Afghan culture and people
POSTED BY: dreamtrove
UPDATED: Sunday, August 30, 2026 16:20
VIEWED: 13932
PAGE 3 of 9
Niki.
I was wondering if you had any insight into whether folks in Afghanistan consider themselves as belonging to an Afghani nation, or mostly as belonging to their particular tribe, clan, group, etc.? maybe it'd work just as well to split it up?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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Quote:
Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
Another source I like is columnist Eric Margolis...
read a few of his books and wow, amazing his connections... early in his career he toured Afghanistan during the Soviet War... in the hills with the Afghans.
http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/the-pot-calls-the-k
ettle-black.aspx
here is one about corruption and what he thinks will happen next
Oh, wow, that's goooood, painful and good - looking forward to reading more from him.
It makes me feel like I've come full circle though, back to where I was before I took part in any thread discussions here. Politics: It's pointless to follow it since there's nothing I can do with that knowledge other than to look informed in social situations - that's just pretentious and vain. Better to spend the time learning a new language ...
More from Margolis:
http://www.ericmargolis.com/media_video.aspx
Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com
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Niki- thanks. Busy now, but will reply later.
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Geezer,
good question.
I'd like to add Pakistan to that.
The indo-aryan civilization and associated ethnic groups really end abruptly at the banks of the Indus River, and everything to the west of that is in essence "Persia," but some of that land was randomly denoted "Pakistan" by Britain. How do Afghans feel about tribes on the Pakistani said also, not to mention the former soviet republics, or Iran?
Niki,
Geezer asked a good question above, I thought I might add to that, and also mention, assume anything posted here is addressed to you unless it's obviously not.
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Wow, I'm overwhelmed. I never expected this much interet. Thank you guys for reading and wanting to know more; so many questions! All this is one more reason I love this place; SMART people and curious ones, that's so special today.
I can't answer your questions adequately with what knowledge I have and without those friends I have to talk to who know the current situation. I'll have to take some time and talk to a couple of Afghan friends before I can respond properly; I'll spend the day doing so and write a proper response later today.
It's so important to me that Americans understand, and I've always felt that each person I can give a better understanding to is a small step forward; perhaps they'll talk to another. It's about all I can do for the people of Afghanistan, aside from financial contributions to this or that group, and my love for the people makes it more than worth taking the time to do that.
I have several resources beyond my friends and my knowledge of how it was "back then". Among them is something I stumbled across purely by accident which has been a real joy; there is a website put up by people who went to the same school I did in Kabul, the American International School of Kabul. Some of them return to Kabul (despite the situation) annually, and they're well versed in the current situation. I'm one of the three people who were there as long ago, so more recent members know more about more current events. So I'll go there as well and ask some of your questions.
Thank you again for your interest, I'll be back with hopefully as cogent answers as questions you've provided.
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Bear in mind that what I know comes from the Afghan friends I have here, from their relatives and friends still living there, and from my time there--I'm told many of the things I experienced then have changed little in the intervening years, so are still relevant. Beyond that, on the larger, geopolitical level, I am ignorant. Some of the younger Afghans I know only know of Afghanistan from their families, who laud the day of the shah to the sky, so their knowledge reflects that. It would take a while for anyone to get anything from family still living in Afghanistan. Better information would come from the folks at AISK, but it’s Sunday and nobody’s responded to my post yet there.Quote:
Yes, Geezer, you got it; their culture is so dramatically different from ours, that it’s hard to grasp. Iraq and Iran are extremely modern in comparison, tho’ much has changed in the urban environment. Kabul is much more like the cities in Iraq and Iran nowadays, tho’ still has a long way to go to catch up with India, etc. But the MENTALITY, which was unchanged for thousands of years, takes a long time to get past.
Pretty extreme "over and over" with the Afganis, it seems to me.Quote:
The population of Afghanistan is divided into a wide variety of ethnic groups. Because a systematic census has not been held in the country in decades, exact figures about the size and composition of the various ethnic groups are not available. Therefore most figures are approximations only. Best guess as of 2009 is that they’re relatively evenly divided between Pushtun and Tajik, maybe 5% more Pushtun, and roughly 25% made up of 6-10 other ethnicities.
I was wondering if you had any insight into whether folks in Afghanistan consider themselves as belonging to an Afghani nation, or mostly as belonging to their particular tribe, clan, group, etc.? maybe it'd work just as well to split it up?
They display pride in their religion, country, ancestry, high regard for personal honor, clan loyalty, readiness to carry and use arms to settle disputes and above all, their independence. That doesn’t make for great cohesiveness, and it’s never really been “cohesive”. Distances between tribes/villages, as I said, makes for little intermingling, so groups tend to continue their cultures separately. Yes, they all consider themselves Afghan, strongly so, but within that nomenclature, very much loyal to THEIR form of “Afghan”. Breaking it up would be a real mess; tho’ some areas are mostly one or another, trying to decide which area was “mostly” one thing or another might actually be impossible. Their strong sense of independence from the outside world is first and foremost.
The tribal system, which orders the life of most people outside metropolitan areas, is potent in political terms. Men feel a fierce loyalty to their own tribe, such that, if called upon, they would assemble in arms under the tribal chiefs and local clan leaders. Some say, and I agree, that the tribal system is the best way of organizing large groups of people in a country that is geographically difficult, and in a society that, from a materialistic point of view, has an uncomplicated lifestyle. That pretty much describes Afghanistan. Like I said, Shah Zahir knew this and tended to more “unite” the country and deal with the outside world, as well as his own area around Kabul, than try to govern the whole country. In rural areas, Karzai is a joke for the most part—DT has spoken to that pretty fully.
