirs will change. In this vicious circle, the slogan of justice can, even after victory, become a cover for reproducing the same historical privilege and discrimination.

Ethnicization does not mean the invention of all identities or the denial of people’s right to choose an ethnic name. It refers to a process in which local, tribal, linguistic and administrative names are turned into fixed categories, and on that basis the population is counted, power is divided, and political loyalty is demanded. This process can begin voluntarily or be reinforced by the state.

In the past, the people of this land were not known by ethnicity alone; city, language, religion, tribe, and cultural ties were also important elements of their identity. The modern state placed this diversity within official classifications. Once these names were linked to political privilege, the boundaries of identity became more sensitive (Sources 1 and 4).

During the reign of Amir Abdur Rahman Khan, the concentration of power was accompanied by the relocation and settlement of populations. Hasan Kakar and Nancy Tapper examined the transfer of Pashtun groups to the north between roughly 1879 and 1899. This example shows that demographic policy was not separate from the construction of power (Sources 1 and 2).

In the 1930s, the state also moved to expand the position of Pashto in public administration and education. Elizabeth Leake analyzes these policies within the framework of nation-building and linguistic nationalism. These measures did not necessarily mean the complete elimination of other languages, but they influenced the official definition of national identity (Source 3).

During the civil wars and after the Bonn Conference in 2001, ethnic affiliation became prominent in identifying political forces and distributing positions. Conrad Schetter warns that such an arrangement turns a politician into a claimant of one group’s share and weakens accountability toward all citizens (Source 4).

From the nineteenth century, officials of British India catalogued the population of Afghanistan according to the names of ethnic groups and tribes. The book “The Races of Afghanistan” by Henry Walter Bellew, published around 1879 to 1880, is an example of this outlook. Naming from the outside was not necessarily a reflection of the people’s own self-identification (Source 5).

The British Library has catalogued the Gazetteer of Herat, dating from 1909 to 1910, under the reference IOR/R/12/LIB/14. Its description mentions genealogical tables; however, this review confirmed only the archival record, not the full text of the document. Therefore, any claim that it contains a decree for ethnicization is not permissible (Source 6).

Describing a population, determining an official name, and issuing an order to change identity are three different things. To prove the existence of a deliberate program, decision-making documents, budgets, orders, and their measurable consequences must be examined.

In “Identity and Violence,” Amartya Sen shows that a human being has multiple affiliations, and that reducing a person to a single identity limits their freedom of choice. An individual is not only a Pashtun, Tajik, Hazara, Aimaq, or Uzbek; they also have thought, language, profession, belief, and independent rights (Source 7).

When ethnicity becomes the main basis of the state, the rights of a citizen are reduced to the “share of an ethnic group.” The question is no longer equality before the law, but how much power each group obtains. The struggle against discrimination may also recreate the same hierarchy in a new guise. In this way, instead of criticizing the structure of domination, the struggle is reduced to a race to sit in the seat of that same structure.

This is one of the contradictions of part of Afghanistan’s intelligentsia: it opposes the ruling ethnocentrism, but seeks future legitimacy in the antiquity, majority status or authenticity of its own ethnic group. Historical oppression must be recognized and redressed; but redressing it should not lead to the creation of another hereditary privilege.

Article 4 of the Constitution ratified in 2004, alongside defining citizenship, lists “Aimaq” among the names of ethnic groups. This reference indicates the official recognition of a designation during the republic era, not a definitive definition of the identity of all inhabitants of the country (Source 8).

In March 2021, the National Statistics and Information Authority (NSIA) announced the addition of 54 ethnic designations to the options on the electronic identity card, including “Taimani,” “Jamshidian,” and “Timurian.” Critics considered it a basis for statistical fragmentation; the authority said it had accepted requests from representatives of the groups (Source 9).

If a group is placed both under the historical title of Aimaq and registered independently, can people express both affiliations? Compulsory registration of a single exclusive option may separate overlapping identities from one another. But the decision itself does not prove the existence of a hidden motive against Persian speakers. To judge, it must be clarified whether the choice of names was voluntary and how they are counted in official statistics (Sources 8 and 9).

Alfred Janata writes in the Encyclopaedia Iranica that groups known as Aimaq were present in Badghis and Ghor, and that many of them spoke dialects close to the Persian of Herat. Their origins and alliances were diverse; therefore, the designation Aimaq cannot be confined to a single lineage (Source 10).

Christine Noelle-Karimi shows that “Aimaq” in the past, in addition to meaning a tribe, also had territorial and administrative meanings. In eighteenth-century Herat, the “Chahar Aimaq” (Four Aimaqs) became associated with a military organization, and the composition of these four groups was not the same across sources (Source 11).

In a book published around 1867 to 1868, Vambery described the Chahar Aimaq as predominantly Persian-speaking and reported a dispute over the scope of this name. His racial expressions should not be regarded as scientific evidence for establishing the biological descent of the people (Source 12).

In his research in Badghis, Glatzer recorded that some Pashtuns called Sunni Persian speakers “Aimaq,” while a number of Persian-speaking Tajiks did not accept this attribution. Thus, a name applied to an individual or group from the outside is not always the same as their chosen identity (Source 13).

On December 22, 2020, the Ministry of Borders and Tribal Affairs reported a meeting with the elders of Ghor and the “Council for the Cohesion of the Aimaqs of Afghanistan.” This report documents the official activity of the council, but does not prove hidden motives or its representation of all inhabitants of the region (Source 14).

The fundamental question is not whether the Aimaqs are “real” or not; it is who has the right to define people’s identity. Whoever considers themselves Aimaq should be free to do so; the same right must be preserved for someone who considers themselves Tajik, Farsiwan, Hazara, or of another identity. Being Persian-speaking is likewise not a license to impose the title Tajik on everyone.

To examine the claim of political Aimaq-making, the statutes of the councils, membership criteria, financial sources, claims of representation and institutional relationships must be documented. Defending the cultural bond of western Afghanistan remains valid only as long as it does not itself turn into reciprocal ethnicization. The main criterion must be the free will of the people, not the number of those claiming to represent them.

In Pakistan’s census of 2022 to 2023, one of the official indicators was “mother tongue”: Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Saraiki, Urdu, Balochi, and other languages. This table provides a linguistic classification, not a comprehensive list of political ethnic groups (Source 15).

Pakistan still faces identity tensions, and language is not synonymous with ethnicity. Nevertheless, this example shows that a state can assess language, education, and service needs without confining all citizens to exclusive ethnic categories (Source 15).

The solution is not the elimination of ethnic groups or forgetting historical oppression; it is freedom of identity choice, genuine support for languages, redress of discrimination and equality before the law. Power must be accountable, and no group should regard the state as its ethnic inheritance.

Accountable decentralization, local participation, multilingual education and the distribution of services based on need can move politics away from competition over the “share of an ethnic group.” Cultural belonging remains, but it does not become the criterion for having more or fewer rights.

The issue in Afghanistan is not which ethnic group should rule; it is how to build a state that no one regards as their own property. Until this answer is found, the defeat of any ethnic domination may be the beginning of the same cycle under another name.

Sources

Source 1: Hasan Kawun Kakar, Government and Society in Afghanistan: The Reign of Amir Abd al-Rahman Khan

Source 2: Nancy Tapper, The Advent of Pashtun Maldars in North-Western Afghanistan

Source 3: Elizabeth Leake, Constitutions and Modernity in Post-Colonial Afghanistan

Source 4: Conrad Schetter, Ethnicity and the Political Reconstruction in Afghanistan

Source 5: Henry Walter Bellew, The Races of Afghanistan, British Library IOR/R/12/LIB/29

Source 6: Gazetteer of Afghanistan, Part 3: Herat, IOR/R/12/LIB/14

Source 7: Amartya Sen, Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny

Source 8: Constitution of Afghanistan, Article 4

Source 9: TOLOnews, 54 New Ethnic Options on Afghan ID Cards Spark Debate

Source 10: Alfred Janata, Aymāq, Encyclopaedia Iranica

Source 11: Christine Nöelle-Karimi, Jamshidi Tribe, Encyclopaedia Iranica