By the way, something that has always pissed me off with newscasters and pundits: “Afghani” is the currency, “Afghan” are the people. Our news media sometimes doesn’t even learn the small things in reporting on other countries, which bugs me. I so often hear them mispronounce or misidentify, etc., it helps remind me that they’re only talking heads!
Fem, I kinda figured you were educated on a lot of this, and yes, I have always found it inexorably sad that Americans care so little about understanding other cultures
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Police officer Jack McLamb reported on his radio show today that Obama's Afghan heroin production has increased 3,000% since the US/UK invasion.
http://republicbroadcasting.org
I stand corrected on my old news of 1,400%.
Can't allow those pesky Taliban to stop opium farming.
Where would CIA get its funding then?
Quote:
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
21 October 2009 - Afghanistan has a monopoly on global opium poppy cultivation (92 per cent), the raw material for the world's deadliest drug - heroin. The size and impact of the opium economy in Afghanistan were documented in the Afghanistan Opium Survey 2009 published in September.
In a new report, Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium, UNODC shows the devastating consequences that the 900 tons of opium and 375 tons of heroin that are trafficked from Afghanistan every year have on the health and security of countries along the Balkan and Eurasian drug routes, of countries in Europe, of China, India and the Russian Federation.
It documents how the world's deadliest drug has created a market worth $65 billion, catering to 15 million addicts, causing up to 100,000 deaths per year, spreading HIV at an unprecedented rate and, not least, funding criminal groups, insurgents and terrorists.
The report's findings reveal a number of anomalies. One such anomaly is the incongruence between the large quantities of heroin being consumed and the small quantities being seized. Approximately 40 per cent of Afghanistan's heroin is trafficked each year into Pakistan, about 30 per cent enters the Islamic Republic of Iran and 25 per cent flows into Central Asia. In Afghanistan, corruption, lawlessness and uncontrolled borders result in an insignificant 2 per cent interception rate of the opiates produced, compared to 36 per cent in Colombia for cocaine.
An anomalous but widely known fact is that, since 2006, much more opium has been produced in Afghanistan than is consumed worldwide. The report confirms that there is now an unaccounted stockpile of 12,000 tons of Afghan opium - enough to satisfy more than two years of world heroin demand. "With so much opium in evil hands, the need to locate and destroy these stocks is more urgent than ever", said Mr. Costa.
www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2009/October/unodc-reveals-devastatin
g-impact-of-afghan-opium.html
Pentagon pays the opium farmers $30/lb, CIA sells it retail for. But most US heroin is Mexican Black Tar, thanks to Obama's wide-open invisible border via NAFTA and North Amerikan Soviet Union at SPP.gov.
Quote:
Opium-poppy cultivation fell 22 percent to 123,000 hectares (303,810 acres) as average farm-gate prices for dry opium dropped 34 percent to $64 a kilogram (2.2 pounds), the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in a report. The 2009 harvest yielded up to 6,900 metric tons (7,605 tons), enough to make about 1,000 metric tons of heroin, the Vienna-based UNODC said.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601091&sid=aAshbP0J.JFE
Opium $30/lb wholesale
Heroin $90,000/lb retail
------------------------
300,000% Markup = 99.97% Net Profit for CIA & MI6
The 12,000 ton "surpus" explains why CIA/MI6/UN wants their Afghan production reduced, a tiny bit, to keep retain prices and profit high. Hence the fake "war on opium farmers", as US troops guard the farmers while they harvest their crops.
Opium Wars of the British Empire and Yale Skull & Bones to force the world to become its heroin addicts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars
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Oh, go away, PN...there's another thread about the politics, etc., of the war...why don't you go play there? McLamb is almost as much of a crazy as you are, in my opinion, and I wouldn't trust him or anything he says as far as I could throw him. What you posted has nothing to do with this thread and belongs over there, as DT said.
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Quote:
Originally posted by piratenews:
Police officer Jack McLamb reported on his radio show today that Obama's Afghan heroin production has increased 3,000% since the US/UK invasion.
http://republicbroadcasting.org
I stand corrected on my old news of 1,400%.
Can't allow those pesky Taliban to stop opium farming.
Where would CIA get its funding then?
As long as your smoking it John, they will always have an export crop...
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Funny how CIA agent and teen cocaine dealer Obama plans to legalize opium in Afghanistan.
http://cria-online.org/3_6.html
Quote:
Originally posted by Niki2:
Oh, go away, PN...there's another thread about the politics, etc., of the war...why don't you go play there? McLamb is almost as much of a crazy as you are, in my opinion, and I wouldn't trust him or anything he says as far as I could throw him. What you posted has nothing to do with this thread and belongs over there, as DT said.
Officer McLamb was Phoenix PD Intelligence Division, and "the most-decorated cop in PPD history" BTW. Today he's calling for the immediate arrest of Hussein Obama Soetoro, but not calling for military coup d'etat and martial law to arrest Obama like billionair sockpuppet opium addict Rusty "Rush" Limbaugh.
Why does your post sound like you're salivating over Afghan a$$et$?
Why does your post read like CIA'S WORLD FACT BOOK?
www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html
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